Twenty-five years ago, as an American GP living and practising in Wales, I would watch BBC sports programmes, such as darts and bowls and snooker, all unknown to me and, therefore, fascinating. I always found it odd — pairings such as Scotland (or Wales) versus The Rest of the World. It either seemed overly ambitious for Scotland or slim pickings for the rest of the world. After the recent US presidential election, it appears as if it will continue to be the US versus The Rest of the World.

Three books might help you, who are of ‘the rest of the world’, begin to grapple with what is going on in the US. Written from the short, medium, and long view, each has a somewhat parochial twist. Each also, however, contains a great deal of useful history.

The 9/11 Commission Report refutes the old saw that nothing good can be written by a committee. The report is a remarkable book and its recent nomination as a finalist for the National Book Award is a first for a government document, and well deserved. What is contained in this report is well known by most of us — the cast of characters has been in the news for over 3 years. And the sequence of events and many of the details that were gleaned from the ongoing hearings have been contained in news stories, long and short. However, to have published what is known until this point in a single narrative, which is at once accessible and clearly written, is a truly historical achievement. Reading the events of the day — regarding the planes that crashed in the city of New York, as the rescue squads from police and fire departments move into place and act — is both familiar and detailed in a way that helps us understand better than I would ever have imagined the why and how of all the death and destruction.

So much about those days have been parsed into documentaries — long analyses of causation of issues, like why the towers fell — that one would think that everything that could be written had been. But the Commission's report really does add enormous amounts of history to the sound bites and 30-second visuals that have pervaded politics and the world assessment of the US since that time. The report deals extensively and thoughtfully with the history of Islam, both ancient and recent, and describes the history of terrorism as it evolved from highjackings of the 1970s to the use of bombs and targeted destruction of military targets in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Events that occurred in the time that preceded the attacks of 9/11 are written in a way that shows the convergence of intelligence reports, a long history of threats from Bin Laden, and many alerts and warnings (‘the system was blinking red’ in the words of Tenet, CIA director). The information about the movements of the terrorists in their planning and the worldwide involvement of cells, support systems, and finances makes it clear that these events were truly the result of a network that reaches virtually everywhere.

After the attacks, reading of the efforts of the fire, police, and other rescue squads in New York adds specifics that are terrible and remarkable. On 9/11, I ran up and down the stairs between patients to watch on television as it was all happening. All of us who watched that day wondered what those people who were clearly doomed were thinking, feeling, and seeing. Their actual words in this report are not fiction, they are the words, for most the last words, of people who died as we watched. Their words are the hardest part of this long, detailed report to deal with.

Much of the final third of the report is devoted to what a fire captain friend of mine once called a PFE — a post-fire evaluation — which he mandated for his squad after every fire. In a PFE, the entire squad reconstructed, relived, and discussed the events to see what could be improved next time. The 9/11 Commission engaged in a world-scale PFE. Although all US politicians state that they intend to follow the recommendations of The 9/11 Commission Report, the backing and filling is already well underway. What politician, for example, is going to agree that major conurbations, and political and tactical targets should receive preference over their hometown fire departments and that homeland security money should ‘not be used as a pork barrel’?

Rather than bringing a grieving country together in a way that will make such events unlikely to happen again, the reactions from the report have begun to cleave along party lines once again. The 9/11 Commission was almost unique in its thoroughness, transparency, and its ability to focus on the real issue of terror and lawlessness. However, the extent to which a violent stateless ideology has negatively affected the tolerance of differences, the sense of community, and the level of civic discourse in the US means that terrorism has affected our neighborhoods as much as it has affected our country. And fear rather than determination, despite the President's stump speech, has become the dominant emotion.

Robert Byrd, from his 45-year perspective in the US Senate, understands that cheques and balances are essential to avoid tragedy, even if they, at times, impede progress. His book, Losing America, contains several ‘under-the-table’ looks at Congress and the manipulations and arrogance of the coterie of ideologues who surround George W. Bush. Byrd, from the Southern tradition of politeness and respect, which often cloaks bar-room politics, is steeped in the history of the institution of the Senate. He is personally offended by Bush's lack of interest or curiosity in the legislative process prior to 9/11, and his dishonesty and deception afterwards. Byrd's address to the Senate on the eve of the war on Iraq was widely quoted and is contained in this book. While people marching in the streets made headlines, it was an 85-year-old senator, not previously known as an outraged progressive, who took on both the Administration for its hypocrisy and many of his colleagues for their lack of courage and principle. He voted against the war and continues to point out the dishonesty of the people who guide it. The book reads with a sensibility from another age. Although his own history is certainly not without problems, Senator Byrd's belief in the true democratic process, rather than the gun-barrel approach of George W. Bush, should be given the respect that he, and it, deserve.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr has been writing history since 1946 and has Pulitzer prizes to prove he does it well. His voice is considered, thoughtful, and scholarly — as one might expect from a historian and distinguished teacher. Toward the end of his book War and the American Presidency, however, Schlesinger's voice rises with outrage at those who surround and influence George W. Bush, the ‘small group of Messianic statesman whose self righteousness bids fair to wreck our age’. He writes of the imperial presidencies of the early years of the country, which repressed dissent during wartime, and how the US moved from wars based on pique to engaging international diplomacy and internationalism. Schlesinger reminds us that all presidents since Wilson, with George W. Bush being the glaring exception, believed in statesmanship, diplomacy, alliances to guard against capricious choices and, when necessary, taking on common enemies.

Much of Schlesinger's book, however, also chronicles the record of the current Administration which, by being ‘judge, jury, and executioner resurrects the imperial presidency’. An imperial presidency in the age of frigates and single-shot rifles cannot be compared with one that possesses weapons of mass destruction and a wooly-headed sense of divine guidance. We used to think of Henry Kissinger as the prototype for Dr Strangelove, but I wish Kubrick were still alive to do the remake with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in mind.

Needless to say, the recent election, instead of relegating George W. Bush and his hangers-on to the historical trashbin, has pushed them to the front of the international agenda. A secretive, defensive, unreflective president will now shape the world for our grandchildren. Each of these books elaborates on the ineffectiveness of Bush dealing with the real enemy while he digs deeper into a country where he is creating more enemies by the day.

One has to ask why, instead of quietly writing their memoirs, two distinguished 87-year-old statesmen are raising the alarm and shaking us by the throat — like the aging Thomas Jefferson who, in his famous letter of 1820, said of the first compromise to try to divide the country between slave and free states: ‘this momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror’. Byrd and Schlesinger hear the firebell and are ringing it to wake us up. Another quote that might better capture Bush and his legacy would be from the Bible he uses as justification for his policies: ‘He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind’ (Proverbs 11, 29).

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist attacks upon the United States.

concepts developed and the politics of plural societies. We have no intention of resolving this problem in summary fashion. As a result, the next chapter is devoted in its entirety to an analysis of politics in the plural society using the tools and language of this chapter. 58. E. E. Schattschneider, \"Intensity, Visability, Direction and Scope,\" American Political Science Review 51, no. 3 (September 1957): 933-42 (quotation at p. 937).

Politics in plural societies : a theory of democratic instability

Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, by Olivier Roy. New York: Columbia University Press, in association with the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Paris, 2004. xi + 340 pages. Index to p. 349. $29.50. Olivier Roy devotes much of Globalized Islam to the distinction between what he calls "Islamism" and "neofundamentalism." He argues that Islamist movements tend to seek power in specific countries and have become increasingly nationalistic. Neofundamentalist movements, on the other hand, tend to focus on the Islamic world as a whole and do not concentrate on achieving power. According to Roy, neofundamentalists usually favor da'wa, or preaching, over jihad. "For neofundamentalists the aim of action is salvation, not revolution" (p. 248). Even when neofundamentalists do engage in jihad, they still shun "political action" (p. 250). Yet, Roy's list of "neofundamentalist" movements includes al-Qa'ida as well as the Tablighi Jama'a (p. 234). It is hard to see how anyone could argue that al-Qa'ida is more interested in salvation than revolution or that its acts of violence are not political. Roy is a knowledgeable and insightful scholar, and he makes many important points. He rightly stresses that Islam often serves primarily as a marker of national and/ or ethnic identity rather than as a political program. He rightly criticizes those who think that the behavior of Muslims today can simply be explained by examining verses of the Qur'an. And he correctly emphasizes that al-Qa'ida has an anti-imperialist dimension that should not be ignored (although this is hard to reconcile with his characterization of al-Qa'ida as an apolitical neofundamentalist movement). At the same time, however, Roy makes many sweeping generalizations that are simply inaccurate. He claims that "Bin Laden only paid lip-service to Palestine till the end of 2001" (p. 3). This is a common assertion. It is also an erroneous one. In a 1994 letter to Sheikh 'Abd al-'Aziz bin Baz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden wrote: "The Shar'i obligation regarding Palestine and our Palestinian brothers, [who are] among the helpless oppressed men, women, and children, is jihad in the path of God and inciting the Umma to jihad to liberate all of Palestine and return it to Islamic rule." Much of this letter is devoted to rejecting the very idea of a peace agreement with Israel. (The Arabic text of the letter is available online at http://www.alwahabiya.org/articles/binladen_to_binbaz.htm) Roy asserts that "popular mobilisation in the Middle East centres around nationalism...not around Islam" (p. 51). Similarly, he contends that "Osama Bin Laden did not grasp that the genuine antiAmericanism of the 'average' Arab had never led to a sustainable political mobilisation, and that if such mobilisation ever did happen it would be over Palestine and Iraq that is, over Arab and not Islamic issues" (p. 56). It is true that groups like Hamas and the main movements fighting the American-led occupation of Iraq have a nationalist dimension, and this is an important point. …

Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are rapidly becoming ubiquitous while IoT services are becoming pervasive. Their success has not gone unnoticed and the number of threats and attacks against IoT devices and services are on the increase as well. Cyber-attacks are not new to IoT, but as IoT will be deeply interwoven in our lives and societies, it is becoming necessary to step up and take cyber defense seriously. Hence, there is a real need to secure IoT, which has consequently resulted in a need to comprehensively understand the threats and attacks on IoT infrastructure. This paper is an attempt to classify threat types, besides analyze and characterize intruders and attacks facing IoT devices and services.

/pdf/cyber-security-and-the-internet-of-things-vulnerabilities-457t0muveo.pdf

Cyber Security and the Internet of Things: Vulnerabilities, Threats, Intruders and Attacks

Like the postcolonial world more generally, Southeast Asia exhibits tremendous variation in state capacity and authoritarian durability. Ordering Power draws on theoretical insights dating back to Thomas Hobbes to develop a unified framework for explaining both of these political outcomes. States are especially strong and dictatorships especially durable when they have their origins in 'protection pacts': broad elite coalitions unified by shared support for heightened state power and tightened authoritarian controls as bulwarks against especially threatening and challenging types of contentious politics. These coalitions provide the elite collective action underpinning strong states, robust ruling parties, cohesive militaries, and durable authoritarian regimes - all at the same time. Comparative-historical analysis of seven Southeast Asian countries (Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Vietnam, and Thailand) reveals that subtly divergent patterns of contentious politics after World War II provide the best explanation for the dramatic divergence in Southeast Asia's contemporary states and regimes.

Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia

The Internet has emerged as a key technology for Al Qaeda and other jihadist movements waging their so-called electronic jihad across the Middle East and globally, with digital multiplier effects. This study will examine the evolving doctrine of “electronic jihad” and its impact on the radicalization of Muslims in Western diaspora communities The study describes Internet-based websites that served as online libraries and repositories for jihadist literature, as platforms for extremist preachers and as forums for radical discourse. Furthermore, the study will then detail how Internet connectivity has come to play a more direct operational role for jihadi terrorist-related purposes, most notably for inciting prospective cadres to action; for recruiting jihadist operatives and fighters; for providing virtual training in tactical methods and manufacture of explosives; for terrorism financing; and for actual planning and preparations for specific terror attacks. Whereas contemporary jihadist militants ...

“Electronic Jihad”: The Internet as Al Qaeda's Catalyst for Global Terror

Cyber attacks directed at Critical National Infrastructure constitute a significant, diverse, and rapidly escalating risk-element in the global threat environment. Critical infrastructures are susc...

Cyber-Threats to Critical National Infrastructure: An Intelligence Challenge

The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the United States catapulted the intelligence services to the forefront of the “war” against international Islamicist terrorism. In responding to that ...

Hunters and Gatherers: The Intelligence Coalition Against Islamic Terrorism

In February, 1995, Canada's Liberal Government issued its first statement on foreign policy entitled “Canada in the World” which adopted an “integrated” approach to foreign policy. The present arti...

CANADA IN THE WORLD: Development Assistance In Canada's New Foreign Policy Framework

Hizbullah, which has been designated a terrorist entity in several international jurisdictions, depends upon a substantial mobilization of financial resources to support its complex, multi-faceted organizational apparatus, its domestic activities in Lebanon, and its far-reaching transnational operations. This study surveys Hizbullah's resourcing requirements, and examines the role of military assistance from Iran and Syria along with Hizbullah's own reliance on front organizations, clandestine networks, business enterprises, propaganda media, and local exactions to generate funding for operational activities. Particular attention is directed at the diversion of charitable contributions, the exploitation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), involvement in criminal activities and contraband trade, and the money laundering mechanisms utilized to transfer funds to where they are required. It also reviews efforts by international authorities to staunch the flow of financial resources to terror groups, act...

Martin Rudner

Papers

“Electronic Jihad”: The Internet as Al Qaeda's Catalyst for Global Terror

Cyber-Threats to Critical National Infrastructure: An Intelligence Challenge

Hunters and Gatherers: The Intelligence Coalition Against Islamic Terrorism

CANADA IN THE WORLD: Development Assistance In Canada's New Foreign Policy Framework

Hizbullah Terrorism Finance: Fund-Raising and Money-Laundering