Pommygranate

Saturday, May 05, 2007

The Rise, Fall and Rise of Al Qaeda

An absolutely fascinating look at Al-Qaeda in this month's Foreign Affairs magazine. By far and away the most informative piece on AQ i have ever read. In particular, read the recommended course of action that the US must adopt to deal with this growing force.

Here's the key points.

Bases of Operation

Thanks to Bush's ill conceived diversion in Iraq, AQ has gained a new base in the Waziri lands of Pakistan and Western Iraq, despite losing its former base in Afghanistan. Government-led crackdowns on AQ in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt have proved successful, demonstrating that AQ thrives in failed states alone. AQ is now exploring Lebanon as a possible next option as well as Yemen, Bangladesh and Gaza. Africa is also being investigated by AQ as a source of operations. AQ-sponsored terrorists are fighting the Christian Ethiopians in Somalia and after a setback at Christmas, have since regained the upper hand. In Algeria, AQ is aiming to revive a civil war that killed 100,000 people in the 1990s. The GSPC , a Salafist terror group that carried out a deadly attack in April killing 30, has since been renamed 'AQ in the Islamic Maghreb' on the orders of Bin Laden.

AQ Strategy

Bin Laden's strategy is to 'provoke and bait' the US into 'bleeding wars' throughout the Islamic world. He believes he can bankrupt the US, in the same way he bankrupted the Soviet Union and he is now actively trying to trigger a war between Iran and the US. Between 2002 and 2004, AQ's strategy was one of survival, building a new base in Quetta, in Pakistan, but in 2007 it is resurgent in every aspect.

In 2006, AQ upped the propaganda efforts, quadrupling its video production and distributing these through a network of some 4,500 Jihadi websites.

Afghanistan

The key to the fall of Afghanistan was not the assassination of Mullar Omar, the Taliban leader, but the defection of Pakistan to the US. Up until then, 60,000 Pakistani volunteers had seved in Omar's army providing military expertise and political patronage.

By 2006, the Taliban had re-grouped and prepared to retake Kandahar. They imported new tactics from Iraq, such as suicide bombings and better explosive devices. Talliban attacks rose from 1,632 in 2005 to 5,388 in 2006. They also forged new alliances with Kashmiris groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, joining forces to launch a deadly attack on Mumbai last July.

Iraq

Before 9/11, AQ had no presence in Iraq, but in Feb 2003, Bin Laden ordered thousands of Arab insurgents into the country and demanded they join forces with the Baathists, "the socialist infidels" as he called them.

In late 2002, Abu al-Zarqawi established operations in Iraq. He adopted a two-pronged policy. First to isolate US forces by scaring other Western countries from commiting troops and second to focus on the fault line in Iraq - the Sunni/Shia divide by pushing for a civil war. To this end, he orchestrated a number of attacks on sacred Shiite sites, such as those in Najaf, Baghdad and Samarra.

AQ's No 2, Zawahiri, privately disagreed with Zarqawi's policy of pitting Muslim against Muslim, but Zarqawi had the support of Bin Laden, who declared him in Dec 04, "the prince of AQ in Iraq". Despite the death of Zarqawi, desrcibed as the most vicious of all the AQ operatives, his group declared a Sunni state in Iraq, "the Islamic State of Iraq" in Oct 06, declaring opposition to the Shiites in the South and the Kurds in the North.

The UK - Centre of AQ operations in The West

AQ's new base in Pakistan opened up a new route to the West via the UK and its large Pakistani population. Pakistani-born Britons can travel easily between the two countries, facilitating recruitment, communications and training. Pakistan received 400,000 visits from British residents in 2004 alone. With entry to the US made more difficult by homeland security measures, the UK has become the focal point for AQ's activities in the West. In Nov 06, Eliza Manningham-Butler, the Head of MI5, said that some 200 networks of Pakistani Brits were operating and being monitored in the UK. Over 30 plots have been attempted on UK soil alone, all but one being disrupted. The attempt to destroy ten commercial planes en route from the UK to the US last summer was also tied back to the Pakistani-British network.

Iran

The biggest headache for AQ, though, remains Shia Iran. AQ is worried about the future of the Sunni minority in Iraq once the US troops have gone. In an ominous statement last November, Abu Hamza al-Masri, Zarqawi's successor, warned that the US invasion had "revived the old Persian Safavid Empire". He annouced that he eagerly anticipated an American attack on Iran and AQ has already told Sunnis living in Iran to evacuate towns close to nuclear installations, in anticipation of an imminent attack. The article warns that an attack on Iran would be catastrophic for the West, as it would lead the field wide open for complete AQ dominance, by simultaneously weakening Iran and the US, and by increasing Muslim support for jihad against The West.

What To Do?

1. Focus on taking out the leadership of AQ. Killing Bin Laden must be the top priority.

2. Do not attack Iran.

3. Enhance the commitment to Afghanistan by providing more troops to the country (NATO countries in particular must start to contribute) and a lot more money for infrastructure.

4. Pull the troops out of Iraq. The civil war is already raging and there is no place now for US troops. They should be diverted to Afghanistan.

5. Encourage the partners in the Meditarrean Dialogue - Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco - to contribute to the stabilisation of Afghanistan.

6. Secure Afghanistan's 1,500 mile border with Pakistan. Include Iran in this process.

7. Reach out to India for help in Afghanistan. New Delhi has already provided $500 million in aid for Afghanistan, and the country has a national interest in defeating Islamist terrorism.

8. Take a much firmer stance with Pakistan and enlist its help in tracking down the AQ leaders. President Musharraf has promised much but delivered little in return for the $10 billion it has received from Washington since 9/11.

9. The US must understand it is engaged in a war of ideas. It must step up and improve its woeful propaganda machine. There must be no more Abu Ghraib's or Guantanamo Bay's.

10. The President must be seen to do more in attempting to broker a peaceful agreement in the Arab-Israeli conflict and in Kashmir.

Adorable Little Rodent-o-Sphere Blog Round Up

Ten of the week's best posts from the outer reaches of the blogosphere.

i) Following the ALP's decision to force employers to hold jobs open for up to 24 months, fleeced asks the obvious question 'Why Employ Women' at all. i can only assume that none of the ALP have ever tried to run a small business.

ii) Very thoughtful (and sad) post from Ruthie Zaftig on the pernicious influence of the hip-hop lifestyle on black youth.

iii) Nancy Reyes, a retired doctor living in the Philippines, provides instructions on how to get from London To New York using Google Maps. A peach of a blog.

iv) A comprehensive and informative post by YouDontKnowMe on multiculturalism and immigration in the UK. As controversial as it is interesting.

v) Aussie Dave at IsraellyCool speculates that the Bob Woolmer murder investigation may be taking a predictable turn.

vi) The Last Ditch identifies the twin causes of crime - (a) criminals and (b) Guardianistas who hold 'society', not criminals responsible.

vii) Bishop Hill has the solution to Global Warming.

viii) The Pub Philosopher counters the 'hang the paedophiles' brigade with some common sense.

ix) Popovich at Tao of Defiance warns of the upcoming Car-BQ season in France following the likely Sarkozy victory.

x) Elle Seymour has an interesting piece on Israeli nuclear whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, asking hero or traitor?

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Democracy For All?

"Only parties that sign up to democracy should be allowed to use democracy."

commenter, field.

mmmm...

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

The Real Causes of Crime

"You read in the papers, 'Ah, well it's because of lack of opportunities.' Rubbish, what part don't you understand? What lack of opportunities? They had a reasonable education, they come from reasonable families, with very stable backgrounds, financially sound. Khyam came from a privileged background, he lives in a semi-detached house. He was born and bred here. He drove a brand new jeep."

The uncle of Omar Khyam, leader of the fertiliser bombers.

"As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress."

Cherie Blair.

"The twin causes of crime in Britain are criminals and Guardianistas who hold 'society', not criminals responsible."

Tom Paine at The Last Ditch

Women To Pay Less Tax?

Economics professors Alberto Alesina from Harvard and Andrea Ichino from the University of Bologna, say women should pay less tax than men. They have explained it in their paper, 'Gender Based Taxation'.

Their argument boils down to this: the supply of labour of women is more responsive to their wage post-tax, so a reduction in taxes would increase the labour participation of women substantially. Doing that, they reckon, would have the same impact as affirmative action policies, quotas or subsidised childcare.

A few problems with this proposal;

i) If capitalists really are crazed, profit-obsessed evil bastards, then why don't they simply hire women not men. As the gender gap shows that women are only paid 69% of men ten years after graduation, surely capitalists should sack all their men, replace them with women and at a stroke knock 31% off their wage bill.

ii) Is this not incredibly sexist, implying that women need a helping hand?

iii) What about men who choose to stay at home and rear their children. Shouldn't they too be entitled to a tax break?

iv) Would this not cause some, err, resentment in the workplace?

via fleeced

Aboriginal Welfare Is The Problem, Malcolm

"At present the welfare system provides unconditional income support to young people once they leave school. It immediately provides an easy option to young people: you don't have to undertake further education or gain skills or work, because you will receive an income regardless. We have to end unconditional welfare payments."

Head of the Cape York Institute, Noel Pearson, speaking in November 2004 on the subject 'When Welfare is a Curse'

"If there are going to be resources of the sort Canada has employed, and believed to be necessary and believed to be justified, you can't say it's just the states' responsibility. It's Australia's responsibility."

Speaking yesterday, former prime minister Malcolm Fraser calling on the federal government to pay compensation to members of the Stolen Generation of indigenous Australians.

Malcolm, isn't this the exact polar opposite of what Noel Pearson is saying? How much more evidence of the destructiveness of unconditional Aboriginal welfare payments do you need?

And all just to assuage your white man's guilt.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

A Victory for Terrorists' Human Rights

This man, Mr Justice Ouseraidley, is a menace to society. If you see him, approach with caution and then kick the living shit out of him. You will probably save a few lives if you do so.

Sometimes stories crop up which make my blood boil. Really fucking boil.

In 2004, 'DD', a relative of one of the Madrid bombers, came to Britain from Libya with his Moroccan wife. He claimed asylum and has been in detention since 2005 awaiting deportation on security grounds. He set up an Islamic hatesite which praised martyrdom and is related to convicted and dead terrorists. The judges concluded that he is a "real and direct threat to the national security of the UK" and a "global jihadist with links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda".

A second man, 'AS', arrived in Britain in 2002 and immediately claimed asylum. AS is a "senior member" in a terrorist group thought to have planned attacks in Europe, and is "a clear danger to national security".

Open and shut case right? Deport them both back to Libya. Right? Wrong.

The court's chairman, Mr Justice Ouseraidley, ruled that their human rights could be breached if they were sent home to Libya, even though it was "not a probable risk", and that they could be denied a fair trial. Hence they will be freed to walk the streets.

Some two dozen suspects are currently being held awaiting removal. But a string of legal appeals has meant that none has been sent home. Not one. They are on our streets, probably bewildered and chuckling to themselves at the insanity of our legal system.

Home Secretary John Reid had tried to send the men home using a memorandum of understanding by which Colonel Gaddafi's government promised not to torture or kill them. But the Special Immigration Appeals Commission in London ruled that the Libyan government could not be trusted and blocked the deportation order, despite a mass of evidence of the threat they pose to national security. Similar arrangements with Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Algeria will presumably have to be ripped up.

Most pathetic comment of the year from Tony Blair

"In order to be able to give a strong signal that those people cannot get away with what they want to do, we have to be able to deport people and send them back to their own country."

Listen dickhead - it's because of legislation that you, yourself signed in 1998 that we can no longer deport people who are determined to kill us.

Most stupid comment of the year from Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty,

"The Government should concentrate on eradicating the practice of torture, not extracting incredible paper promises."

How, exactly, is the UK govt to influence torture practices in countries such as Libya, Shambles?

How Sinful Are You?

How Dirty Are You? Take the Test.

Unsure of the difference between a libertine and a libertarian? Then this test will help you.

Note - if you score less than 500, you are probably an IT Consultant rather than an adult porn producer or lap dance owner, watching Pirates of the Carribean is the closest you will get to being a pirate, shagging Keira Knightley or cruising your yacht in the Bahamas, Hayek is a thinker not a busty Mexican, Popper is a writer rather than something you sniffed in your teens, you swap stamps rather than wives, and you favour low taxes because the private school fees are beginning to bite, as opposed to it freeing up more cash for injecting a $900 cocktail of mind-altering drugs.

Me - 600 quid

Via Devil's Kitchen

Was a Fatwa Issued on Bob Woolmer?

Update May 1; Pakistan's cricket coach Bob Woolmer may have been murdered after angering radical Muslims, according to a BBC investigation. The Panorama TV show comes as preliminary toxicology tests confirm Woolmer was rendered helpless with a powerful poison before being strangled.

According to the team's former media manager, PJ Mir, Woolmer shared his view that members of the squad were more interested in praying than playing. After the team was knocked out, comments from PJ Mir, Pakistan's media manager, led to a fatwa being issued against him forcing him to flee Pakistan. He believes Woolmer may have faced the same fate.

"If Bob had said what I'd had said, I think there would have been a fatwa on him as well,"

Update April 10; PJ Mir, has blamed the influence of religion in the dressing room for Pakistan's disastrous performance in the Caribbean.

"Most of the members had no focus on cricket. Their fixation was on preaching, affecting the team's preparations."

Question; What connects Inzamamul-Haq, Pakistan's cricket captain, Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, and Mohammed Siddique Khan, one of the 7/7 bombers?

Answer; Tableeghi Jamaat - a proselytising sect of radical Islam.

A fascinating article in this weekend's Australian highlighting the increasing radicalisation of the Pakistani cricket team as the major reason for the team's recent decline.

Led by the heavily bearded Inzamam-ul-Haq, the players have been spending far too much time being devout Muslims and too little on their cricket skills. There was a time not so long ago when Pakistan's cricketers, in the words of journalist Amir Mir, "played flamboyantly, partied hard and didn't flaunt their religion publicly". The Pakistanis were "the playboys of their times: suave, educated and dashing; they had their one-night stands, clubbed and tippled; as great exponents of reverse swing as they were ardent admirers of fine legs".

But those days of cricketing insouciance are just a memory. The atmosphere surrounding Pakistani cricket has changed radically. The glamorous, swashbuckling, good-time boys who held followers of the game spellbound with their sheer brilliance have mostly moved on.
Lately, the Pakistanis have shown much less pizzazz and much more piety. Faith and Muslim observance have become dressing-room preoccupations.

Whenever, in recent times, there has been an event at which Inzamam has been required to speak, he has prefaced his remarks with the Islamic invocation "Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim" ("In the name of Allah, the most gracious and the most compassionate").
Players, as Amir Mir reports in Outlook magazine, have huddled to pray on the ground during pre-match preparations, and unruly, unkempt beards have sprouted on the faces of several team members, including Inzamam.

According to Amir Mir, responsibility for this "fervent religiosity" lies with several players - Inzamam, Mushtaq Ahmed, Mohammed Yousuf, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik and Yasser Hamid - who have become members of a powerful, proselytising Islamic group known as the Tableeghi Jamaat.

"TJ has invaded the dressing room: they can be seen praying with players and reciting the Koran for the team's success," Amir Mir has written.

And the result? In a nutshell, too much time spent on religion, to the point that President Pervez Musharraf is reported to have told his appointee as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Nasreem Ashraf (he resigned after this week's debacle), to get the players to go easy on "religiosity" and strike a balance between it and the game.

Not that TJ is a particularly radical organisation; indeed, the contrary seems to be true, for Tableeghis are known to be quiet pacifists. With their origins in the united India of the 1920s, they now have a huge following in 150 countries across the world, the main responsibility of male members being to leave their homes from time to time to go on proselytising missions and teach fellow Muslims correct religious practices.

But therein, it seems, lies the rub as far as Inzamam and the ill-fated cricket team is concerned. Because the TJ group within the team, surrounding Inzamam, apparently gained special favours, stuck together, discussed religion and prayed together in a room that was always set aside in the team hotel. And in each country they visited they made contact with local Tableeghis, spending time with them rather than with other team members.

And while the non-Tableeghis such as Younis Khan and the fast-living Shoaib Akhtar have, it seems, had little time for religiosity, those who have embraced the organisation have done so with fervour. Mohammed Yousuf, who converted from Christianity, told Outlook that he credited his improved fortunes to "benediction from above".

In an editorial on the crisis in cricket, one of Pakistan's leading newspapers, The News, bluntly told readers that "one major factor that will have to come under scrutiny is the atmosphere in the dressing room. To be more precise, whether the overt and not-so-overt display of religiosity has been a distraction of sorts and taken away from the real job: that of playing cricket and focusing on the game".

Musharraf has apparently agreed with this point of view and asked Ashraf to intervene. Before quitting he told the Tableeghis to "stop exhibiting their religious beliefs in public".

So how did the late coach Bob Woolmer, given his closeness to Inzamam, feel about it? Did he side with the Tableeghis or the non-Tableeghis? According to Amir Mir, Woolmer's view was that the religiosity helped foster unity among the players.

More on Tablighi here. It is the Tablighi movement that is behind the attempt to build the largest mosque in Europe at the London Olympics site.

Peaceful apolitical movement or a jihadi Trojan horse?

At least two of the suicide bombers responsible for the attacks in London last year - Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - had worshipped at a Tablighi-run mosque in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Richard Reid, the failed British shoe- bomber, is known to have Tablighi associations, while the path to violent radicalism of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taleban" now serving 20 years for treason, appears to have begun with his contact with Tablighi missionaries.

The Gender Gap is Crap

One year after graduation, women earn just 80% of their male counterparts. Ten years after graduation women earn only 69% of what men earn screams a study from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.

This is disturbing says the report since it must be down to sexual discrimination.

"We need to make workplaces more family-friendly, reduce sex segregation in education and in the workplace, and combat discrimination that continues to hold women back in the workplace."

Fortunately Mark Perry, a professor of finance and business economics at the University of Michigan is around to compare apples with apples. He demolishes this report page by page;

1. Sex discrimination is illegal under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If the AAUW allegedly found thousands of cases where women make 80% of what men make one year out of college with the exact same credentials, and thousands of cases where women make 69% after ten years with the exact same qualifications, why not bring legal action to correct this discrimination?

2. If profit-seeking corporations can hire women with one year experience for 20% less than equally-qualified males, or a women with ten years experience for 31% less than equally-qualified men, they would have to be blinded by sex discrimination to pass up the opportunity to save 20-30% on their labor costs. They would hire ONLY women, and NO men

3. A year out of college women in full-time jobs work an average of 42 hours a week, compared to 45 for men. In other words, men work 7% more hours per week than women

4. Ten years after graduation, 39% of women are out of the work force or working part time -- compared with only 3% of men, mostly because of marriage and motherhood.

5. The AAUW report did acknowledge that college-educated women tend to go into fields like education (12% of women versus just 5% of men), psychology and the humanities, which typically pay less than the sectors preferred by men, such as engineering (13% of degrees by men versus 2% of women), math and business. The average salary of a liberal arts major (which includes the fields identified by the AAUW as preferred by females) is $31,333 which is only 58% of the average salary for engineering majors, 62% of the average salary for finance/economics, 63% of the average salary for computer science/MIS and 66% of the average salary for accounting majors.

6. There is no pay gap among single, full-time workers age 21 to 35, who live alone.

7. Among people ages 27 to 33 who have never had a child, the earnings of women are about 98% of men's.

8. Never-married women in their 30s who have worked continuously earn slightly higher incomes than their male counterparts.

9. Men spend only 1.6% of all potential work years out of the workforce, while women spend 14.7% of potential work years away from work.

10. A woman's lifetime earnings are lowered 13% by having her first child, and 19% by having her second.

Bottom Line: Here is what the AAUW didn't report: Median annual earnings of men and women age 25 to 34 with bachelor's degrees in the same field are roughly equal. In other words, there is no "pay gap," once you control for ALL factors that affect earnings, and compare apples with apples.

via Tim Worstall