By James Jay Carafano Ph.D
Heritage Foundation
For the second time in recent years, the United States has witnessed another wake-up call for the importance of fielding directed-energy weapons capable of shooting-down mortar and artillery fire, as well as intercepting short-range rockets and missiles.The Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Congress need to place more emphasis on fielding working prototypes of these systems as quickly as possible.
People as Targets
Terrorism continues to be the scourge of the 21st century, but the age of conventional wars is far from over. In recent years we have had plenty examples where both means of warfare have employed conventional weapons to target civilians. Specifically, indirect fire weapons from mortars to short-range missiles have been directly targeted against innocents or employed against military targets in urban areas, putting civilian populations at risk. Terrorists in North Africa attempted to shoot down a commercial airliner with a short-range surface-to-air missile. In Iraq, insurgent groups used mortars to fire on administrative buildings, as well as military facilities in Baghdad and other urban areas.
Even more troubling, however, is the use of these conventional weapons in combat zones aimed at the heart of civilian populations. In the 2006 battles between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks killed and wounded dozens of Israelis, destroyed property, and sent thousands to bomb shelters. The rain of rockets threatened to spark a larger regional conflict.
Another Rage of Rockets
The Russian incursion into Georgia last week saw the use of rockets in urban areas by both sides. According to reports in The New York Times, Georgia fired BM-21 rockets, a system similar to the Katyusha, at separatist military headquarters. Although the rockets appear to have been aimed at legitimate targets, the risk of damage to the surrounding civilian community from these inaccurate weapons may have been high. According to other press and eyewitness reports, during the massive Russian military offensive, ground troops fired dozens of SS-21s, a short-range ballistic missile that can carry a high-explosive warhead. It is not clear whether these weapons were fired at legitimate military targets. In addition, the large SS 21 high-explosive warhead can carry either fragmentation bombs or mines making the risk of civilian causalities in urban areas very high.
The Promise of Directed Energy
Despite repeated warning signs that both unconventional and conventional combatants have no problem using the weapons of war to target both military and civilian populations, the United States has shown little sense of urgency in developing effective countermeasures for either equipping military forces or safeguarding civilian populations.
Directed energy weapons, such as the Tactical High-Energy Laser (THEL), demonstrate tremendous potential against all kinds of mortar, artillery, rocket, aircraft, and missile threats. Directed energy can be used against short-range threats like the Katyusha rockets being fired at Israel and against ballistic missiles like the SS-21s fired at Georgia. Such systems could also be used for homeland security, such as protecting critical infrastructure, national security events (such as the presidential nominating conventions) and commercial air traffic from terrorist attack.
Concluding that the THEL was not sufficiently mobile and robust for battlefield use, the U.S. Army decided to forgo its full development. Meanwhile, though the Department of Homeland Security has experimented with some systems to defend commercial flights against surface-to-air missiles, it too has not deployed any operational systems.
The Clock Is Ticking
Rather than deploy the THEL, the national security community has turned to a new generation of lasers for developing suitable directed-energy protective systems. These lasers employ a solid-state technology, incorporating multiple industrial thin disk lasers into a single high-powered energy devise. The military is currently developing prototypes for a mobile version of this system.
Congress should insist and the administration should press to field operational prototypes of these systems as quickly as possible for both defense and homeland security applications. Both land-based and air-based platforms (mounted on manned and unmanned aircraft) should be fielded as soon as possible. Putting a system in the field now would provide some limited operational capability and invaluable operational experience on how to use these systems.
Courtesy of Heritage Foundation, read more at www.heritage.org
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Congress Must Stop Playing Politics with FISA and National Security
by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., Robert Alt and Andrew Grossman
January 31, 2008
WebMemo #1791
This week, Congress passed a 15-day extension of the Protect America Act, just two days before the law was set to expire, so that House Democrats could leave Washington for a party retreat. The Protect America Act updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to exempt surveillance of communications between persons located outside of the United States when the communications happen to pass through domestic networks, a type of communications to which Congress never intended FISA to apply. A 15-day extension is not good enough, because it puts intelligence-gatherers in an impossible situation: They must either try to guess what sort of legislation Congress will pass and act accordingly or assume that FISA will apply and begin the arduous task--at the cost of hundreds of hours of work per FISA application and potentially weeks or months of delay--of bringing this surveillance within the FISA regime. Congress must make the authorities in the Protect America Act permanent and, to further aid intelligence-gathering cooperation, enhance its provisions to provide retroactive and permanent liability protection to American businesses that cooperate with reasonable intelligence requests.
Playing Politics with Security
The U.S. government has publicly acknowledged thwarting over 19 terrorist conspiracies aimed at the United States since September 11, 2001. Covert intelligence and surveillance have likely stymied even more threats. These results have been achieved using, in part, surveillance and investigatory powers under the Patriot Act and tools like the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). The Protect America Act was intended to strengthen and clarify civil liberty protections under the TSP and to ensure that the program remained an effective instrument for terrorist surveillance.
When Congress passed the Protect America Act last spring, it set the bill to expire in six months. That "compromise" was driven by politics. On the one hand, it allowed Members of Congress to dodge criticism of allowing statutory authorities for critical counterterrorism tools to lapse, and on the other, it allowed them to put off having to make difficult policy decisions that could offend critics of the Administration and the TSP. The bill just passed by Congress does more of the same, stretching out the debate while trying to give lawmakers cover from criticism that their inaction is undermining counterterrorism efforts.
Extending the statutory authorities in the Protect America Act would not be controversial but for politics. This particular debate, in fact, is only a recent one. The Protect America Act was intended to correct an erroneous FISA Court decision seeking to extend that court's power to control foreign surveillance that was never intended to be covered under FISA and never had been. The decision was based, according to those who have seen it, on the irrelevant details of recent changes in technology that do not implicate the core concerns behind FISA. Congress never intended FISA to apply to wholly international communications that do not involve persons in the United States, but instead recognized that surveillance of wholly international communications is an inherent power of the President and part of his solemn responsibility to protect America's security. Permanent extension of this authority simply returns FISA to the status quo before the erroneous court decision, thereby allowing vital and uncontroversial intelligence work to continue unabated.
No Free Lunch
Passing temporary extensions of the Protect America Act, however, makes Americans less safe than providing permanent authority. Serious counterterrorism investigations can take years. They can consume vast amounts of manpower and resources. Creating uncertainty over what authorities will be available in the future greatly complicates the task of the intelligence services and the telecommunications industries that must cooperate with them to make their efforts efficient and effective. The longer Congress drags out and leaves unsettled this vital issue, the more it hamstrings effective long-term planning and complicates decisions about future operations. Thus, American security does pay a price every time Congress kicks the can down the road.
The risks to national security of bringing communications between persons located outside of the United States that happen to pass through domestic networks inside the FISA process are great. Just preparing to present an application to the FISA Court, which grants orders for classified surveillance programs, takes hundreds of hours of lawyer and intelligence analyst time. Though critics are quick to point out that the FISA Court rejects few applications, this is due to the immense time and effort Justice Department officials dedicate to preparing FISA applications, which are over 100 pages on average, and the back-and-fourth process entailed in FISA Court review. Potentially delaying crucial foreign intelligence-gathering operations by weeks or months, as temporary extensions threaten to do, simply endangers national security. This is particularly distressing when there is no legitimate purpose other than political gamesmanship for doing so.
Inconsistency and uncertainty with respect to legal authorities put national security at risk. As documented in the 9/11 Commission Report and the Department of Justice's Bellows Report, the legal authorities behind FISA and foreign surveillance in general are extremely complicated, frequently leading to confusion and mistakes. Intelligence officials work hard to stay within the bounds of the law, and when the law is unclear or uncertain, they become even more conservative, denying some surveillance requests that would be legal and requiring more time to approve others that fall well within the law. In some cases, confusion may cause agents in the field to avoid requesting important surveillance altogether. When Congress leaves the law unclear, it directly harms national security.
Stop the Insanity
It is time for Congress to stop playing politics with national security and pass sensible legislation that meets the needs of those who protect the country from attack while upholding Americans' civil liberties. The Protect America Act accomplished these crucial goals.
First, its major provision concerns persons not on U.S. soil. Constitutional protections were never intended to extend to cover wholly foreign intelligence gathering for national security purposes. Further, this surveillance relies on the same minimization procedures that have always applied to reduce the intrusion on the privacy interests of Americans who (whether wittingly or unwittingly) communicate with suspected terrorists or other enemy soldiers.
The act also wisely extended prospective immunity to communications providers that have worked with U.S. intelligence services to facilitate intelligence gathering for national security. With 40 or more civil lawsuits already filed against these providers for their cooperation,
Congress should take the logical, fair step and provide retroactive immunity as well.
The bill ultimately should go further and expressly authorize the President to use his constitutional authority to conduct the intelligence gathering at home and abroad necessary to protect America from future terrorist attacks. That, however, is most likely a debate for another day. For now, Congress should make the provisions of the Protect America Act permanent and let the government get back to the business of stopping terrorists before they attack.
James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior Research Fellow for National Security and Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Robert Alt is Deputy Director of, and Andrew M. Grossman is Senior Legal Policy Analyst in, the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Courtesy of The Heritage Foundation, find this and other articles at www.heritage.org
January 31, 2008
WebMemo #1791
This week, Congress passed a 15-day extension of the Protect America Act, just two days before the law was set to expire, so that House Democrats could leave Washington for a party retreat. The Protect America Act updated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to exempt surveillance of communications between persons located outside of the United States when the communications happen to pass through domestic networks, a type of communications to which Congress never intended FISA to apply. A 15-day extension is not good enough, because it puts intelligence-gatherers in an impossible situation: They must either try to guess what sort of legislation Congress will pass and act accordingly or assume that FISA will apply and begin the arduous task--at the cost of hundreds of hours of work per FISA application and potentially weeks or months of delay--of bringing this surveillance within the FISA regime. Congress must make the authorities in the Protect America Act permanent and, to further aid intelligence-gathering cooperation, enhance its provisions to provide retroactive and permanent liability protection to American businesses that cooperate with reasonable intelligence requests.
Playing Politics with Security
The U.S. government has publicly acknowledged thwarting over 19 terrorist conspiracies aimed at the United States since September 11, 2001. Covert intelligence and surveillance have likely stymied even more threats. These results have been achieved using, in part, surveillance and investigatory powers under the Patriot Act and tools like the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). The Protect America Act was intended to strengthen and clarify civil liberty protections under the TSP and to ensure that the program remained an effective instrument for terrorist surveillance.
When Congress passed the Protect America Act last spring, it set the bill to expire in six months. That "compromise" was driven by politics. On the one hand, it allowed Members of Congress to dodge criticism of allowing statutory authorities for critical counterterrorism tools to lapse, and on the other, it allowed them to put off having to make difficult policy decisions that could offend critics of the Administration and the TSP. The bill just passed by Congress does more of the same, stretching out the debate while trying to give lawmakers cover from criticism that their inaction is undermining counterterrorism efforts.
Extending the statutory authorities in the Protect America Act would not be controversial but for politics. This particular debate, in fact, is only a recent one. The Protect America Act was intended to correct an erroneous FISA Court decision seeking to extend that court's power to control foreign surveillance that was never intended to be covered under FISA and never had been. The decision was based, according to those who have seen it, on the irrelevant details of recent changes in technology that do not implicate the core concerns behind FISA. Congress never intended FISA to apply to wholly international communications that do not involve persons in the United States, but instead recognized that surveillance of wholly international communications is an inherent power of the President and part of his solemn responsibility to protect America's security. Permanent extension of this authority simply returns FISA to the status quo before the erroneous court decision, thereby allowing vital and uncontroversial intelligence work to continue unabated.
No Free Lunch
Passing temporary extensions of the Protect America Act, however, makes Americans less safe than providing permanent authority. Serious counterterrorism investigations can take years. They can consume vast amounts of manpower and resources. Creating uncertainty over what authorities will be available in the future greatly complicates the task of the intelligence services and the telecommunications industries that must cooperate with them to make their efforts efficient and effective. The longer Congress drags out and leaves unsettled this vital issue, the more it hamstrings effective long-term planning and complicates decisions about future operations. Thus, American security does pay a price every time Congress kicks the can down the road.
The risks to national security of bringing communications between persons located outside of the United States that happen to pass through domestic networks inside the FISA process are great. Just preparing to present an application to the FISA Court, which grants orders for classified surveillance programs, takes hundreds of hours of lawyer and intelligence analyst time. Though critics are quick to point out that the FISA Court rejects few applications, this is due to the immense time and effort Justice Department officials dedicate to preparing FISA applications, which are over 100 pages on average, and the back-and-fourth process entailed in FISA Court review. Potentially delaying crucial foreign intelligence-gathering operations by weeks or months, as temporary extensions threaten to do, simply endangers national security. This is particularly distressing when there is no legitimate purpose other than political gamesmanship for doing so.
Inconsistency and uncertainty with respect to legal authorities put national security at risk. As documented in the 9/11 Commission Report and the Department of Justice's Bellows Report, the legal authorities behind FISA and foreign surveillance in general are extremely complicated, frequently leading to confusion and mistakes. Intelligence officials work hard to stay within the bounds of the law, and when the law is unclear or uncertain, they become even more conservative, denying some surveillance requests that would be legal and requiring more time to approve others that fall well within the law. In some cases, confusion may cause agents in the field to avoid requesting important surveillance altogether. When Congress leaves the law unclear, it directly harms national security.
Stop the Insanity
It is time for Congress to stop playing politics with national security and pass sensible legislation that meets the needs of those who protect the country from attack while upholding Americans' civil liberties. The Protect America Act accomplished these crucial goals.
First, its major provision concerns persons not on U.S. soil. Constitutional protections were never intended to extend to cover wholly foreign intelligence gathering for national security purposes. Further, this surveillance relies on the same minimization procedures that have always applied to reduce the intrusion on the privacy interests of Americans who (whether wittingly or unwittingly) communicate with suspected terrorists or other enemy soldiers.
The act also wisely extended prospective immunity to communications providers that have worked with U.S. intelligence services to facilitate intelligence gathering for national security. With 40 or more civil lawsuits already filed against these providers for their cooperation,
Congress should take the logical, fair step and provide retroactive immunity as well.
The bill ultimately should go further and expressly authorize the President to use his constitutional authority to conduct the intelligence gathering at home and abroad necessary to protect America from future terrorist attacks. That, however, is most likely a debate for another day. For now, Congress should make the provisions of the Protect America Act permanent and let the government get back to the business of stopping terrorists before they attack.
James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior Research Fellow for National Security and Homeland Security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Robert Alt is Deputy Director of, and Andrew M. Grossman is Senior Legal Policy Analyst in, the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Courtesy of The Heritage Foundation, find this and other articles at www.heritage.org
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Richardson's Words on Iraq, Same Old Liberal Rhetoric
Bill Richardson seems to think that Iraq is not being given the attention it should. In a recent posting on the Huffington Post, the New Mexico Governor revealed his shock at the lack of attention paid to Iraq during the recent NPR Democratic forum in Iowa. His message was not new, too many soldiers, too much money. Gov. Richardson pointed out that with the surge going on in Iraq we are stifling what reconciliation might take place, and we are also limiting our military readiness by spreading our forces too thin. Maybe the Governor would like to talk with Bill Clinton about overseeing a significant draw down in forces during the 1990's. And for the reconciliation that would take place if we were not there, are forces are what is keeping the fragile country together and away from the hands of islamofascists. Instead Richardson bemoans our spending of money in Iraq instead of providing entitlements and preventing global warming. The Governor does get one thing right in his article. He manages to point out the inconsistency of his fellow candidates' message on Iraq. The have-it-both-ways crowd was shouting down our involvement in Iraq but would keep troops until 2013. As things improve in Iraq the key will be to see how the Democrats respond. Recent comments seem to suggest a hedging of their bets to capitalize on things if they go well, a far cry from previous statements denouncing the war as a hopeless and lost cause.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gov-bill-richardson/iraq-the-elephant-in-the_b_75881.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gov-bill-richardson/iraq-the-elephant-in-the_b_75881.html
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Iraq War: to Leave or not to Leave
Author: Josh Greenberger
(September 17, 2007) It's probably safe to say that all Americans, regardless of whether they were for or against the Iraq war, would like to see our troops come home. The problem is, to pull out we need to leave a stable country behind. An immediate withdrawal would leave Iraq with a vulnerable military force, sectarian infighting and a power vacuum that would immediately be filled by terrorist factions.
Calling for an immediate withdrawal, as some are doing, ignores the many lessons learned from middle east politics and turmoil.
After the 2005 Lebanese elections, Hezbollah won 14 seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament, and now also has 2 ministers in the government. Hezbollah has since launched thousands of rockets into Israel. On July 12th, 2006, Hezbollah captured 2 Israeli soldiers, sparking a 34-day military conflict with Israel. By August 13, 2006, Hezbollah had fired close to 4,000 rockets into Israel.
In August of 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza. That territory has been racked with violence ever since. As late as June 2007, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett lamented, "Once again, extremists carrying guns have prevented progress against the wishes of the majority ... "
With terrorists already in Iraq, why does anyone believe things would be different there? Will terrorists just get up and leave if we do? Hardly likely. In fact, Iraq would be a far bigger prize to terrorist than anything they've ever acquired before.
Lebanon has a population of around 4 million, covers around 10 thousand sq km, and has no oil. Iraq, on the other hand, has a population of almost 30 million, covers an area of over 400 thousand sq km., and possesses one of the world's largest proven oil reserves. With such vast resources at its disposal, a terrorists organization could grow exponentially.
We either finish the job today or fight again tomorrow. The difference is, today, as organized and as powerful as terrorists have become, we're still fighting rag-tag cells. Tomorrow we could be fighting a major power.
by Josh Greenberger
from shopndrop.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/iraq-war-to-leave-or-not-to-leave-215937.html
About the Author:
(September 17, 2007) It's probably safe to say that all Americans, regardless of whether they were for or against the Iraq war, would like to see our troops come home. The problem is, to pull out we need to leave a stable country behind. An immediate withdrawal would leave Iraq with a vulnerable military force, sectarian infighting and a power vacuum that would immediately be filled by terrorist factions.
Calling for an immediate withdrawal, as some are doing, ignores the many lessons learned from middle east politics and turmoil.
After the 2005 Lebanese elections, Hezbollah won 14 seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament, and now also has 2 ministers in the government. Hezbollah has since launched thousands of rockets into Israel. On July 12th, 2006, Hezbollah captured 2 Israeli soldiers, sparking a 34-day military conflict with Israel. By August 13, 2006, Hezbollah had fired close to 4,000 rockets into Israel.
In August of 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza. That territory has been racked with violence ever since. As late as June 2007, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett lamented, "Once again, extremists carrying guns have prevented progress against the wishes of the majority ... "
With terrorists already in Iraq, why does anyone believe things would be different there? Will terrorists just get up and leave if we do? Hardly likely. In fact, Iraq would be a far bigger prize to terrorist than anything they've ever acquired before.
Lebanon has a population of around 4 million, covers around 10 thousand sq km, and has no oil. Iraq, on the other hand, has a population of almost 30 million, covers an area of over 400 thousand sq km., and possesses one of the world's largest proven oil reserves. With such vast resources at its disposal, a terrorists organization could grow exponentially.
We either finish the job today or fight again tomorrow. The difference is, today, as organized and as powerful as terrorists have become, we're still fighting rag-tag cells. Tomorrow we could be fighting a major power.
by Josh Greenberger
from shopndrop.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/iraq-war-to-leave-or-not-to-leave-215937.html
About the Author:
Monday, August 27, 2007
Battered Person Syndrome in Liberal Form
Battered person syndrome is a psychological condition resulting from the suffering of abuse at the hands of someone else. This results in the victim having a low self-esteem, believing the abuse is their fault, and seeking out the abuser for comfort. Although this is associated with a physical abuse situation I think some of the same principles can be applied to liberals and their feelings about terrorism. And maybe I would not associate it to all liberals but the far left acolytes of liberalism who seek to blame America first for inviting the terrorists to attack us. It is a mentality that I can not get any grasp of. How someone could blame us for the heinous and evil acts perpetrated by radical Islamists. But we have heard the voices of individuals like a Cindy Sheehan who denounce our actions against the radical Islamic fringe and instead refer to our leaders as war criminals for taking such actions. Even those on the other side of the aisle like Ron Paul want to limit our intervention and instead resort to a policy of stick your head in the sand a.k.a. isolationism. He made the comments during one debate seeming to say that we have brought the wrath of the radicals on ourselves with our policies towards the Middle East. I find it disappointing to say the least that an elected official would claim that we would be to blame for men flying planes into buildings on our shores whatever our foreign policy. I think some of this talk is a result of those on the left who are so concerned with how we as a nation are viewed by the rest of the world. We tell our children early on in life that they should not be concerned with how other people think of them and that they should be their own person. Well the message is not resonating and we end up with individuals who are obsessed with implementing the European model into our country. I think these people need to seek professional help with their infliction. It is not only a disappointing position to take but potentially a dangerous one. That mindset leaves us open to real threats and dangers by simply dismissing them as unreal or even worse our fault.
Friday, May 18, 2007
The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself, and Radical Islam
I think that is probably how the statement would go had it been uttered in today's environment. I say this as a proud American who realizes the greatness of our country and its resolve to deal with any adversity and conquer it. But we must realize the threat that radical Islam poses to our country and democracy around the world. I fear our country's resolve to deal with this danger fell drastically as a result of the results of last November's election. The danger is a nation becoming complacent and fall into a false sense of security. This is especially possible when certain political forces play down the threat from radical Islam. I think that attitude comes from the fact that they do not see the risk of terrorists following us to our shores as credible. The fact is when you have people that want to destroy us and an unprotected border you have an equation with disaster on the other side of the equal sign. But we may not have to wait for those to follow us home from Iraq. As the situation at Fort Dix showed us terrorism can be homemade as terror cells populate within our borders. And if a certain political party keeps attacking and wanting to take away all our tactics to fight these terrorists, the peace we have had these past few years since 9/11 may go up in smoke, literally. If we take this attitude as has been adopted by so many then we really will have something to fear. The best strategy we have is to go on offense and take the fight to the enemy. But we must be willing to go all the way in this fight. Right now we have a leader who understands this, but it may change in the next election cycle. War fatigue is frankly not an option. We will not solve this problem in a year or two. With a seemingly growing crop of new radicals being brainwashed and cultivated our commitment is needed now more than ever. We were once a nation that put democracy on a pedestal as a model for other nations to follow. Unfortunately that pedestal has been losing its support as a result of comments and actions of some, and is not as firmly in place as it once was. We are attacked for wanting to give other nations the security, prosperity, and freedom we enjoy. It may be unrealistic to expect every nation to be our duplicate. But if they can escape the violence and persecution of the evil entities that control them is not our campaign a noble and necessary one? Because planting democracy over there might just save ours over here.
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