The British Way

I cannot help noticing the stark differences in the British way of law enforcement from the rest of the world. Britain had two major terrorist attacks recently. They identified the suspects very quickly. Yet they have arrested hardly three or four people so far. This stands out in sharp contrast with what happened in Egypt who also had a major terrorist attack last week. What did the Egyptian police do? They immediately arrested over seventy (70) people, and put them in jail (the old ‘round up the usual suspects’ routine). The reaction is USA after 9/11 was no different from the Egyptians. Hundreds were put in jail, and many still remain there with no charges filed against them.
The British authorities admitted their mistake and promptly apologized when they killed a Brazilian in their hunt for terrorists. It will be a long wait before anyone in USA admits a mistake like that!
The Good Old British. There is still some decency left with them. Hope they can keep it.

Six hundred pound gorilla nobody wants to recognize!

The situation in London is getting scary with another wave of explosions by the terrorists. Just like the July 7th bombing, these 'incidents' also appear to be well planned and executed. (It is amazing that none of the terrorists was caught, despite of them acting in broad daylight before scores of witnesses!). Police have already verified that all the July 7th bombers had visited Pakistan recently. Speculation is that they went there for training and instructions for their savage acts. The U.S. Intelligence believes that Osama Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in Pakistan or in its border regions with Afghanistan. The Pakistan government is resistant to any attempts at hunting down Bin Laden, as it will upset their hard-line Muslim community. It has been proven that a scientist in Pakistan (who still remains free) passed nuclear secrets to countries like North Korea and Iran. There is no question that Pakistan is the breeding ground for many of the evils happening around the world. Yet, nobody appears to recognize this. President Bush’s focus was on the axis of evil – Iraq, Iran and North Korea who really did not show any interest in worldwide terrorism. Pakistan remains a friend of United States, with President Musharaf getting praise for his support for fighting terrorism!

Ten Second Sound Bytes

The Rove Security Leak controversy will most likely disappear from the news media today after President Bush’s announces his nominee for Supreme Court Justice. (Wonder if the selection process was speeded up for this purpose? Nah, nobody can be that devious).

Some of the arguments and counter arguments on this issue reinforce my belief that politics have become a battle of ‘ten second’ sound bytes. Here are a few examples:

“Karl Rove did not reveal the name of the CIA agent”. All he said was that apparently the wife of Joseph Wilson works for CIA. Is there a difference in referring one as ‘Mrs. Joseph Wilson’ or as ‘Ms. Valerie Plame’? (I guess he thought that the reporter was too stupid to figure out the connection).

“Joseph Wilson is a liar and a Democrat”. What has this got to do with the issue of someone compromising the national security for political purposes? (By the way, no one in the Bush Administration has said that Mr. Wilson was wrong in his findings. The goal here is to make the whole issue sound like another ‘food fight’ between Democrats and Republicans).

“No harm is done by the revelation of Valerie Plame, as she was only a local CIA agent”. Local Agents are crucial elements of CIA espionage network. They work in ‘fronts’ with no obvious connection to CIA. If the identity of any of them is compromised, it puts the lives of many who worked with them in grave danger. It starts a chain reaction of identity revelations (‘You worked for X, who worked for Y who is a CIA agent!’). CIA will not be able to function if their agents have to worry about them being outed for political purposes. It was exactly for this reason that the then CIA Director, George Tenet, wanted a full investigation of this matter.

I wonder:

Who is the source of Robert Novak who first identified Valerie Plame as a CIA agent? He obviously has revealed it to the investigators. Otherwise, he would have been in jail like the New York Times reporter Judith Miller. (How did this creepy guy get away? By being a Republican supporter?)

Why is it taking so long to complete this investigation? The Federal Prosecutor, Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald was been working on this since December 2003. With the threat of jail, he should have been able to get a few people to ‘squeal’ quickly. (I guess the Patriot Act does not cover national security breaches very well).

Management 101: Identify the Root Causes

Every manager is taught that understanding the root causes of a problem is the first step in solving it. Somehow, this simple technique appears to be totally ignored in the ‘war on terror’ in USA. Why do the terrorists attack us? The answer given by our politicians (starting with the President) is, ‘ because they hate our freedom and democracy’. If anyone suggests that there may be more to it, and we should try to ‘understand' them, it will be political suicide! One will be immediately branded as a weakling or a sissy, not capable of protecting our country. Naturally, no one has dared to point out this deficiency in our the terror fighting tactics. Everyone goes on about anticipating and preventing the terrorist attacks. The recent bombings in London show how futile this can be. London has one of the best intelligence system (fully entrenched in the local Muslim population), has an elaborate video surveillance system, and the whole city was on high security alert for the G-8 Conference. Still the terrorists struck. I do not think there is anyway to stop the terrorist attacks unless we find and tackle the real reasons behind them. Yesterday’s statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling for addressing the ‘root causes’ of terrorism (‘lack of democracy, deprivation, and conflict in Middle East’), is a refreshing development. Now, if only USA also follows it ....

What is happening in Afghanistan?

The recent news from the Afghanistan front is disturbing. First I heard that a military helicopter got shot down somewhere in the mountains, killing 16 US soldiers. In describing it as the ‘worst single day death toll for US forces in Afghanistan’, it was casually mentioned that the helicopter was on its way to rescue some special forces. Rescue special forces? What happened? How many were they? There were no clear answers. Later it is reported that the WHOLE special forces is missing! Nobody, except possibly the family of those missing, appears to care about this. As for the public in USA, Afghanistan is a closed chapter with democracy thriving there under President Karzai. Few know that outside a small area surrounding the city of Kabul, it is total anarchy there with Taliban dominating (remember Taliban, who hosted Osama Bin Laden?) I expect more bad news from Afghanistan, although they will be drowned out by the calamities in Iraq!

Blind leading the blind

Just heard that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (in Iraq on a surprise visit) has announced that FBI will work with the Iraqi Government in investigating the ongoing killings and kidnapping of government officials. This is expected to boost the Iraqi law enforcement, which so far has been totally clueless of the widespread attacks by the ‘insurgents’. What it needed was the intelligence gathering from a bunch of sweating Americans who cannot even step on the streets without armed guard protection!