Associated Press report about the recent massacre in Guatemala.

Guatemala: Massacre Work Of Mexico Drug Gang Zetas

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Bin Laden: He didn't realize what he was getting into

Two things occured to me yesterday while reading an article on Foxnews.com about Osama's killing at the hands of U.S. forces in Pakistan. The first is that bin Laden didn't truly believe the hateful doctrine he was spewing to his followers - at least he didn't believe it to the extent his suicide operatives did. The second is that when bin Laden first decided to confront and declare war against the U.S., he really didn't understand how powerful his new enemy was. He didn't understand the global reach of the U.S. national security apparatus, or envision it being more powerful than his old Soviet enemy (whom he honestly believed he defeated with his Afghan mujahideen holy warriors).

In the article, dated May 5, 2011, it is revealed that the Navy SEALs were trained to expect bin Laden to possibly have a suicide vest on and ready to detonate. This is not a surprise given that bin Laden has sent numerous members of his organization, and others, to their deaths in this "holier than thou" manner. But he didn't have a suicide vest on. He wasn't ready to blow himself and his pursuers to pieces in the name of Allah. It appears he was ready to do the exact opposite. It's been widely reported that bin Laden had 500 euros and two phone numbers sewn into his robe when he was killed. Osama bin Laden was ready to run.

Why was this so? Simply put, he was a coward who didn't truly believe in his own vitriolic preachings. If he had, there is no doubt he would have made sure to take as many American agents with him on his way to the after-life. Imagine the benefit to al Qaeda's movement had bin Laden decided to make his final moment a symbolic suicide attack against U.S. forces? He would have been praised by his followers for decades or centuries as a martyr to the likes of Jesus Christ. This would have been devastating for anti-jihadist terrorism operations. Suicide attacks against U.S. and allied forces would most likely increase exponentially for years to come. However, he didn't plan to, nor did he, sacrifice himself for the sake of his unholy cause. He planned to survive. He planned to run and hide like a coward, while he continued sending young Muslim men and women to their deaths on his behalf. We should all be thankful that bin Laden himself exposed his al Qaeda movement for the baseless fraud it really is.

Regarding the second point...bin Laden's public disdain for the U.S. began in 1990, when the Saudi Arabian monarchy allowed U.S. troops on their soil to defend against a potential Iraqi assault. Bin Laden was insulted by the fact that the Saudi monarchy denied his request to allow him and his mujahideen holy warriors to defend against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, but then allowed an "infidel" U.S. military - with women among their ranks - to have the job. After defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan - the greatest military force in the world in his view - why shouldn't he have been tasked with defending the holiest country in all of Islam? This was not to be, and bin Laden turned his ire toward the United States, a foe he believed much less powerful than his old communist enemy. Over twenty years later, after fleeing and witnessing the horror he'd brought down upon his colleagues in Tora Bora, while holed-up in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, how wrong he'd turned out to be.

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Osama bin Laden is Dead

Tonight, U.S. President Barack Obama addressed the nation to announce that the U.S. has killed and recovered the body of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. This is historic news as it may bring closure to the families who lost loved ones in the attacks on September 11, 2001. But it may also help bring closure to those families who have lost loved ones in the battle against jihadist terrorism since 9/11, and to the families who were effected by al Qaeda before 9/11. Bin Laden first declared a "holy" war against the U.S. in 1996. He told his followers that it was their duty to kill any American anywhere in the world. He then cemented his existence in the American psyche by bombing the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, killing hundreds of people, and again declaring war on the U.S. In 2000, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed by al Qaeda while at port in Yemen and tens of servicemen and women were killed. And then came his greatest single act of terror, in fact the most devastating terrorist attack in history, September 11, 2001. Indeed, this news of May 1, 2011, is historic.

While the battle against terrorist extremism will most likely go on for years to come, it is time to reflect on the intelligence community (IC) personnel, the soldiers, and the political leaders who have pursued this mission for the last ten years. It is time for gratitude. I want to personally thank all who have contributed to this effort around the world, those who have stood for freedom and tolerance, and put their lives on the line in defense of those ideals. I want to especially thank my family and friends who have served and continue to serve.

However, let us all remember that violence is not the only tool in our arsenal against terrorism, nor is it even the most important or always even necessary. Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead at the hands of U.S. forces...vengeance has been delivered. But the most devastating retaliatory action taken against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda was on September 12, 2001, and will continue on May 2, 2011. That action was resilience...the resilience shown by the American people when they went back to work, back on an airplane, back on vacation, back to a Yankee, Red Sox, or Nationals game, back to church, to temple, and back to the mosque.

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9/11 and Amy Zegart’s Spying Blind: An Analysis

In Amy Zegart's 2007 book, Spying Blind, she posits that the successful terrorist attacks by al Qaeda against the United States on September 11, 2001, were a result of decades-old, and inherent, organizational weaknesses in the U.S. intelligence agencies that were tasked with preventing them, and enduring impediments which made fixing those weaknesses difficult. Specifically, she puts forth that these weaknesses include the nature of organizations, which makes internal reform exceedingly difficult; the rational self-interest of presidents, legislators, and government bureaucrats, which works against executive branch reform; and finally, the fragmented structure of the federal government, which erects high barriers to legislative reform. Zegart goes on to contend that too much blame has been placed on the shoulders of individuals such as former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and that the real culprit deserving blame is the overall organizational orientation of the American national security system prior to 9/11. Adaptation is her key word – a failure at adaptation to be specific: "It was the stunning inability of the U.S. intelligence agencies to adapt to the end of the Cold War" (Zegart, p.3).

While I do not disagree with Zegart's thesis outright, and believe her assumptions and conclusions about organizations to be sound, she seems to have a conflicted viewpoint on the subject. On the one hand she is highly critical of the U.S. for not adapting quickly enough to the new jihadist terrorist threat after the end of the Cold War in 1991. But on the other, she makes the point that inherent organizational weaknesses are to blame for the apparently slow adaptation. If these weaknesses are inherent, then is it correct to be so critical when their presence creates less than desirable results? I think not. "U.S. intelligence agencies…did not, however, adjust to this emerging threat as fast or as fully as they could have before the September 11, 2001, attacks" (Zegart, p.41). Additionally, it will be interesting to see how future historians categorize the ten-year time period between 1991 and 9/11: will they view it as plenty of time for adaptation to take place, not enough, or just the right amount? I imagine it will be one of the latter. Zegart's own definition of adaptation implies that it is a process that requires some time, "When basic organizational boundaries shift, when organizations assume major, new, nonroutine tasks, or when they go about their old tasks with substantially different structures, processes, or beliefs, adaptation has occurred" (Zegart, p.16).     

In my opinion, U.S. intelligence agencies adapted as quickly as could have been expected given the circumstances and constraints placed upon them by the system in which they operated. This viewpoint is actually Zegart's own antithesis to her argument, and she dutifully points it out on page fifteen of her work. While obviously not perfect, Zegart does not make a conclusive case that U.S. intelligence agencies were not operating at an optimal level throughout the 1990s, which were a time when the world was witnessing dramatic and significant change from an international security perspective. Being optimal does not mean being perfect, but she seems to confuse the two when quoting - then critiquing - the following statement by Richard Betts in Foreign Affairs magazine shortly after 9/11, "The awful truth is that even the best intelligence systems will have big failures" (Zegart, p.5). Zegart winces at the idea that the U.S. system might have been considered a best intelligence system prior to 9/11, but who is to say it was not? As Paul Pillar points out in his critique of her book, Zegart uses instances of tactical intelligence failure as proof that the system was broken from an overall strategic intelligence standpoint (Foreign Affairs, April 2008, para.16). "She attributes…the CIA's failure to place terrorist suspects on a watch list before 9/11 to the agency's not being 'in the habit' of doing so. In fact, this lapse represented a failure to apply well-established and frequently used watch-listing procedures" (Pillar, para.13).

Zegart is correct when she states that there were, and are, inherent organizational weaknesses in the U.S. intelligence system that have led to deficiencies in performance. However, no system is perfect, and if one were to rely on her conclusions, then the U.S. intelligence agencies have no hope at being successful in the future. She believes that most of the intelligence reform process since 9/11 has failed to adapt to the terrorist threat, and that these same inherent organizational faults are still at work. In fact, as she pointed out in 2007, even though the U.S. has not been successfully attacked by jihadist terrorists since 9/11 "there is little evidence to suggest that effective intelligence is the reason" (Zegart, p.196). There is also little evidence to suggest that it is not the reason. It is now 2011 and the U.S. is still yet to be successfully attacked by jihadist terrorists. Therefore, it is hard for me not to disagree more with the following quote from Zegart's text, "Nevertheless, two things are already clear: 9/11 was not enough to jolt U.S. intelligence agencies out of their Cold War past, and future adaptation – to terrorism or any other threat – is unlikely…Adaptation is not impossible, but it is close" (Zegart, p.170). From passage of the National Security Act of 1947, to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. intelligence community was oriented toward a monolithic enemy which it soundly defeated. Ten years later it was apparent that a new enemy had emerged, and the mechanisms of the U.S. government went to work shifting its orientation to face that new enemy. Now, after another ten years, the U.S. has not witnessed another catastrophic terrorist attack. Zegart believes ten years is enough time to condemn the U.S. for its failure to adapt to the terrorist threat, but now, ten years later, is it maybe not time to praise it for an adaptation well done? "History suggests that transformative change rarely occurs during ordinary times. Instead, dramatic departures from the past often require a large external shock – a tragedy, catastrophic failure…or focusing event that…exposes the dangers of the status quo" (Zegart, p.169).

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Go for the Corona, stay for the Coroner

Yesterday a 2 and 6-year-old boy, and their 60-year-old grandmother, were shot to death by a drug cartel in Acapulco, Mexico. The cartel members were chasing a man who fled inside the family's home. Police collected over 200 bullet casings from outside the residence, indicating the level of firepower unleashed into the house by the cartel...and foreshadowing the gruesome discovery inside. Innocent bystanders to say the least. But gruesome violence is nothing new in Mexico.

On January 8th of this year, 28 murdered bodies were recovered by Acapulco police for that day alone. Fifteen of them had had their heads cut off and were scattered on a shopping mall sidewalk. Six of them were found stuffed in a taxi. Ever try getting six people to fit in a taxi? It's probably much easier when you don't have to worry about which limbs need to be attached to who.

I remember when my college roommates were planning their spring break trip to Acapulco like it was yesterday. I didn't go but made it to the much-anticipated MTV Spring Break Cancun the following year. All that can be said about that trip is "good morning peacock."

While those times are worth reminiscing about, Mexico is not the same as it was ten years ago when my college buddies and I were incoherently stumbling through it. Mexico is now a battleground besieged by drug violence. And this violence is all a direct result of the demand for illegal drugs in our own country. America's drug lifestyle is causing and financing the murders, tortures, and kidnappings occuring across our southern border. I'll speak directly; your purchase of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in this country, contributed to the deaths of over 30,000 human-beings in Mexico last year...some of them criminals, some of them 2-year-olds.

The debate over legalizing drugs continues on in the United States, but today the aforementioned drugs remain largely illegal. And yes, their illegality may be to blame for the high profits which cause untold amounts of Mexicans to commit atrocities and risk their lives to reap them, but, nevertheless, they are illegal. Ignorance is bliss...grow a fucking set.

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Why are there so many pirates and why are they all Somali?!?

Today, while scrolling through my Facebook news feed, I came across the above status update by a curious young woman (who happens to be a Jedi Knight from what I understand). Since I have some knowledge in the area I decided to write about it and assuage (Google it) any other curious minds.

Okay, so Somalia is a war-torn eastern African nation sitting on the vital international waterway called the Gulf of Aden. This area of Africa is normally referred to as the Horn of Africa, and the Gulf of Aden is vital because it provides access to Egypt's Suez Canal. If international shipping was not able to access the canal, ships transporting goods (oil) to Europe and the United States from Arab gulf states and Asia, would have to go all the way around the bottom of the African continent. Each trip would be thousands more miles and cost thousands more dollars. So we generally want to avoid having to do that.

Somalia has a vast coastline and therefore its people have become expert mariners (I hope you don't have to Google that one) over the centuries. Over the last century these Somali mariners have concentrated their expertise in the industry of fishing, but something changed in the early 1990's and its repercussions continue to this day. The latest manifestation of which occured today when news media reported that four Americans were murdered by Somali pirates.

After years of rebellion that began in the 1980's, in 1991 the Somalian government was effectively rendered obsolete by civil war. The country descended into anarchy, the navy was disbanded, and many naval officers found their skills useless. At the same time the Cold War, which lasted over 45 years and pitted the United States against the Soviet Union, also ended in 1991. This meant Somalia was now unable to patrol its coastal fishing territory at a time when the world's naval super powers were reducing the amount of vessels they each had patrolling the world's oceans, thus making much ocean-based commerce less secure. The combination of these two factors wreaked havoc on Somali fishermen.

Soon after the fall of Somalia's government, illegal fishing ships from all over the world began scooping up fish by the ton in what use to be internationally recognized as Somalia's exclusive economic zone. Somali fishermen were no match for the new intruders, but a new industry was to make way and thrive in the chaos - pirating. What began as an effort by experienced former Somali navy men and mariners to protect Somalia's fishing territory, and impose fines on the illegal intrusion that was devastating their economy, devolved into the violent, multi-million dollar tradecraft we see today. The Somali mariners soon realized the lucrative, however illegal, opportunity they had in front of them and they seized on it. Please keep in mind that most of the acts of piracy committed by Somalis have not ended in violence. In fact, marine insurance companies continually account for the risks of piracy when deciding their premiums, and have even opened backdoor channels in order to pay pirate ransoms. However, the trend is definitely moving in the direction of increased violence and death.

So this is where we are, and it will most likely continue until Somalia regains an effective government. That should be easy enough, hey it's Africa right? Alright folks, back to Carmelo.

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Middle Pieces

Wow, I can't say I saw this coming. Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Yemen, Sudan...Libya. In country after country in the Middle East, protestors are taking to the streets in attempts to force their autocratic governments to step aside. The "Jasmine Revolution" as its been called.

A little more than a week after Egyptian democracy protestors forced their leader Hosni Mubarak from power, we see dynasties and monarchies much older than Mubarak's facing turmoil not seen since their creation. Jordan's King Abdullah II has pledged to institute democratic reforms in an effort to stave off upheaval. The Islamic monarchy in Bahrain has been battling demonstrators for weeks, but today said it would release all political prisoners in a move that may signal the end of its reign. Let's put this into perspective; right now an estimated 100,000 protestors are marching through the streets of the Bahrainian city of Manama...Bahrain is a country of less than one million citizens.

Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, today announced he will not seek re-election to the tumultuous presidency he has held since 1989, while Yemen's president remains defiant in a nation still clearly divided. But nothing is more intriguing than what's happening in Libya, a country at odds with the United States for decades.

Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi has been the leader of Libya since he led a military coup there in 1969, but now refugees are fleeing the country as it decends into chaos. Refugees have reported hundreds of deaths at the hands of pro-government supporters, and claim that the capitol of Tripoli looks like a war zone. When hearing of Qaddafi's recent statements, I can't help but be reminded of Iraq's former information minister, "Baghdad Bob," who proclaimed confidence in the invincible Iraqi army as the buildings literally crumbled around him.

Pre-Qaddafi era Libyan flags have been reported sprouting up at Libyan embassies around the world, and Libyan government officials have resigned in protest at the bloody crackdown. Most notably, the ambassador to the U.S. Has resigned and the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations has called on Qaddafi to step aside immediately. There have also been reports that senior Libyan military officials have asked the armed forces to support the rebellion, however, it has also been reported that military helicopters and war planes are responsible for many of the deaths. Human Rights Watch has confirmed over 200 dead, while some estimates reach as high as 500.

One of the United States' oldest foes seems to be at the end of his tenure, and it doesn't appear that a U.S. Airstrike will be held responsible...oh and Carmelo Anthony just got traded to the Knicks. As my boy Martin Lawrence put it in the movie Bad Boys II, "Shit (definitely) just got real."

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