TERRORISM

The Forgotten Terrorist

Still alive more than four years after 9/11, terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden yesterday warned of future attacks inside the United States in an released an audio tape to the Al Jazeera television network. Bin Laden also makes mention of a possible "truce," echoing a similar promise he made in a video released just prior to the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Responding to the truce proposal, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business." But the audio tape underscores the fact that bin Laden and al Qaeda remain very much in business and continue to plot harm against the United States. Over the last four years, Bush's policies have increased the threat of future attacks, while simultaneously undermining efforts to provide greater security for Americans in the event such an attack should occur.

OSAMA BEEN FORGOTTEN: A month prior to 9/11, Bush received a President's Daily Brief warning, "Bin Ladin determined to strike in US." But Bush failed to act on the information, acknowledging later that he was "not on point. ... I didn't feel that sense of urgency." When asked shortly after the 9/11 attacks whether he wanted bin Laden dead, President Bush responded, "I want justice. There's an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" In early December 2001, Bush was given an opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden when CIA paramilitary officers determined bin Laden was hiding in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan. Gary Bertsen, the CIA veteran who led the team, requested that 800 U.S. Army Rangers be deployed in the area to prevent bin Laden's escape. Again, Bush failed to act; bin Laden managed to get away, and he has remained free ever since. By 2002, Bush turned his attention to Iraq and put bin Laden out of his mind, stating, "I just don't spend that much time on him. ... I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." Since that time, bin Laden's influence has spread throughout the world; his al Qaeda organization is "now more a brand than a tight-knit group," encouraging new adherents to act spontaneously in its name." Vice President Cheney acknowledges, "Even if bin Laden were no longer to be a factor, I still think we would have problems with al Qaeda."

AL QAEDA THREAT HAS GROWN: In an October 2003 memorandum, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked, "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?" The Bush administration has since refused to provide an answer, but there is little doubt that by invading Iraq without a plan for stabilizing the country and with too few troops, the Bush administration has created a haven for terrorists where none existed before. In May 2004, the London-based Institute for Strategic Studies reported that "al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising efforts had been given a major boost by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It estimated that bin Laden's network today commands some 18,000 men, of which about 1,000 are currently inside Iraq." Al Qaeda's influence has not only metastasized in Iraq, where bin Laden-ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi continues bloody attacks on a daily basis, but the group has also reemerged in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Defense Minister recently claimed that "Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has increased its activities in Afghanistan, smuggling in explosives, high-tech weapons and millions of dollars in cash for a resurgent terror campaign."

GLOBAL TERRORISM ON THE RISE: McClellan claimed yesterday that the Bush administration is "taking the fight to the enemy; we are working to advance freedom and democracy, to defeat their evil ideology. We are winning." But the increasing numbers of global terrorist acts over the past few years belies any notion that we are winning. The World Economic Forum, for instance, recently called efforts to eliminate terrorism "largely unsuccessful" last year. Using the Bush administration's own statistics, the problem of international terrorism is worse now than it was in 2001. According to State Department data, the number of international terrorist attacks tripled to 650 in 2004. (The 175 international terrorist attacks in 2003 was itself a 20-year high.) After revealing the disappointing numbers, the State Department decided to stop publishing its annual report. Another Bush administration agency, the National Counterterrorism Threat Center, found that 3,192 incidents of international terrorism occurred last year, resulting in the "deaths, injury or kidnapping of almost 28,500 people."

HOMELAND SECURITY: In the audio tape yesterday, bin Laden explicitly warned that he is preparing to strike again. "The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your homes the minute they are through," he said. Former White House counterterrorism director Richard Clarke wondered, "Would he say that and risk being proved wrong, if he can't pull it off in a month or so?" Despite the threat of an imminent attack, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not raising its public threat level. Many Americans express valid concerns that DHS is not prepared for another attack. Hurricane Katrina revealed that the federal government is not yet fully prepared to handle its emergency response and disaster recovery obligations. The 9/11 Public Discourse Project gave the Bush administration mostly low or incomplete grades on implementing the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. The bipartisan group's report raises serious questions about President Bush's leadership on keeping Americans safe. Former 9-11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said, "We believe that the terrorists will strike again; so does every responsible expert that we have talked to. And if they do, and these reforms that might have prevented such an attack have not been implemented, what will our excuse be?"

MEDIA Spreading [Redacted] and [Redacted] Over the Internet "You can find anything you want on China's Internet: sex, fashion, business, travel, entertainment, romance," one columnist recently wrote. "Anything, that is, except democracy, Tiananmen, Taiwan, human rights, Tibet and hundreds of other subjects." But while many Americans may have assumed as much, others might not know that "Beijing has the very best help" censoring these terms from several of the "world's most famous Internet companies." "Just like any other global company, Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based," explained a spokeswoman for Yahoo. ''This is a complex and difficult issue,'' said one Microsoft representative. ''We think it's better to be there with our services than not be there." The New York Times calls this a "false choice." As they point out, "China needs Internet companies as much as they need China. ... Western technology companies could have a powerful case if they acted as a group in telling China that they are under tremendous consumer and political pressure to stick up for free expression." "In the short term, [acquiescing to China] gets you into a market you perhaps couldn't be in otherwise," argues Rebecca MacKinnon of Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. But, she asks, "in the long term is this good for your corporate global image and your image in China, that you go along with censorship?"

YAHOO AIDED CHINESE INVESTIGATION OF JOURNALIST: Chinese journalist Shi Tao recently received a ten year prison sentence for posting a "communication from Communist Party authorities" on a "New York-based, Chinese-language Web site." "Yahoo provided records showing that Shi used a computer at his workplace, Contemporary Business News, in Changsha, late in the evening of April 20, 2004, to access his Yahoo e-mail account." The company explained they must "balance legal requirements against our strong belief that our active involvement in China contributes to the continued modernization of the country."

CISCO PROVIDES CENSORSHIP-ENABLING EQUIPMENT: Cisco Systems has been "selling the filtering equipment to China" that "helps censors block Web sites." "Cisco has said it doesn't participate in government censorship but acknowledges that its equipment can be used to filter access." A Cisco spokesperson placed the blame elsewhere, saying, "Our perspective is that it's the user, not Cisco, that determines the functionality and uses to which the technology is put."

CHINESE GOOGLE NEWS LEAVES OUT BANNED NEWS OUTLETS: Depending on whether a user is in the United States or China, "Google's Chinese news returned different results," and "did not contain news from sites which are banned by the Chinese government, such as The Epoch Times." A statement from the company said it was a "difficult" choice to "leave out some headlines and links to news sources that are deemed unacceptable to the government," but they ultimately came down on the side of censorship because "showing these headlines would likely result in Google News being blocked altogether in China."

MSN SPACES SHUTS DOWN BLOG AT CHINA'S REQUEST: The Chinese journalist Zhao Jing, who wrote under the name Michael Anti, wrote about the firing of editors at a Chinese newspaper last month on his MSN Spaces-hosted blog. By December 30, Microsoft had shut him down. A Microsoft senior manager reportedly said any "content which breaks national laws must be taken down." Also, the site prohibits titles which the Chinese government finds to be inflammatory. Typing phrases such as "human rights" or "democracy" into their search engine will result in an error message telling users blog titles "must not contain prohibited language."

PROFITING FROM REPRESSION: One company has gone one step further by profiting from the repression in certain countries. Fortinet, an internet company based in California, reportedly developed a system for the repressive Myanmar (Burmese) government to filter web content. The software upgrade "may have made censorship even more efficient and widespread" in the country. "It's related to the problems that Yahoo and Microsoft and others are facing in China," Harvard's John Palfrey said, "but here the issue is that these technology security companies are directly profiting from the censorship regime itself."