Category Archives: Citizens Duty

So, What did bin Ladin Have in his Files…

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Hundreds of thousands of documents were gathered at the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan that belonged to Usama bin Ladin. To date, only 17 have been released however, some others were accessible during a recent trial in New York.  Here is a sampling.

The Bureaucracy of Terror

New Secret Documents Reveal al Qaeda’s Real Challenges

By: Jennifer R. Williams

A new trove of documents that were among those seized in the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were presented recently during the trial of Abid Naseer at the Brooklyn federal district court.

The documents—which consist of correspondence between Osama bin Laden and senior al Qaeda leaders—reveal the state of the global terror operation in the months leading up to bin Laden’s death. They paint a picture of an organization crippled by the U.S. drone campaign, blindsided by the Arab Spring, and struggling to maintain control over its affiliates—and yet still chillingly resolute in its mission to strike inside the United States.

The documents offer some insight into the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda. They also, believe it or not, provide a few laughs.

DRONES WORK

First, the documents support the argument that U.S. President Barack Obama and other proponents of the drone program have made that the strikes are effective and that the U.S. drone program is heavily constrained.

The letters show that the tactic of targeting top al Qaeda leaders had profoundly crippled the organization. In one letter, Atiyya, a key Al Qaeda leader and strategist who was killed not long after these letters were written, laments to bin Laden, “The mid-level commands and the staff members are hurt by the killings. Compensating for the loss is going slowly, God grants aid, and the ongoing war of espionage does not give us much chance…Our current view of the situation: we need to reduce operations and activities, focus on ‘persevering and survival.’ We will focus on defensive security (counterespionage) by focusing on striking the spy plane bases using special operations, and on patience, persistence, hiding as well as decreasing our presence at least this year because it is an important year.”

The documents also provide some support for Obama’s argument that the United States does not undertake drone strikes casually but rather only after substantial deliberation. One letter states, “As we see it, based on our analysis, they are constantly monitoring several potential, or possibly confirmed targets. But they only hit them if they discover a valuable human target inside, or a gathering, or during difficult times (like revenge attacks for example).” However, this last part about “revenge attacks” does call into question the argument Obama and others have made that “America does not take strikes to punish individuals.”

Because drone strikes have been effective and because the United States targets them carefully, al Qaeda operatives have taken to restricting their own movement, staying inside, and avoiding gathering in large groups—all activities that are fairly integral to running a successful terrorist organization. It’s not easy to train legions of recruits on how to fire RPGs, build bombs, and shoot guns with any accuracy when you have to stay inside the house and can’t have more than five people gathered together at one time.

THREE CHEERS FOR THE NSA

The documents also reveal that the NSA is doing a really good job. Just to be clear, I’m not just saying this because I work for “Noted NSA Apologist Benjamin Wittes,” editor in chief of Lawfare. I’m saying it because the overwhelming theme that pervades these letters is the organization’s inability to communicate as a result of the NSA’s ever-watchful eyes. Because signals intelligence (SIGINT) collected by the NSA plays a critical role in the CIA’s targeted killing program, al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere are basically unable to use any kind of digital communication. In one letter, bin Laden warns Atiyya:

As for anything dangerous, we should never use any modern devices, especially for the external operations. Also, just because something can be encrypted doesn’t make it suitable for use. The enemy can easily monitor all incoming letters to areas where there are Mujahidin and can access all their messages. As you know, this science is not ours and is not our invention. That means we do not know much about it. Based on this, I see that sending any dangerous matter via encrypted email is a risky thing. It is expected that whoever made the program can open the encrypted letters no matter how it’s encrypted. Encrypting a message is done so that the general public is not able to open the message.

However, in wars and with the capabilities of countries, particularly the one with expertise in these fields, we should not depend on encryption…We should only send letters through people to deliver them to the right person.

When you’re trying to manage a terrorist organization that spans the globe and can’t go outside or convene gatherings, not being able to use digital communications is a death blow.

It is also amusing to note that al Qaeda seems to have thought that the United States was putting “harmful substances or radiation” that “can’t be seen by the eye” on the paper money destined for al Qaeda’s hands. To protect against the poison, al Qaeda members wrote of taking the money to “banks in the big city” and going through a series of currency exchanges. It might sound like a silly, minor detail, but undertaking such elaborate security measures every time any money is received means money cannot be transferred though the organization at a sustainable speed. And every second al Qaeda loses is another second counterterrorism and intelligence agencies have to try and uncover and disrupt the next attack.

Even so, perhaps al Qaeda should have known better about U.S. operations, given all the classified documents made available by Wikileaks. However, it seems that al Qaeda—or at least bin Laden—only found out about Wikileaks thanks to the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Bin Laden then issued the following instructions:

Please dedicate some brothers to download the files that were leaked out of the Pentagon in regards to Afghanistan and Pakistan so that they can be translated and studied because it contains information about the enemy’s policies in the region. The Defense Secretary mentioned that these documents were leaked and that they would affect the war negatively.

Would al Qaeda still have wanted to look at the Wikileaks documents even if Robert Gates hadn’t made this statement about them? Probably. Would the group have done it right away? Who knows. But when the U.S. secretary of defense publicly announces the unauthorized release of a trove of information on “intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures” and warns that “the battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners,” it pretty much guarantees that the terrorists are going to make examining those documents a priority. Gates made his statement on July 29, 2010. The letter ordering the creation of a dedicated team of operatives tasked with poring over the documents is dated August 7, 2010. For an organization with severely limited communications capabilities, that’s pretty quick.

However the group interpreted the documents, it didn’t like how things were going. Morale was low. Operatives were afraid of poison. They couldn’t call their families, rumors of the deaths of comrades couldn’t be confirmed quickly or reliably, and the top leadership—including the charismatic individual who likely inspired the fighters to join the cause in the first place—couldn’t maintain regular contact with the foot soldiers. All of these factors led to poor performance and even defections. Several of the letters to bin Laden include statements strongly urging him to write to this commander or that operative. One letter says, “As you can see, the brothers in Somalia are suggesting that you write a message to brother Hasan Zahir Uways encouraging him, raising his morale and his commitment…” Another letter implores bin Laden:

Sheikh, I have asked you before for tapes for us, which we could preserve, about past, your life, and all…We insist on it. We consider it a duty. Dear Shiekh, some small audio messages just for the brothers here, too. We will play the recordings for them to hear, no one will take a copy. Then we will keep the recordings in our archives or destroy them according to your orders. The people need it: to reassure them about assignments and so on, to advise them to obey, be patient and steadfast, to lifting morale and give good news. May God rest his soul, al-Jawfi used to say, “I am with Osama bin Laden, but not with Al-Hafiz Sultan or Khalid al-Habib or Mahmud.” We have others like him…

THE REAL THREAT

Counterterrorism and security officials lie awake at night worrying about the threat of a terrorist group like al Qaeda using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear warfare. That is understandable, of course—such an attack would be horrific, and the United States should make sure that its counterterrorism efforts include measures to mitigate such threats.

But these latest al Qaeda documents should serve as a reminder that terrorists don’t need weaponized bubonic plague or ricin to sow terror, and that if the United States focuses too much on terrorists with high-tech weapons or synthetic virus, it just might miss the guy with the kitchen knife in his carry-on.

One letter reports that “one of the main impediments to our work”—their “work” being carrying out terrorist attacks—“is that the brother is unable to carry out his work due to lack of the required tools (materials – weapons); hence, we had to contemplate new methods to obtain the tools or invent new methods of execution.” The letter explains that one of the ways they “tried to resolve this obstacle” was to “Guide the brothers toward new methods like using the simplest things such as household knives, gas tanks, fuel, diesel and others like airplanes, trains and cars for killing tools.”

The point is not that al Qaeda operatives wouldn’t love to get their hands on a nuclear weapon or launch some incredibly sophisticated bioterror attack—of course they would. The point is that getting that stuff is really hard. Why waste millions of dollars trying to buy nuclear material on the black market just to end up being sold a bunch of junk from an undercover CIA officer when you can build a homemade pressure-cooker bomb using materials you can buy at Bed Bath & Beyond and Home Depot and still manage to shut down a major American city?

Similarly, training recruits to operate in the West is hard. To pull off a successful terrorist attack in the United States or Western Europe, the terrorist has to be able to stay under the radar of generally very capable security and intelligence services. That means that the terrorist needs to first be able to get into the country, and then once in, to blend in relatively well and move around without drawing unnecessary attention. The terrorist probably also needs to be able to handle small arms or build a basic bomb without blowing off his own hand in the process. That requires training.

The problem is that taking frequent, extended trips to places like Pakistan or Somalia, where such training takes place, would almost certainly bring an individual to the attention of the security services back home. Therefore, recruits have to keep trips relatively short and infrequent (maybe even going only once). That doesn’t give them a whole lot of time to learn how to be good terrorists.

In fact, according to one letter, a new recruit might only be able to get what one unfortunate Western trainee apparently got: “Theoretical” explosives training. The letter reports:

Regarding the other brothers, they are new brothers whom we sent in haste to avoid any breach in their security or the expiration of their documents or their residence permits. We had trained them the best we can within the limits of time and circumstances (as an example, the moment one of the brothers reached us, the war in Mas’ud started. His residence permit was for two months. He spent one month of it on the road and waiting. He was in siege with us for two weeks during which he took a theoretical course in explosives. He went back prior to the expiration of his residence permit and for needing the time to travel). We have not heard any of their news due to communications difficulties at our side and to the strict monitoring on their side.

For some reason, it doesn’t seem like al Qaeda ever heard back from that particular recruit.

THE FAR ENEMY

One of bin Laden’s goals in creating al Qaeda was to reorient the broader jihadist movement away from fighting local regimes and toward attacking the United States. Thus, when a local jihadist group in Somalia or Yemen or somewhere else takes on the al Qaeda name and becomes an official affiliate, part of the deal is that the group is supposed to start prioritizing strikes against the United States over attacks on its home country.

Understandably, some local jihadist groups aren’t too thrilled with the idea of giving up the fight against a tyrant actively imprisoning and torturing their members to focus on Americans, nor are they at all optimistic that doing so is the best way to go about inspiring their fellow countrymen to rally to their cause.

In one letter, Atiyya diplomatically tries to explain to bin Laden, his boss, that the whole “stop fighting the local regime and focus on the Americans” thing isn’t going over so well with the guys in Yemen:

Regarding Yemen, my dear Sheikh, what you say is good and you go into depth about it, I ask God to add to your knowledge, wisdom, and soundness…However, I hope that you focus on the current situation and its particulars…Now, we are faced with the reality of how to act wisely and how to bring in our youth and men…Let us focus on the means and mechanisms for implementing your ideas, may God bless you. Issue: That we should strike the Americans, but not strike the apostates; we have explained our opinion, and you know it. Regarding the matter of completely retreating from the battle: It is dangerous and destructive as well…The young men want to go to the “front” and want “operations.” They bring up operations, opportunities, monitoring (surveillance and reconnaissance) to the command every day.

Translation: “The kids want to go play soldiers and shoot at stuff, not sit in a safe house for three years planning an operation that some other guys will end up carrying out in some American city they’ve never heard of. So, maybe cool it on the ‘Death to America’ shtick.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if bin Laden had gotten a little tired of the aforementioned kids by the end.

Part of what made bin Laden so admired by those who fought with him in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan was the fact that, even though he came from a wealthy family and could have been living a life of leisure back in Saudi Arabia, he chose instead to come to the rugged mountains of Afghanistan and fight in miserable conditions on behalf of his fellow Muslims.

But Bin Laden was something of a one-off. In general, spoiled rich kids make lousy terrorists.

Much has been said of late about the thousands of foreign fighters who have traveled to wage war with the Islamic State—most of whom are from the Middle East. But if any of those kids are like some of the foreign fighters from the Gulf Arab countries who went to Pakistan to “fight” alongside al Qaeda, the Islamic State may find itself dealing more with entitled brats than dedicated warriors. One letter has this rather comical report from Atiyya to bin Laden:

We have some other problems…like dissent and lack of discipline from some young men (from the [Arabian] Peninsula, Kuwait and other places), who do as they wish and roam in the markets. They are not associated with any group and they have no obedience. Sometimes, some of them participate in jihad with some of the Taliban factions, while others make no contribution to jihad. A solution to the problem they represent has escaped us, but we are still trying. God grants success.”

It seems that the Islamic State has found a rather effective solution to this problem—it just kills the recruits who don’t behave. Yet another instance of the Islamic State being so brutal that it somehow manages to make al Qaeda look like the “nice jihadists” (they’re not actually very nice).

SUPPORT NETWORK

Al Qaeda and other jihadists claim that they are fighting to free Muslims from the oppression of corrupt apostate dictators and the imperialist West, both of which, they argue, steal the wealth that rightfully belongs to all Muslims and leave them languishing in poverty and despair. Of course, it isn’t clear how beheading humanitarian aid workers who traveled from their safe, comfortable homes in the West to a terrifying war zone in order to provide relief to suffering Muslims is supposed to be a furtherance of that lofty goal.

Nevertheless, many al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups—including the Islamic State—do provide services in the areas in which they operate. In a letter to Atiyya, bin Laden writes:

I have an opinion that I would like you to study, and if you like it, forward it to the brothers in Somalia. The idea is to encourage a delegation of trusted Somalia tribal leaders to visit some businessmen and ulema [religious scholars] in the Gulf to brief them about the living conditions of Muslims in Somalia and how their children are dying of extreme poverty, to remind them of the their responsibilities towards their Muslim brothers, to describe the suffering of people there using photos and statistics from the aid organizations, and to inform them that the unfortunate and the impoverished are waiting for a simple effort on their part to save the lives of their children (these impoverished Muslims are the most deserving of the Ummah’s [Muslim community’s] funds that are being hoarded by the Gulf Princes). [emphasis in original]

Bin Laden goes on to discuss detailed engineering plans for raising the water levels of the river to irrigate the lands, strategies for securing the funding needed to carry out this project (none of which involve crime or terrorism, incidentally), and even which crops should be planted in the newly irrigated land to provide the Somali people with long-term food security.

Imagine you’re a desperately impoverished Somali barely able to feed your family, and you find out that the leaders of the “terrorist” group who just took over your village have been having these kinds of discussions about how best to improve life for you, your family, and your community. That is one reason why some people in some places support some of these groups, even though they’re terrorists.

The good news (from a counterterrorism perspective) is that these groups tend to pair the provision of services with tyrannical rule, extremely strict laws that often run counter to longstanding local customs, and brutal punishments for those who violate the laws. Eventually, the locals get tired of it. Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) found that out the hard way, and the al Qaeda leadership has since tried to impart this lesson to its affiliates. In that same letter, bin Laden urges, “I also hope that you remind the brothers in Somalia to show lenience…They should seek in each group the neutrality of whoever accepts to be nonaligned. There are obvious reasons for this, one of which is so that they do not become a card in the hand of the adversaries; and any provocation from our side will push them closer to the enemies.” However, it seems that AQI’s successor organization, the Islamic State, didn’t fully absorb the lesson, and only time will tell if it will face the same backlash from the local population that AQI did.

REAL THREATS

Occasionally, the letters veer into the bizarre, or, rather, the even more bizarre. While members of Congress still debate whether climate change even exists, al Qaeda is actively pursuing strategies to mitigate the future consequences of it:

You don’t fail to notice that due to climate change, there’s drought in some areas and floods in others. The brothers in Somalia must be warned so that they can take the maximum precautions possible. This lays on the shoulders of the leadership more than on the residents living along the rivers and valleys.

One of these precautions is to establish an alert system to warn the families and establish an advanced observation point on the upper part of the river to warn people when heavy rainfall and flooding occur using a wireless device.

This letter also included a note at the bottom: “Attached is a report about climate change, especially the floods in Pakistan. Please send it to Al-Jazeera.” It may seems surprising that one of the most extreme religious fundamentalist groups in the world is more open minded about science than some in the United States, but it is not actually all that shocking, considering that for centuries, the Islamic world was a wellspring of scientific and technological achievement.

And al Qaeda seems to think it has even more knowledge and intellectual property to offer. The shadowy international terrorist organization whose leaders and members are wanted criminals in just about every country in the Western world and many outside it is evidently very concerned with securing legal protection for its intellectual products.

In a discussion about making a video to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11, bin Laden writes:

Regarding the question of copyrighted material for Al-Jazeera and Al-Sahab [Al Qaeda’s media arm], Zaydan should negotiate with Al-Jazeera to have the video footage copyrighted for them while the text and audio copyrights be for Al-Sahab. What this means is that some questions will be on the video while others will be only in audio format. Anyway, continue negotiating until a satisfactory result for Al-Sahab is achieved and keep us posted about the progress of the negotiations.

There’s just something so fantastically absurd about an organization that is entirely comfortable justifying the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, yet is concerned over the reproduction or distribution of original creative content without express written permission. One wonders how al Qaeda even thought it would protect its rights. Sue Al Jazeera for copyright infringement?

Just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get more bizarre, there’s this from bin Laden:

  • We are still waiting for the replies to what came in our last letter and that contained the nomination of a qualified brother to be in charge of a big operation inside of America.
  • If you have any brother who is knowledgeable about poetry, please let us know about it; and if you have any books about types of poetry, please send it to me.

That’s right: bin Laden goes directly from a note about finding someone qualified to carry out a massive terrorist attack inside the United States to asking if anyone has any poetry they can send him. Because after a long day of planning to strike fear into the hearts of the infidels, sometimes a guy just wants to take a relaxing bubble bath and read some Emily Dickenson. (Presumably he planned to respect all intellectual property protections on the poetry.)

Of course al Qaeda isn’t all fun and games—there’s a lot in the letters about perpetrating attacks inside the United States, discussions about relations with the Pakistani military, commentary on the Arab Spring, and various bureaucratic minutiae. And these letters offer only a partial glimpse into the organization at a particular time in history. Many more documents were collected during the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad than have been declassified by the U.S. government, and one must assume that the letters that have been released were released for a reason (and vice versa). Quite a lot has happened since bin Laden’s death, including the rise of the Islamic State, which is now engaged in a battle against al Qaeda for the leadership of the broader jihadist movement—a battle that, at the moment, it seems to be winning.

Still, the documents do provide a look at the internal dynamics of al Qaeda, and as anyone who has ever been involved with a sizeable bureaucracy well knows, change often comes at a glacial pace in large organizations; in all likelihood, al Qaeda today still faces the same kind of organizational problems and operational challenges revealed in these documents. This means that although it remains a threat, the al Qaeda of today is a far cry from the beast we faced on 9/11.

Congressman has Toolkit to Avoid Deportation

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Barack Obama by executive action designed a program titled ‘Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DACA). This is NOT law, there is already immigration law that is by edict not being applied, so DACA is additional action forcing immigration enforcers to comply.

There are several in Congress that are ‘all-in’ when it comes to ignoring their oath of office and side with the non-compliance of immigration law.

This congressman deserves the buzzard blue ribbon of the week.

Watch the video here where Congressman Gutierrez explains his mission.

Representative Luis Gutierrez (D., Ill.) has created a “family defender toolkit” to help the potential beneficiaries of President Obama’s executive amnesty avoid deportation while the program is on hold. In an infomercial-style video released earlier this week, Gutierrez explains his toolkit’s key feature: a card designed to help illegal immigrants escape deportation.

He instructs the potential beneficiaries of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) programs to use the card to defend themselves against immigration enforcement officers, but to avoid showing it to local law enforcement if they’re detained for matters unrelated to immigration. “Only pull [the card] out when you’re detained by an immigration official; it explains in English and Spanish that you’re eligible for DACA and DAPA,” Gutierrez says in the video. “By using this card after you’ve been arrested or detained, you can explain that [according to] the policy in place today, you should be released because you’re not a priority for deportation.” Gutierrez, who was challenged by anti-amnesty activists at the University of Southern California last week, may have deliberately avoided publicizing the cards to avoid further political backlash.

His message appears to be directed only at those who stand to benefit from the president’s executive actions. “I hope that you never have to use this card, but if you do, don’t be scared, because you’re prepared,” Gutierrez concluded. “Soon enough the DACA and DAPA applications will be available.”

Gutierrez has even been so generous as to post the brochure toolkit online for download.

toolkitGutierrez is at the core of a political action committee titled Immigration Reform Fund.

 

Total Receipts $250,045
Total Spent $25,815
Begin Cash on Hand $59,755
End Cash on Hand $283,985
Debts $0
Date of last report December 31, 2014

2014 PAC Contribution Data

Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates (list recipients)
(100% to Democrats, 0% to Republicans)		 $5,000
Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more ( list donors) $183,950

Official PAC Name:
IMMIGRATION REFORM FUND
Location: WASHINGTON, DC 20002
Industry: Leadership PACs; Democratic leadership PAC
Treasurer: FIGUEROA, OMAIRA
FEC Committee ID: C00530816

Then Gutierrez even hires an illegal for his own office in Illinois.

Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) announced the hiring of José M. Quintero as an employee in his District Office on North Avenue in Chicago.  Quintero was the first young immigrant in Illinois to receive work authorization via Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the deportation-relief offered by President Obama to immigrants eligible for the DREAM Act.  Quintero applied for DACA through the Congressman’s office on the first day applications were accepted (Aug. 15, 2012) and received work authorization and his official two-year reprieve from deportation in October.

The Congressman hired Quintero on a temporary basis in December and made him a full-time employee with benefits in January of this year.  He will do casework in the Congressman’s Chicago office, specializing in helping DACA applicants assemble and fill-out the necessary forms and documents to apply.  The Congressman said he plans to hire an additional DACA recipient for his office in Cicero in the coming weeks.

“I am challenging my colleagues to put their money where their mouths are and hire young people who have come forward, applied and received work authorization,” Rep. Gutierrez said.  “It takes a lot of courage for undocumented immigrants to get their records together, pay their fees, and apply for this program and this is a very small way for a Member of Congress to lead by example and to say I want to help you fully participate in your community by working and contributing.”

“José is outstanding and first volunteered to help at DACA workshops we held in Chicago, then we brought him into the office to help and now he is full-time, with health care benefits, and the works,” Gutierrez said.  “He has a great story to tell that is typical of the DREAMers I have met in Chicago and around the country and he is very serious about public service and giving back to his church and his community.  He is a fantastic ambassador for the DACA program, for DREAMers and for immigrant youth in general.”

Quintero was born in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico and came to Chicago with his parents at the age of six.  He graduated from Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen and received his Associates Degree from Harold Washington College in Chicago.  He was the first DACA recipient to be identified in Illinois and one of the first in the nation.  He has since been interviewed by numerous local reporters and also told his story on Univision’s national network morning news program “Despierta America” in November.

“Thanks to the help of Congressman Luis Gutierrez, I now have my work permit, two year protection from deportation, a Social Security number and state ID,” Quintero said.  “I am learning so much in his office and have a chance to help other DREAMers apply for DACA.  As immigration reform moves to the center of the national agenda this year, I will have a front row seat and I will be helping Congressman Gutierrez and my community every step of the way.”

Congressman Gutierrez said he has spoken with other Members of Congress about hiring DACA recipients and he thinks a few offices will soon be doing so.  The Congressman is the Chair of the Immigration Task Force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and was instrumental in advocating for the adoption of the DACA policy by the White House and in advocating for immigration reform and the DREAM Act.

 

 

The Hillary-Ettes are Marking Your Words

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The Hillary team is out in full force putting out threats for words used by media and like men when writing stories about Hillary. Use of keywords forces a label to be attached to those speaking them or writing them. Hillary said she believes in new beginnings, those as a new grandmother, a new hairdo, a new email address and then a new relationship with the media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLbDkvHvWxU&feature=player_detailpage#t=3

So far, this newness is not working so well. Get out the thesaurus and make good use of it.

Media tweet responses can be read here.

The 13 words you can’t write about Hillary Clinton anymore

Hillary Clinton has been in the public eye for a very long time, which means much has been written about her — including quite a few adjectives. But some of these adjectives are now off-limits.

That’s according to the Clinton “Super Volunteers,” who have promised to track the media’s use of words they believe to be sexist code words. The New York Times’s Amy Chozick tweeted a missive she received from the group (which we would note is almost definitely not connected to official Team Clinton) on Wednesday:

So these words are now off the table: “polarizing,” “calculating,” “disingenuous,” “insincere,” “ambitious,” “inevitable,” “entitled,” “over-confident,” “secretive,” “will do anything to win,” “represents the past,” and “out of touch.”

The thinking here, of course, is that these kinds of words are attached to Clinton in a way that they wouldn’t be attached to male candidates — that people wouldn’t call Clinton “ambitious” if she weren’t a woman, that there is a double-standard for such traits.

But do the media actually use these words to describe Clinton? Well, yes, but only if you loosely define “the media” as “the conservative media” and “people who don’t like Hillary Clinton.”

In fact, if you Google “Hillary Clinton” and “calculating,” there are 140,000 results. The first slew of results come from conservative outlets like The Daily Caller, The Blaze, Breitbart, the Daily Telegraph and also the Republican “America Rising” super PAC. One result comes from the Los Angeles Times, but it’s a defense Bill Clinton lodged in 2007 against the attacks.

“Calculating” is almost completely something used to attack Clinton or describe the attacks on her. The same goes for “disingenuous,” “insincere,” “entitled,” “secretive,” “over-confident,” “represents the past” and “out of touch.” These are all loaded words  and not terms used casually by mainstream media journalists like Chozick to describe a politician.

The same cannot be said for some other words. “Polarizing” is a word that has long followed Clinton, as has “ambitious,” and “inevitable.”

And some of these words should indeed be reined in — if not necessarily for the reason this group wants.

“Polarizing,” for example, is a word that now describes pretty much every well-known politician in the country, up to and including Barack Obama and George W. Bush. The politician who isn’t polarizing is the exception rather than the rule. And it usually means that the politician just isn’t well known enough to be polarizing. Yet.

And while we’re at it, go ahead and retire “inevitable,” too. We’ve been talking about it for a while, sure, but it’s probably been overdone (not too mention it aims to predict the future). Now it’s all about whether Clinton gets any capable primary opponents. Until then, call her a huge favorite and leave it at that.

As for “ambitious,” nobody runs for president without having an extraordinary amount of ambition. Not Ted Cruz, not Barack Obama, not Mitt Romney or Jeb Bush, and definitely not Bill Clinton — all of whom have had their unusual amount of ambition chewed over by the media.

 

A Typical Islamic State Fighter’s Story

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Lost, unsure, lack of direction. The solutions are provided by the local mosques.

Captured IS Militants Explain Why They Fought

AL-MALIKIYAH, SYRIA—

The Islamic State fighter spoke softly, his voice unbroken by adolescence.  A prisoner of Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) forces, he sent a message to his family asking for forgiveness.  “I destroyed myself and I destroyed them along with me.”

The Syrian youth is among several IS detainees brought to a prison in al-Malikiyah, northeastern Syria. They were captured in a YPG offensive last month to regain Tal Hamis from IS control.

Both the youth and a Turkish fighter spoke separately to VOA’s Kurdish Service while in custody.  Both were hooded but unshackled, the hoods removed when they spoke.  Their names have been changed and identifying details obscured.

The Turkish prisoner, Ahmet, told a story familiar to every expert on IS recruiting.  A young man adrift – a sometime university student, sometime baker, interested in political Islam, in touch online and by phone with a friend with similar or, as it turned out, more extreme inclinations.

The friend traveled to Syria and told Ahmet he had joined the Islamic State group.  Ahmet said he was surprised but intrigued.  “I don’t find American, British or other news agencies, especially on Middle East Muslims, very trustworthy,” he told VOA.  “I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”

Fighting ‘for God’

Ahmet said he traveled to Syria in part to observe, but also because of his beliefs and what he called “the repression.”

“I wanted to get rid of this repression according to God’s order,” he said. “I came to fight for God.  When I kneel down to pray, I think about bombardments that I witnessed, the deaths of children I saw with my own eyes.  I came across all of these.”

Traveling south to a contact near the Syrian border, Ahmet said he met some Europeans, an American, someone from China and a Russian – from Dagestan, he guessed.

Once in Syria, they were divided into groups.  The local leader wanted them to go to the front right away. “We were all very confused because none of us had seen war,” he said.

Four months into his new life with IS, Ahmet said he was told to secure a village near Tal Hamis.  Then the YPG attacked: “We all started to run.”

His companions were killed; he was shot in the leg. “Thirteen, 14 kilometers I crawled with this wounded leg, for three days.”  He hid in a house until the owner came back and turned him over to the YPG.  The Kurds, he said, took him to a hospital, then to jail.

The Syrian prisoner’s tale also starts with a conversion – not online, not in the mosques, but through someone he knew.

Hussein left his family without revealing his plan, then threw himself into his new life: physical training, prayer, weapons instruction.  There were foreigners there, he said, from Senegal, France, Kazakhstan, Turkey, training in separate groups. The cook, he said, was Chinese.

Once his training was complete, Hussein said he was sent from village to village, at times deployed at checkpoints, other times taking part in battles.  He, too, was captured in the Tal Hamis campaign.

Asked about some of the more abhorrent practices of the Islamic State group, Hussein said he never witnessed beheadings, but he did see videos of them shared by cell phone.  He said he was unaware of “jihadi marriages” – women recruited for sexual use by the militants.  And he knew nothing, he said, about how children were recruited, though he added there was a 13-year-old in his group.

Hussein’s own age remained unclear.  His YPG guards said he told them he was 19.  Later the Kurdish authorities said he was born in 1997.  Despite a wisp of a moustache and the beginnings of a beard, his voice and mannerisms made him appear much younger.

Gray zone

What comes next for the prisoners is unclear. They have not been seen by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, but Kurdish officials say they would welcome any such visit.

Both sides are in a gray zone.  Despite declaring themselves Islamic State soldiers, they are non-state combatants.  Their captors are non-state actors as well.  The de  facto Kurdish government of the self-declared Rojava region is, from a legal point of view, part of Syria.  Kurdish authorities told VOA some detainees have been freed.

Hussein has no thoughts of release.  “I expect I will stay in prison, for sure,” he said.

While the Syrian youth expressed remorse, his Turkish comrade offered no such misgivings.  “I am a student,” Ahmet said, shortly before guards put the hood back over his head and led him away.

Hussein put the hood back on himself.

Widespread Refugees from Middle East to Europe

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From hundreds of thousands to millions of refugees from one country to another speaks to failed policy, failed government and failed control. There is Cuba, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. An examination of Libya speaks to a global problem and the costs to Europe. Not only is Europe failing in a duty, but the United States and the United Nations fail equally. I had a little communications exchange with the journalist from the WSJ to gain more insight.

When there is mass evacuation, humanitarian conditions take a nose dive. Can there be integration? What about housing, education or healthcare?

Where does the money come from and what about the country of origin, does it get classified as a failed nation with no solution?

Immigrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to seek asylum in Europe have disrupted shipping. Above, the Italian navy rescued shipwrecked immigrants off the coast of Africa in June.

Europe’s Cargo Ships Diverted to Sea Rescues

Commercial vessels on busy Mediterranean routes asked to assist with waves of migrants

By: Liam Moloney

ROME—In September, Italian authorities ordered oil tankers owned by Mediterranea di Navigazione SpA to help in five operations to rescue 600 boat people trying to cross from Libya to Italy in flimsy vessels.

The rescue operations cost the group €100,000 ($109,473) in extra costs, such as fuel and personnel. Now, managing director Paolo Cagnoni is considering changing his vessels’ routes to avoid the flow of migrant boats that is likely to surge this spring.

“We’ve been drawn into this human exile, but our crews aren’t equipped,” Mr. Cagnoni said. “It’s a disaster.”

The waves of African and Middle Eastern seaborne migrants attempting to reach Europe—218,000 tried to get to Greece and Italy last year—are causing a little-noticed but serious problem for the mercantile ships that ply the Mediterranean.

Last year, Italian authorities called on 700 mercantile vessels to help rescue about 40,000 migrants. One ship supplying the oil platforms off the Libyan coast participated in 62 operations. Many of the ships are Italian, but Greek vessels, as well as ships of other nationalities, are also involved in rescues of migrants trying to reach the Greek coast.

The busy maritime traffic around the world’s biggest seaborne migration route leaves private vessels on the front line of a major problem. Mercantile traffic in the Mediterranean accounts for about a fifth of the world’s total. And the area between North Africa and Italy—which has the highest flow of migrants—represents about a third of total Mediterranean traffic.

As a result, the rescue operations have placed a heavy burden on private vessels, which typically have crews of fewer than 20 and lack the training, medical support and life jackets to help several hundred migrants at a time. Crews often ransack their own food and clothing supplies to help the migrants once they get on board.

The ships—which must, according to maritime law, come to the aid of a boat in distress—have also been drawn into dangerous situations. In February, the Italian coast guard ordered one ship to act as a barrier to help pull scores of migrants from an inflatable dinghy in gale-force winds. Coast guard officials from the command center in Rome often have to guide crews on very large vessels to assist flimsy boats and dozens of migrants who often don’t know how to swim.

For instance, last year vessels owned by Denmark’s Maersk Line, which move huge cargoes of electronics, clothing and food and can be 1,312 feet long, rescued 1,100 refugees in four separate operations and played a supporting role in an additional six incidents. A couple of weeks ago, a Maersk ship helped rescue 150 migrants near the Libyan coast, it had to divert its course and sail some 150 miles to bring them to a Sicilian port.

“Container ships are big vessels that don’t maneuver easily” and are packed with containers, leaving limited space for migrants, says Steffen Conradsen, Maersk Line’s head of incident and crisis management. “We are not equipped for such operations.”

The diverted ships lose as much as a week disembarking the migrants, cleaning the vessel and resupplying, at an extra cost of up to $500,000. Insurance covers only part of the extra costs, and appeals from owners for government compensation have had little impact.

Now, shipping groups fear the problem will explode this year. Last year, Italian Navy ships patrolled close to the Libyan coast to help migrant boats as part of an operation dubbed Mare Nostrum. But the Italian patrols were replaced a few months ago by EU patrols whose mandate is to venture no farther than 30 miles from the Italian coast.

Meanwhile, the number of boat people continues to soar, up 43% in the first two months of 2015 compared with a year earlier. The head of EU border control agency Frontex recently said that hundreds of thousands of people in Libya could be ready to make the passage.

The EU’s limited patrols and the expected surge in boat people when the weather improves in the spring mean that coast guard authorities are likely to call on mercantile vessels more often. Shipping owners’ appeals for countries to mount large-scale sea patrols to deal with the problem—akin to the international response to piracy around the Horn of Africa—have fallen on deaf ears.

“We have become part of a rent-a-vessel program because countries can’t get their act together,” says Luca Sisto, a senior official at the Italian shipping lobby Confitarma.

Mr. Sisto says that concern about the safety of their vessels and crew—particularly when oil and natural-gas tankers are involved—may push some captains to refuse calls for help.

Big players such as Maersk Line, the world’s biggest container operator and a unit of shipping and oil giant A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, can absorb the extra costs resulting from the rescue operations. But smaller ones more dependent on the central Mediterranean corridor grumble that the rescues could result in serious financial problems.

“The flow of refugees has reached a size where we can no longer cope,” says Thomas Rehder, president of the European Community Shipowners’ Associations. “This is the responsibility of governments, not merchant ships.”

Frontex Joint Operation Triton

Concerted efforts for managing migrator flows in the Central Mediterranean

What is Triton?

Triton is a Frontex coordinated joint operation, requested by the Italian authorities that will start its activity as from 1 November 2014 in the Central Mediterranean to support Italy.

How have the details of the operation been defined?

The details of Triton, including the operational area and the necessary assets, have been agreed between Frontex and Italy as the host state on the basis of the requests for assistance made by the Italian authorities. The final setting of the operation fully matches the requests made by the Italian authorities. Triton will rely on human and technical resources made available by the participating Member States.

How many Member States have made available technical and human resources and what?

Today 21 Member States have indicated their willingness to participate with human (65 guest officers in total) and technical resources (12 technical assets) at the start of the joint operation Triton; others might follow in the coming months. Technical equipment: 4 Fixed Wing Aircrafts, 1 Helicopter, 4 Open Shore vessels, 1 coastal Patrol Vessel, 2 Coastal patrol boats. Human Resources: 65 men/months in total.

What is Triton’s budget?

Its monthly budget is estimated at €2.9 million per month. In order to finance the launch and the first phase of the operation, funds have been reallocated from the Internal Security Fund and from within the Frontex budget. An increase of the Frontex 2015 budget has to be agreed by the European Parliament and the Council in order to finance the operation with the same intensity in the year 2015 and in the longer run.

Which rules will apply to the Frontex coordinated operation when it comes to migrants’ rights?

As for all Frontex operation, Triton will be operating in full respect of international and EU law, including respect of fundamental rights and of the principle of non-refoulement.

Will Triton also be participating in search and rescue activities?

The role of Frontex is key to support Member States towards effective border control in the Mediterranean region, and at the same time to provide assistance to persons or vessels in distress during these operations. Frontex is entrusted with assisting Member States in circumstances requiring increased technical assistance at the external borders, taking into account that some situations may involve humanitarian emergencies and rescue at sea. Although Frontex is neither a search and rescue body nor does it take up the functions of a Rescue Coordination Centre, it assists Member States to fulfil their obligation under international maritime law to render assistance to persons in distress.

Will Triton replace Mare Nostrum?

Joint operation Triton is intended to support the Italian efforts at their request, and does not replace or substitute Italian obligations in monitoring and surveying the Schengen external borders and in guaranteeing full respect of EU and international obligations1 in particular when it comes to search and rescue at sea. It implies that Italy will have to continue making continued substantial efforts using national means, fully coordinated with the Frontex operation, in order to manage the situation at the external borders.

Background on Frontex assistance to Italy

Weeks after the tragic drowning of over 300 persons around the Island of Lampedusa in October 2013, Italy launched a major search and rescue operation called ‘Mare Nostrum’ operated by the Italian Navy.

The Mare Nostrum operation is on-going close to the Libyan coast with Italian naval assets. The EU has supported the operation financially with €1.8 million from the emergency actions under the External Borders Fund.

Frontex has also provided assistance to Italy through the two coordinated joint operations Hermes and Aeneas. Both these operations will be replaced by Triton.

The joint operation Hermes coordinated by Frontex has, in one form or the other and with few interruptions, been going on for several years. Italy has acted as the sole host state.

This joint operation has been on-going close to the Italian coast to control the EU external borders in line with the mandate of the Frontex Agency with a yearly budget for 2014 of around €5 million. In accordance with the host state’s request, sea borne assets in the joint operation come from Italy (Coast Guard and/or Guardia di Finanza); other Member States have contributed with one surveillance aircraft and guest officers on land to help with screening/debriefing.

Frontex also coordinated joint operation Aeneas with Italy as host state. This operation mainly focussed on migratory flows from Egypt and Turkey (via Greece) to Italy.

Among others, the obligations stemming from the Schengen Borders Code and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the International convention for the safety of life at sea (SOLAS), the International convention on maritime search and rescue (SAR) as well as resolutions from the International maritime organisation (IMO).