[UPDATE 11-19-04] For a very interesting review of Marc Sageman's book, as well as of a more scholarly monograph on Afghan-Pakistani terror links by Mariam Abou Zahad and Olivier Roy, see Steve Coll's piece from Washington Post Book World, August 2004.

---

[UPDATE 11-20-04] A fascinating look at the radicalizing process in French jails for the growing population of Muslim prisoners in this article from NYT earlier this month by Craig Smith.

From the standpoint of growing self-critiques of French failure to integrate its Muslim population, particularly following the recent murder of the Dutch artist, the article is a searing indictment. It also is suggestive of why concerns about the effects of high US incarceration rates for low-level criminality should not be dismissed lightly. It further underlines some of the observations above about the Salvadoran deportees who have found their way into Mara Salvatrucha, etc.

---

A couple of months ago, Bondra pointed out for us the potential for disaster lurking in the growth of Central American gangs and the increasing indications of some linkages with Middle Eastern terrorism and Al Qaeda.

The expansion of the geographic zone of attention is part of the broader recognition that the nature of "the Al Qaeda threat" is continually morphing. As Peter Bergen argues, it is not simply an organization anymore but is also a movement; that those it inspires are as or more likely to come from Europe as from majority-Muslim countries; and the means, methods and networks used to harm the US and "the West" more broadly are likely to be far more varied than what we've come to think of as the "classic" Al Qaeda modus operandi.

Of particular concern in the Western Hemisphere is El Salvador's Mara Salvatrucha. The LA Times' Kevin Silverstein has a new piece focusing on the domestic problems for El Salvador presented by the gangs, their links to the prison population in the US, especially California, and measures being taken by El Salvador to crack down on the gangs.

Government officials, including Deputy Citizens' Security Minister Rodrigo Avila, blame the violence at least in part on the deportation of nearly 12,000 Salvadorans with criminal records from the United States since 1998. Many are prison-hardened former gang members in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities who were sent back here as illegal immigrants.

"The deportations are at the core of the problem," Avila said. "Gangs here now copy the whole L.A. gang culture, the way they talk, the clothes they wear and the absolute ruthlessness."

Many deportees simply join their counterpart gangs here upon arrival, often gaining leadership roles because they are generally the most violent in the ranks, National Civil Police Chief Ricardo Menesses said in an interview.
[...]
The brutality of the gangs' crimes is increasingly horrific. [...]In September, M-18 members attacked a teenage girl in San Salvador, stabbing her in the neck and abdomen before beheading her, police said. Gang rivalries were at the root of the killing of a 16-year-old mother here last year. Gang members also killed and dismembered her 5-month-old daughter.

A number of organizatons have protested the heavy-handed tactics being used as ultimately counter-productive, and their calls for a different approach seem to have had at least a modest effect. Indiscriminate roundups had earlier resulted in all but a small percent of those brought in by the authorities actually being arrested and charged with criminal activity. More recently, the government's operations seem to be better targeted and, they claim, producing results in reduced homicides and fewer "no go" areas. And the general Salvadoran public is supportive of most anything that will limit the impact of the gangs on their lives.


The most troubling part of the story, from my view, is the dimension of alienation described, and the role of the gangs in offerng an identity to deracinated young men. They are certainly of quite a different class in terms of family income, education and social status from the alienated young Muslim migrants described by Marc Sageman (Understanding Terror Networks) as the primary energy source for Al Qaeda-type groups in Europe. But there are some unfortunate similarities as well, including the strong group identity that appears to "justify" incomprehensible levels of violence against "enemies" of the group.    more »

They’ve been simmering for a while, but concerns surrounding possible connections between Middle Eastern terrorist groups and Central American gangs, particularly El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha, seem to be gaining some real momentum. Earlier this month, the Washington Times (generally speaking, one of my least favorite publications) published this piece about Adnan el-Shukrijuma   more »

As a former database programmer, I continue to be mystified by the inability of the federal government to use this simple technology effectively.

The latest example: no middle names on the no-fly list.

I just don't get it.

Buried in this Washington Post article about Patrick Fitzgerald's expanding leaks probe is this paragraph:

Lawyers and witnesses in the probe said Fitzgerald is interested in a story co-written by Pincus that appeared in The Post on Oct. 12, 2003. That story said that on July 12, 2003, two days before Novak's column was published, an administration official told a Post reporter that Wilson's wife had recommended him for the trip to Niger. The official said she was a CIA employee but did not disclose her name. An attorney for The Post declined to comment.

This was news to me.

UPDATE [9-16-04 11:35AM] by nadezhda

Pincus source reveals identity to Fitzgerald

A Washington Post reporter's confidential source has revealed his or her identity to the special prosecutor conducting the CIA leak inquiry, a development that provides investigators with a fact they have been pursuing in the nearly year-long probe.

Post reporter Walter Pincus, who had been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury in the case, instead gave a deposition yesterday in which he recounted his conversation with the source, whom he has previously identified as an "administration official." Pincus said he did not name the source and agreed to be questioned only with the source's approval.

Both Pincus and Matthew Cooper of Time have already answered questions re their conversations with Scooter Libby, who released them from confidentiality and urged them to talk to prosecutors.

A new wrinkle in Fitzgerald's case may have emerged, however. Cooper has just been supoenaed to testify about any conversation he held prior to July 14 (date of Novak article) about Wilson, Wilson's Africa trip or his wife.

Three days after Novak's column appeared, Cooper co-wrote a story on Time's Web site saying that administration officials told Time of Plame's role in Wilson's trip. Time has not said when those conversations occurred, however, an issue central to the investigation. Any disclosures "post-Novak," lawyers in the case said, are likely to be viewed as non-criminal discussion of information already in the public domain.

I hadn't seen anyone post about this, which strikes me as an important contribution to the ongoing debate over What Is To Be Done.

Richard Posner, as I'm sure many of you know, is one of the nation's top "public intellectuals" in addition to his role as a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Posner is gearing up to promote his new book, Catastrophe: Risk and Response. He is a first-rate legal mind but is not an expert on counterterrorism. So why is he opining on the 911 report?

As he says here while guest-blogging over at Larry Lessig's place:

[Yo]u don't have to be an expert in a field to criticize the experts, provided you know enough about the field to understand what the experts are saying and writing, to be able to spot internal contradictions and other logical lapses, sources of bias, arguments obviously not based on knowledge, carelessness in the use of evidence, lack of common sense, and mistaken predictions. These are the analytical tools that judges, who in our system are generalists rather than specialists, bring to the task of adjudicating cases in specialized fields of law.

So the answer is: because I'm a smart guy who knows a lot of stuff.

Posner was referring to some criticism of his blog comments on global warming, but the point is equally applicable to Posner's sharply critical remarks on the 911 report.

Posner is complimentary toward the narrative section of the report, but he offers some cogent analysis of the commissions's prescriptive failings. Here is the central thrust of his argument:

The way a problem is described is bound to influence the choice of how to solve it. The commission's contention that our intelligence structure is unsound predisposed it to blame the structure for the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, whether it did or not. And pressure for unanimity encourages just the kind of herd thinking now being blamed for that other recent intelligence failure -- the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

So what Posner goes on to say is that it doesn't follow that deep structural problems are to blame for the 911 attacks. Rather, the problems are managerial.

   more »