Because of his adamant position vis a vis radical Islamists and his own historical ties and slant towards Islam, Obama remains
one of the greatest dangers and threats to America's re-flourishing. I would include in that danger the likes of those radicals
that control the Far Left of his party and to which he pays daily homage.
One last comment before posting of some of what I have been sent during my absence.
The bigger the government the more power for those engaged in the political arena. Stated another way. The bigger the
government the lesser the freedoms of the citizens of that government because bigger government demands greater
nourishment (read taxes) to support its unquenchable appetite. A government unrestrained by reason of its amoebic growth
will eventually fall of its own weight.
Obama's Affordable Health Care was designed to control 6% of our nation's economic activity and virtually everything he does
by way of policy initiatives are either a direct threat to our freedoms and/or indirectly and it is all done in the beguiling name of
fairness - whatever the hell that means. (see postings 1 - 7 below.)
---
Dick
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1)
Obama Snubs Thatcher Funeral
Thursday, 18 Apr 2013
President Barack Obama’s decision not to attend the funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Wednesday was
blasted by a former Reagan administration official and Fox News analyst who called it shameful, “cheap, small and petty.”
Writing on Fox News.com, Fox National Security Analyst Kathleen Troia "K.T." McFarland said the administration’s
official excuse that the president and vice president were consumed with a busy week — which included the Boston
Marathon bombing tragedy — rang hollow.
It does — after all — take a mere 24 hours to fly to London and back for a state funeral, she noted.
“It is standard operating procedure for the Vice President or First Lady or, at a minimum the Secretary of State, to attend
funerals of foreign leaders, even those from lesser nations,” McFarland wrote. “Shame on you, Mr. President. You and
your administration look cheap, small and petty.
“It goes without saying that when one of the longest serving leaders of America's closest and most enduring ally dies, the
United States should send a large and distinguished delegation of America's leaders, past and present,” added
McFarland, who is a Distinguished Adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and served in national
security posts in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations.
She wasn't the only one criticizing the president for his handling of the funeral. Obama was slammed in the British tabloids, as well.
They reported that the government of Prime Minister David Cameron was incensed, especially since former Labor Prime
Minister Tony Blair was sitting in the front row of the service.
“[Downing] Street is most angered by rejections from Obama, First Lady Michelle and Vice-President Joe Biden. And none
of the four surviving ex-U.S. leaders — Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr — is coming either,” The Sun
reported, according to Politico.
The Sun continued: “The response contrasts with glowing U.S. tributes on the day Lady Thatcher died. A No 10 source
said last night: ‘We are a little surprised by the White House’s reaction as we were expecting a high-profile attendance.’
The 'snub' came ahead of the Boston marathon “bomb outrage.”
The liberal Guardian in Britain dubbed it a “distinctly low-key official representation.”
“The U.S. is to send distinctly low-key official representation. . . . While Barack Obama was invited, he has opted to send a
presidential delegation comprising no serving politicians,” according to The Guardian report.
McFarland blamed the decision on ideology.
"Could it be that Margaret Thatcher was a Tory? That she battled British Trade Unionists and won? That she worked
hand-in-hand with Ronald Reagan, the incarnation of evil for many left-wing Democrats?
"It used to be American politics stopped at the water's edge, and that American president honored foreign leaders,
regardless of their political persuasions or party,” she wrote, pointing out that former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger,
George Shultz, and James Baker attended the funeral.
Between the three of them, they opened relations with China and brought down the Iron Curtain with Thatcher.
But Obama somehow didn’t think that legacy was worth honoring, McFarland added.
“But while they were giants in their day, they are not part of your team,” McFarland wrote. “The snub to the British was
palpable – only yesterday’s men could be spared.
“And frankly, Mr. President, this makes you look foolish as well.”
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2)
Genes and Racism
During decades of watching both collegiate and professional football, I have seen hundreds of touchdowns
scored by black players -- but not one extra point kicked by a black player.
Is this because blacks are genetically incapable of kicking a football or because racists won't let blacks kick a
football?
Most of us would consider either of these explanations ridiculous. Yet genes and discrimination were the
predominant explanations of black-white differences offered by intellectuals in the 20th century.
It was genes that were the preferred explanation in the early decades of that century and discrimination in the
later decades, as I show in my recent book, "Intellectuals and Race."
The intelligentsia did not simply offer these as possible explanations among others. On the contrary, each was
offered as the predominant, if not exclusive, explanation. Anyone who said otherwise risked being dismissed
as a "sentimentalist" in the early 20th century or denounced as a "racist" in later years.
Out of such dogmatic insistence on some one-size-fits-all theory came racial quotas and "disparate impact"
lawsuits in our times, based on the presumption that racial differences in outcomes show that somebody did
somebody else wrong.
In earlier times, the prevailing theory was that differences in outcomes show that some races are inferior to
others. This led to such things as eugenics and ultimately to the Holocaust.
In both eras, the prevailing theory flattered the egos of the intellectuals -- first as saviors of their race, and
later as rescuers of victims of racism.
Among the alternative explanations of group differences that were ignored were geography, demography and
culture.
For example, people with the geographic handicap of living in isolated mountain valleys have seldom, if ever,
produced world-class achievements that advanced science, technology or philosophy. On the contrary,
people in such places have almost invariably lagged behind the progress in the rest of the world -- including
people of the very same race living on the plains below. Mountaineers were long noted for their poverty and
backwardness in countries around the world, especially in the millennia before modern transportation and
communication eased their isolation.
People geographically isolated on islands far from the nearest mainland or people isolated by deserts or other
geographic features have likewise seldom kept up with the progress of others. Again, this was especially so
before modern transportation and communication put them more in touch with the rest of the world.
Conversely, urbanized peoples have often been in the vanguard of progress, producing far more of the
historic advances of the human race than a similar number of people scattered out in the hinterlands -- even
when both were of the same race.
Geography has been a factor in this as well, since not all geographic areas are equally suitable for building
big cities. The overwhelming majority of cities have been built on navigable waterways, for example -- and not
all regions have navigable waterways available.
Isolation can be man-made, as well as created by nature. Centuries ago, when China was the most advanced
nation in the world, its leaders decided to isolate the country from other peoples, all of whom they regarded as barbarians.
After a few centuries of isolation, China was shocked to find itself overtaken by others, and to some extent at
the mercy of those others.
Demography is yet another reason why some groups have very different outcomes than others. Age
differences between groups within a nation, or between whole nations, have often been a decade or even two
decades. Peoples with decades of difference in experience are almost guaranteed to have different
achievements, whether they belong to the same race or to different races.
There are many differences between races that have nothing to do with either genes or discrimination, but
have much to do with their educational, economic or other outcomes. However, it is a much harder job to
examine these many factors, and their complex interactions, than to seize upon whatever happens to be the
prevailing theory of the day that may be both easier to grasp and more self-flattering.
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3) ObamaCare Imploding
Okay folks, I know you think the C-Span Channel that broadcasts all those Congressional
hearings is boring, but, really, you should have been around to watch the Senate Finance
Committee's hearing Wednesday on the Affordable Health Care Insurance Oversight.
Folks, you haven't seen so many faces of misery since you watched Les Miserable for three
and a half hours...and they were all Democrats. And one of them, Senator Max Baucus, was
the primary sponsor of Obamacare in the Senate!
Now, try to follow me here because this gets pretty complicated. (It seems that Nancy Pelosi
was right; you DO have to pass Obamacare to find out what's in it...and the Democrats are
now learning what the Republicans warned them about. It's an unworkable mess that is
throwing millions of Americans off the health care rolls!
Okay, apparently, tens of thousands of American employers began throwing workers off their
health care plans and opting to pay the much lower federal fine for not offering health care
for their workers. Thousands more are even now converting their full time workers to part
time workers by limiting working hours per week to less than 30, in compliance with
Obamacare rules.
(Remember when Paul Ryan and the Republicans predicted employers would do this?
Remember when Democrats were warned that employers would move to save operating
expenses by moving their entire work force into federal healthcare exchanges?)
Now, these workers who have lost their health care benefits are busy trying to sign up for
state health care exchanges. (There are Internet sites available if your state has agreed to
sign up to Obamacare). However, when these American workers, soon to be without
employee provided health care, go to the Health Exchange to sign up, they are finding they
are not qualified!
It seems that during the signup process, applicants are required to fill in various income and
benefit data, which then flows over to IRS computers who then are to spit out what your
premium costs will be and how much federal tax credits you'll receive in order to receive
subsidies to help you afford health care premiums that are as much as 30% more than you
were paying under your employer’s plan!
Big Problem! The IRS is only allowing somewhere around 9% subsidy support for
Obamacare Health care Exchange premiums that are priced so much higher than the worker
was paying under his employer plan! (Surprise, Surprise!)
Remember Republicans warning that forcing working Americans to pay for the 30 million
leeches who pay nothing for their health care under Medicaid would drive the premiums of
working Americans higher?
Second Big Problem! The IRS computers won't mate up with the Health Care Exchange
computers because the IRS computer system is obsolete! So when workers try to sign up for
Obamacare the IRS and the Health Exchanges are telling applicants to go to pound sand!
And so fireworks really broke out at the Finance Committee hearings on Obamacare yesterday
afternoon. Senator Max Baucus, (Dem), said "how could this happen? I'm hearing from my
constituents that they and their families have been left out in the cold and are without health
care because the Exchanges are not accepting them!". Quote from Senator Bill Nelson, (Dem),
Florida "my constituents are not going to be happy to hear this administration failed to
implement the necessary changes to accommodate health care applicants someone has to pay
for this!" Similar outrage was professed by Senator Ron Wyden (Dem) from Oregon
.
Sadly, Obama Program Director for the Health care Affordability Act was on hand to lend
testimony. All he could seem to do was sympathize with his Democratic buddies, saying that
maybe the problems could be ironed out by the end of 2014 but could offer no ideas about
how that could be done.
An Update! This morning a Harvard economics professor came on CNBC and announced
that, according to a federal study his group just completed, the Health and Human Services
Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, is going to be forced to come back to this same committee, hat
in hand, and request $700 billion dollars more be allocated to Obamacare just to pay for
those automatically covered under current federal programs.
Also, sadly, the Wall Street Journal reported that, in addition to the 30 million Americans not
currently covered under Obamacare, we can expect tens of millions more who will be left in
the "no health care Twilight Zone"; those who were doing just fine with their employee health
care plan until Obamacare was implemented this year. And many of those who were working
40 hour weeks will find themselves deemed "part time employees" working less than 30 hours
per week and unable to afford Obama's premiums even if they could get through the
application process.
And, as usual, while the working poor and the rapidly declining middle class will be out in the
cold without any health care, the Medicaid/Welfare leeches have no worry. They are covered
by that $700 billion dollar pot of gold that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human
Services will be demanding from Congress soon!
When you vote for a big smile and a cocky walk, you get what you deserve…How
likeable is he now???????
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4)Heritage’s Carafano: Obama’s ‘Head in the Sand’ on Terror
Heritage Foundation security and defense expert James Jay Carafano tells Newsmax the Obama
administration is so eager to declare victory in the war on terror that it is “putting its head in the sand” and
ignoring the rapid growth of non-al-Qaida terrorist groups.
Carafano, the vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative think tank, praised
the post 9/11 homeland security effort as “very effective,” citing some 54 instances where attacks and
bombings targeted the United States were thwarted. But he criticized the administration for downplaying
the war on terror as if it already had been In an exclusive Newsmax.TV interview on Friday, Carafano
charged the administration has “defined their way out of the problem” by focusing
only on al-Qaida.
“They’ve basically said that we are fighting al-Qaida central, and al-Qaida and its affiliates, where people
are actually planning operations to attack the U.S. or its allies. Well, when you define the enemy that way,
you look pretty good.
“But the problem is there are a lot of groups that hate us, that aren’t necessarily directly affiliated with
al-Qaida, which could attack the United States tomorrow and could be a significant threat, whether it’s to
get the early warning or signs that, ‘Tomorrow, I’m just going to decide to attack the United States.’”
Carafano told Newsmax.TV it is not clear yet whether Islamic extremism played any role in the Boston
Marathon bombing. But he said he fears “we’ve adopted a counterterrorism strategy which generally means
that the United States is putting its head in the sand and pretending that threats are laxing when the reality is,
if you look across North Africa, if you look at what’s going on in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the threat is not
laxing. There is no waning.”
In fact, Carafano told Newsmax, the threat of terrorism is growing. And he says the current administration
“has adopted a counterterrorism strategy which really relies on ignoring a lot of the people who might
potentially want to kill us.”
Carafano, a leading U.S. national security expert, advised it is simply too soon to save what motivated the
two bombing suspects to commit their horrific act. But he said authorities are leaving no stone unturned in
an effort to determine if someone radicalized the youths and encouraged them to commit the bombing,
perhaps via the internet.
“Pretty much the No. 1 one tool of global radicalization is the internet,” he said. “Now, we use the internet
to buy stuff on Amazon.com. But to terrorists, it’s their most important asset.
“They use it for fundraising, they use it for recruiting, they use it for propaganda, and they use it for
radicalization. So they lure people into these things called chat rooms, or emails or discussions, and then
they move them into discussions about politics and religion into increasingly more violent activities,
sometimes coordinated, sometimes just inspired.”
Carafano tells Newsmax that al-Qaida actually produces an online magazine called Inspire instructing
Westerners how to commit acts of terrorism against Americans.
Carafano was critical of the quality of the mainstream media’s coverage of the attacks, which at several key
points conveyed inaccurate information to the public. And he praised the national-security infrastructure for
stopping as many terrorists attacks as it has.
“We’ve been constantly under attack since 9/11,” Carafano said. “We’ve seen everything. Plots overseas,
homegrown plots, self-radicalized connected with something else. So we’ve seen a little bit of everything.
We’ve seen a lot of very effective stopping of it.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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5) Question You Should Ask Democrats/Liberals, Left Wing Nut Cases - you get the drift!
1) A few days ago, we were hearing that the Boston Marathon
bombers COULD BE conservative, which proved that the Right is evil.
Now, when we know that the terrorists are Muslims, how can the
same liberals be saying that it means nothing?
2) If you believe we have a "right" to things like health care, food,
shelter and a good education, then, doesn't that also mean you believe
we also have a right to force other people to unwillingly provide those
things at gunpoint?
3) How can you simultaneously want a big government that will make
decisions that have an enormous impact on the lives of every American
while also saying that the character and morals of our politicians don't
matter?
4) Define the "fair share" of someone's income that he's
earned that he should be able to keep?
5) Why is it that time and time again, revenue paid to the treasury has
GONE UP after we've cut taxes?
6) Are you pro-choice or pro-abortion? If it's pro-choice, do you feel
people should be able to choose to have an assault weapon, what kind
of light bulb they use in their house or whether they'd like to put their
Social Security funds into a private retirement account?
7) If corporations are so awful, greedy and bad for the country, then
shouldn't we be celebrating when they decide to close their plants here
and move overseas?
8) How can liberal economists like Paul Krugman be right when they
claim our economy isn't doing well because we aren't spending enough
money when we're already running massive, unsustainable deficits and
spending is going up every year?
9) If Republicans don't care about the poor, why do studies consistently
show that they give more to charity than Democrats do?
10) Give us a ballpark estimate: If something doesn't change
dramatically, how long do you think it will be until we have an economic
crash in this country similar to the one we're seeing in Greece or
Cyprus?
11) Since we "all agree" with the idea that our level of deficit spending
is "unsustainable," what would be wrong with permanently freezing
federal spending at the current level until we balance the budget by
increasing revenue, cutting spending or some combination thereof?
12) If we change God's definition of marriage to make gay marriage
legal, then what's the logical argument against polygamy or even adult
siblings supposed to be?
13) In a world where people can easily change states and can, with a
bit more difficulty, permanently move to other roughly comparable
parts of the globe, do you really think it's feasible over the long haul to
have a tax system where 86% of the income taxes are paid by the top
25% of the income earners?
14) If you win a lawsuit that's filed against you, why should you have
to pay huge legal bills when you did nothing wrong while the person
who filed the suit pays no penalty for wrongly accusing you?
15) How can you oppose putting murderers to death and be fine with
killing innocent children via abortion?
16) A minimum wage raises salaries for some workers at the cost of
putting other workers out of jobs entirely. What's the acceptable ratio
for that? For every 10 people who get a higher salary, how many are
you willing to see lose their jobs?
17) The earth has been warming and cooling for thousands of years
with temperature drops and increases that are much larger than the
ones we've seen over the last century. Since we can't adequately
explain or model those changes, what makes us think we can say with
any sort of confidence that global warming is being caused by man?
18) We live in a world where people have more choices than ever
before in music, entertainment, careers, news sources and what to do
with their time. Shouldn't government mirror that trend by moving
towards federalism and states' rights instead of centralizing more and
more power in Washington, DC?
19) If people in the middle class aren't willing to pay enough in taxes
to cover the government services that they use because they don't
think it's worth the money, shouldn't we prune back government to a
level people do feel comfortable paying for in taxes?
20) If firms can get by with paying women 72 cents on the dollar for
the same quality of work as men, then why don't we see any firms
with all female labor forces using those lower costs to dominate the
marketplace?
---------------------------------------------------
6)
April 17, 2013 | 0901 GMT
or
Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so
on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well.
For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as
the 14th to the early 19th centuries, had its relations ordered by a tribute system in which
China was roughly dominant. The result, according to political scientist David C. Kang of
the University of Southern California, was a generally more peaceful climate in Asia than in
Europe.
The fact is that domination of one sort or another, tyrannical or not, has a better chance of
preventing the outbreak of war than a system in which no one is really in charge; where no
one is the top dog, so to speak. That is why Columbia University's Kenneth Waltz, arguably
America's pre-eminent realist, says that the opposite of "anarchy" is not stability, but
"hierarchy."
Hierarchy eviscerates equality; hierarchy implies that some are frankly "more equal" than
others, and it is this formal inequality -- where someone, or some state or group, has more
authority and power than others -- that prevents chaos. For it is inequality itself that often
creates the conditions for peace.
Government is the most common form of hierarchy. It is a government that monopolizes
the use of violence in a given geographical space, thereby preventing anarchy. To quote
Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, only where it is possible to punish
the wicked can right and wrong have any practical meaning, and that requires "some
coercive power."
The best sort of inequality is hegemony. Whereas primacy, as Kang explains, is about
preponderance purely through military or economic power, hegemony "involves legitimation and
consensus." That is to say, hegemony is some form of agreed-upon inequality, where the
dominant power is expected by others to lead. When a hegemon does not lead, it is acting
irresponsibly.
Of course, hegemony has a bad reputation in media discourse. But that is only because
journalists are confused about the terminology, even as they sanctimoniously judge
previous historical eras by the strict standards of their own. In fact, for most of human
history, periods of relative peace have been the product of hegemony of one sort or another.
And for many periods, the reigning hegemonic or imperial power was the most liberal,
according to the standards of the age. Rome, Venice and Britain were
usually more liberal than the forces arranged against them. The empire of the Austrian
Hapsburgs in Central and Eastern Europe often protected the rights of minorities and
prevented ethnic wars to a much greater degree than did the modern states that
succeeded it. The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the Middle East frequently did
likewise. There are exceptions, of course, like Hapsburg Spain, with its combination of
inquisition and conquest. But the point is that hegemony does not require tyrannical or
absolutist rule.
Stability is not the natural order of things. In fact, history shows that stability such as it
exists is usually a function of imperial rule, which, in turn, is a common form of hierarchy.
To wit, there are few things messier in geopolitics than the demise of an empire. The
Empire in Asia and Africa led to chronic wars and upheavals. Some uncomprehending
commentators remind us that all empires end badly. Of course they do, but that is only
after they have provided decades and centuries of relative peace.
Obviously, not all empires are morally equivalent. For example, the Austrian Hapsburgs
were for their time infinitely more tolerant than the Soviet Communists. Indeed, had the
Romanov Dynasty in St. Petersburg not been toppled in 1917 by Lenin's Bolsheviks, Russia
would likely have evolved far more humanely than it did through the course of the 20th
century. Therefore, I am saying only in a general sense is order preferable to disorder.
(Though captivating subtleties abound: For example, Napoleon betrayed the ideals of the
French Revolution by creating an empire, but he also granted rights to Jews and
Protestants and created a system of merit over one of just birth and privilege.)
In any case, such order must come from hierarchal domination.
Indeed, from the end of World War II until very recently, the United States has performed
has been hegemonic. That is, by some rough measure of international consent, it is
America that has the responsibility to lead. America formed NATO in Europe, even as its
Navy and Air Force exercise preponderant power in the Pacific Basin. And whenever there is
a humanitarian catastrophe somewhere in the developing world, it is the United States that
has been expected to organize the response. Periodically, America has failed. But in
general, it would be a different, much more anarchic world without American hegemony.
But that hegemony, in some aspects, seems to be on the wane. That is what makes this
are perceived to be less all-powerful than in the past, as China tests U.S. hegemony in the
strikes against specific individuals combined with non-interference -- or minimal
interference -- in cases of regional disorder. Libya and Syria are cases in
point. Gone, at least for the moment, are the days when U.S. forces were at the ready to
put a situation to rights in this country or that.
When it comes to the Greater Middle East, Americans seem to want protection on the
cheap, and Obama is giving them that. We will kill a terrorist with a drone, but outside of
limited numbers of special operations forces there will be no boots on the ground for Libya,
Syria or any other place. As for Iran, whatever the White House now says, there is a
perception that the administration would rather contain a nuclear Iran than launch a
That, by itself, is unexceptional. Previous administrations have been quite averse to the use
of force. In recent decades, it was only George W. Bush -- and only in the aftermath of
9/11 -- who relished the concept of large-scale boots on the ground in a war of choice.
Nevertheless, something has shifted. In a world of strong states -- a world characterized by
hierarchy, that is -- the United States often enforced the rules of the road or competed with
another hegemon, the Soviet Union, to do so. Such enforcement came in the form of
robust diplomacy, often backed by a threat to use military power. Richard Nixon, Ronald
Reagan and George H.W. Bush were noted for American leadership and an effective,
sometimes ruthless foreign policy. Since the Cold War ended and Bill Clinton became
president, American leadership has often seemed to be either unserious, inexpertly and
crudely applied or relatively absent. And this has transpired even as states themselves in
the Greater Middle East have become feebler.
In other words, both the hegemon and the many states it influences are weaker. Hierarchy
is dissolving on all levels. Equality is now on the march in geopolitics: The American
hegemon is less hegemonic, and within individual countries -- Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq,
Tunisia and so on -- internal forces are no longer subservient to the regime. (And states
like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are not in the American camp to the degree that
they used to be, further weakening American hegemony.) Moreover, the European Union as
a political organizing principle is also weakening, even as the one-party state in China is
under increasing duress.
Nevertheless, in the case of the Middle East, do not conflate chaos with democracy.
Democracy itself implies an unequal, hierarchal order, albeit one determined by voters.
What we have in the Middle East cannot be democracy because almost nowhere is there a
new and sufficiently formalized hierarchy. No, what we have in many places in the Middle
Unless some force can, against considerable odds, reinstitute hierarchy -- be it an American
hegemon acting globally, or an international organization acting regionally or, say, an
Egyptian military acting internally -- we will have more fluidity, more equality and
therefore more anarchy to look forward to. This is profoundly disturbing, because
civilization abjures anarchy. In his novel Billy Budd (1924), Herman Melville deeply
laments the fact that even beauty itself must be sacrificed for the maintenance of order.
For without order -- without hierarchy -- there is nothing.
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7)
Why the Boston Bombers Succeeded
Scott Stewart, Vice President of Analysis - Stratfor, April 23rd, 2013
When seeking to place an attack like the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing into context, it is helpful to classify the
actors responsible, if possible. Such a classification can help us understand how an attack fits into the analytical
narrative of what is happening and what is likely to come. These classifications will consider such factors as ideology,
state sponsorship and perhaps most important, the kind of operative involved.
In a case where we are dealing with an apparent jihadist operative, before we can classify him or her we must first
have a clear taxonomy of the jihadist movement. At Stratfor, we generally consider the jihadist movement to be
divided into three basic elements: the al Qaeda core organization, the regional jihadist franchises, such as al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, and grassroots operatives who are radicalized, inspired and perhaps equipped by the other two
tiers but who are not members of either.
Within the three-tier jihadist movement there exist two distinct types of operatives. One of these is the professional
terrorist operative, a person who is a member of the al Qaeda core or of one of the regional franchises. These
individuals swear loyalty to the leader and then follow orders from the organization's hierarchy. Second, there are
amateur operatives who never join a group and whose actions are not guided by the specific orders of a hierarchical
group. They follow a bottom-up or grassroots organizational model rather than a hierarchical or top-down approach.
There is a great deal of variety among professional terrorists, especially if we break them down according to the
functions they perform within an organization, roles including that of planners, finance and logistics specialists,
couriers, surveillance operatives, bombmakers, et cetera. There is also a great deal of variety within the ranks of
grassroots operatives, although it is broken down more by their interaction with formal groups rather than their
function. At one end of the grassroots spectrum are the lone wolf operatives, or phantom cells. These are individuals
or small groups who become radicalized by jihadist ideology, but who do not have any contact with the organization. In
theory, the lone wolf/phantom cell model is very secure from an operational security standpoint, but as we've
discussed, it takes a very disciplined and driven individual to be a true lone wolf or phantom cell leader, and
consequently, we see very few of them.
At the other end of the grassroots spectrum are individuals who have had close interaction with a jihadist group but
who never actually joined the organization. Many of them have even attended militant training camps, but they didn't
become part of the hierarchical group to the point of swearing an oath of allegiance to the group's leaders and taking
orders from the organization. They are not funded and directed by the group.
Indeed, al Qaeda trained tens of thousands of men in its training camps in Afghanistan, Sudan and Pakistan but very
few of the men they trained actually ended up joining al Qaeda. Most of the men the group instructed received basic
military training in things like using small arms, hand-to-hand combat and basic fire and maneuver. Only the very best
from those basic combat training courses were selected to receive advanced training in terrorist tradecraft techniques,
such as bombmaking, surveillance, clandestine communications and document forgery. But even of the students who
received advanced training in terrorist tradecraft, only a few were ever invited to join the al Qaeda core, which
remained a relatively small vanguard organization.
Many of the men who received basic training traveled to fight jihad in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya or returned
home to join insurgent or militant groups. Others would eventually end up joining al Qaeda franchise groups in places
like Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Algeria. Still others received some basic training but then returned home and never really
put their new skills into practice.
Most grassroots jihadists fall along a continuum that stretches between the lone wolf and someone who received
advanced terrorist training but never joined al Qaeda or another formal militant group.
Whether the two men suspected of carrying out the April 15 Boston Marathon attack knowingly followed al Qaeda's
blueprint for simple attacks by grassroots actors, their actions were fairly consistent with what we have come to
expect from such operatives. Certainly based upon what we have seen of this case so far, the Tsarnaev brothers did
not appear to possess sophisticated terrorist tradecraft.
For example, regarding the bombs employed in the attack and during the police chase, everything we have seen still
points to very simple devices, such as pipe bombs and pressure cooker devices. From a bombmaking tradecraft
standpoint, we have yet to see anything that could not be fabricated by reading Inspire magazine, spending a little bit
of time on YouTube and conducting some experimentation. As a comparison, consider the far larger and more complex
improvised explosive device Anders Behring Breivik, the Oslo bomber, constructed. We know from Breivik's detailed
journal that he was a self-taught bombmaker using directions he obtained on the Internet. He was also a lone wolf.
And yet he was able to construct a very large improvised explosive device.
Also, although the Tsarnaev brothers did not hold up a convenience store as initially reported, they did conduct an
express kidnapping that caused them to have extended contact with their victim while they visited automatic teller
machines. They told the victim that they were the bombers and then allowed the victim to live. Such behavior is hardly
typical of professional terrorist operatives.
Grassroots Theory
As it has become more difficult for professional terrorists to travel to the United States and the West in general, it has
become more difficult for jihadist organizations to conduct attacks in these places. Indeed, this difficulty prompted
groups like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to attempt to attack the United States by dispatching an operative with
an underwear bomb and to use printer cartridge bombs to attack cargo aircraft. In response to this difficulty, al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula began to adopt the grassroots into their operational doctrine. They first began promoting this
approach in 2009 in their Arabic-language magazine Sada al-Malahim. The al Qaeda core organization embraced this
approach in May 2010 in an English-language video featuring Adam Gadahn.
In July 2010, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula launched an English-language magazine called Inspire dedicated to
radicalizing and equipping grassroots jihadists. Despite the losses that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has
experienced on the battlefield, it has continued to devote a great deal of its limited resources toward propagating this
concept. It has continued to publish Inspire even after the magazine's founder and editor, Samir Khan, was killed in an
American missile strike in Yemen.
The grassroots strategy was perhaps most clearly articulated in the third edition of Inspire magazine, which was
published in November 2010 following the failed October 29, 2010, printer bomb operation. In a letter from the editor in
which Khan explained what he referred to as “Operation Hemorrhage,” he wrote:
“However, to bring down America we do not need to strike big. In such an environment of security phobia that is
sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve fewer players and less time to launch and
thus we may circumvent the security barriers America has worked so hard to erect. This strategy of attacking the
enemy with smaller, but more frequent operations is what some may refer to the strategy of a thousand cuts. The aim
is to bleed the enemy to death.”
In Adam Gadahn's May 2010 message entitled “A Call to Arms,” Gadahn counsels lone wolf jihadists to follow a
three-pronged target selection process. They should choose a target with which they are well acquainted, a target
that is feasible to hit and a target that, when struck, will have a major impact. The Tsarnaev brothers did all three in Boston.
Implications
Yet despite this clearly articulated theory, it has proved very difficult for jihadist ideologues to convince grassroots
operatives to conduct simple attacks using readily available items like in the “build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom”
approach, which they have advocated for so long.
This is because most grassroots jihadists have sought to conduct huge, spectacular attacks — attacks that are
outside of their capabilities. This has meant that they have had to search for help to conduct their plans. And that
search for help has resulted in their arrest, just as Adam Gadahn warned they would be in his May 2010 message.
There were many plots disrupted in 2012 in which grassroots operatives tried to act beyond their capabilities. These
include:
- On Nov. 29, 2012, two brothers from Florida, Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, were arrested and charged
- with plotting attacks in New York.
- On Oct. 17, 2012, Bangladeshi national Quazi Nafis was arrested as part of an FBI sting operation after he attempted
- to detonate a vehicle bomb outside New York's Federal Reserve Bank.
- On Sept. 15, 2012, Adel Daoud was arrested after he parked a Jeep Cherokee outside a Chicago bar and attempted
- to detonate the bomb he thought it contained. This was also an FBI sting operation.
But the carnage and terrorist theater caused by the Boston attack have shown how following the simple attack model
can be highly effective. This will certainly be pointed out in future editions of Inspire magazine, and grassroots
operatives will be urged to follow the model established by the Tsarnaev brothers. Unlike operatives like Faisal Shahzad
who attempted to go big themselves and failed, the brothers followed the blueprint for a simple attack and the model
worked.
It is quite possible that the success of the Boston bombing will help jihadist ideologues finally convince grassroots
operatives to get past their grandiose plans and begin to follow the simple attack model in earnest. If this happens, it
will obviously have a big impact on law enforcement and intelligence officials who have developed very effective
programs of identifying grassroots operatives and drawing them into sting operations. They will now have to adjust
their operations.
While these grassroots actors do not have the capability of professional terrorist operatives and do not pose as severe
a threat, they pose a much broader, amorphous threat. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies generally do not
deal well with ambiguity.
There are simply too many soft targets to protect and some of these simple attacks will inevitably succeed. This
means that this low-level broad threat will persist and perhaps even intensify in the immediate future.
As we've previously discussed, the best defense against the grassroots threat are grassroots defenders. These include
the police and alert citizens who report suspicious activity — like people testing bomb designs — a frequent
occurrence before actual bomb attacks. The slogan “If you see something, say something,” has been mocked as overly
simplistic, but it is nonetheless a necessity in an environment where the broad, ambiguous threat of grassroots
terrorism far outstrips the ability of the authorities to see everything. Taking a proactive approach to personal and
collective security also beats the alternative of living in terror and apprehensively waiting for the next simple attack.
It is also very important for people to maintain the proper perspective on terrorism. Like car crashes and cancer and
natural disasters, terrorism is part of the human condition. People should take prudent, measured actions to prepare for
such contingencies and avoid becoming victims (vicarious or otherwise). It is the resilience of the population and its
perseverance that will ultimately determine how much a terrorist attack is allowed to terrorize. By separating terror
from terrorism, citizens can deny the practitioners of terror the ability to magnify their reach and power.
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