GWOT 101.

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GWOT = Global War On Terror. 

101 = Introductory course.

"shoestring - -  a small sum of money : capital inadequate or barely adequate to the needs of a transaction started the business on a shoestring"

Terrorism is a business? Certain groups recognized and categorized as terrorists can also be thought of as businessmen? From an Israeli media outlet:

"Hezbollah and Hamas rank at top of Forbes’ ‘Richest Terror Groups’ list"

RICHES HOWEVER NOT NECESSARILY NEEDED!

TERRORISTS OPERATING ON THE PROVERBIAL SHOESTRING CAN ACCOMPLISH EVIL-DEEDS THE COST TO THEM OF WHICH IS A MERE PITTANCE!

Consider the bombings of the two American embassies in east Africa:

"On May 1998, a villa in Nairobi was purchased by one of the bombers to enable a bomb to be built in the garage. Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan purchased a beige Toyota Dyna truck in Nairobi and a 1987 Nissan Atlas refrigeration truck in Dar es Salaam. Six metal bars were used to form a 'cage' on the back of the Atlas to accommodate the bomb."

"In June 1998, KK Mohamed rented House 213 in the Illala district of Dar es Salaam . . . A white Suzuki Samurai was used to haul bomb components hidden in rice sacks, to House 213."

"In both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Mohammed Odeh supervised construction of two very large, 2,000-pound (900 kg) destructive devices. The Nairobi bomb was made of 400 to 50  500 cylinders of TNT (about the size of drink cans), ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder and detonating cord . . . The Dar es Salaam bomb was of slightly different construction: the TNT was attached to fifteen oxygen tanks and gas canisters, and was surrounded with four bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and some sand bags to tamp and direct the blast."

"Al Qaeda funded a number of terrorist operations, including the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa (which cost approximately $10,000)."

THAT IS $10,000 USD!

Thanks also to the 9/11 Commission report.

coolbert.

Dalton

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Here is excerpts from a Time Magazine interview [via telephone] with the man who commanded the U.S. Delta force at Tora Bora. The LAST TIME ANYONE HAS HAD A VERIFIED SIGHTING OF OSAMA BIN LADEN [only, at that, hearing a radio transmission!]!

"What a top terror tracker learned about Osama bin Laden"

Dalton Fury [pseudonym for the U.S. Delta force commander] is a hot button item right now. Has a book on the shelves, doing interviews, was on "60 minutes", etc.! A modern day Tom Horn! Dalton is a man who would have been hunting renegade Apache in the mountains of Mexico over a hundred years ago now.

Some of these comments made by Dalton are in line with my thinking about bin Laden and WHY the man [bin Laden] has not been "run to ground" yet!

Question: The view that exists in the U.S. is that bin Laden is living in a cave somewhere, that he's cut off from the rest of the world.

Answer: "Bin Laden garners a lot of support from people because he has the ability and the willpower to live in austere conditions, to live like the average Afghani or the average Pashtun — without a lot of creature comforts . . . bin Laden is perfectly comfortable with a couple of meals a day of flat bread and some rice . . . It's hard to imagine anybody, any leader in the West, to have the ability to do that, but he's shown that he can certainly do that."

How much is this like Eric Robert Rudolph? A man able to hide in the mountains for years on end, subsisting on the most meagre of diets, and all the while thriving! A man possessing both the physical and mental wherewithal for an extended campaign lasting DECADES!! A fanatic!

And as to the attitude of those persons, Pashtun tribesmen, sheltering the villain, whether it is in the Northwest Territories, Waziristan, Swat Valley, etc.:

"But when you actually get around those people [who shelter the al-Qaeda leaders], you see how honorable they are, how independent they are, how hospitable they are, all according to their religion. It's much different than communism, you know. We never faced that in the Cold War. This truly is a different enemy here."

Bin laden has found sanctuary. Carefully prepared in advance with a lot of attention to inter-marriage between his [bin Laden's] supporters and the local women. Using the time-honored tradition of sanctuary as given by Pashtun to those in their midst.

Just like a man from one hundred years ago. Haji Sahib. Another jihadi on the run. In the same exact area as bin Laden is now. Able to escape and elude the British for twenty years. Dying peacefully in his sleep.

Catching or killing Osama never was going to be easy. Luck is going to have to be on the side of the U.S. if the man is ever going to be caught or killed!!

coolbert.

Rudolph.

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Mo’ be mo’ bettah??

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, today is 9/11. Seven years now and Osama bin Laden has NOT been run to ground, killed or captured!!

This is surprising?

Is the CIA/Special Operations Command doing something wrong? So much time has gone by, and the villain is still out there!

My intuition is that the operative word among those searching for bin Laden is more!! More assets, more troops on the ground, more bounty on the head of the man, more drones, more cameras on the drones with more magnification and more resolution, more informants, more cooperation from the Pakistani, etc. MORE!!

This approach is the opposite of what should be done?

Here is a case in point!

Some of you might remember the "hunt", a few years ago now, for the Atlanta Bomber. Eric Robert Rudolph! A fugitive on the FBI Top Ten wanted list.

A search, a "hunt", that often involved HUNDREDS of personnel at one time. A search, perhaps a series of searches! Repeated searches that proved to be in vain.

These "hunts" had a mind-boggling number of very obvious, visible, elements, high profile, unmistakable for what they were.

Elements to include:

* A command post. With all the accouterments! Trailers, generators, porta-potties, etc.

* Tracker dogs, loud baying hounds, perhaps of the black and tan "coonhound" variety.

* Dozens of FBI agents, dressed in BDU/"boonie" hat/web gear, brandishing M16 rifle! Agents performing the task of the light infantryman.

* Helicopters in numbers! Loud noisy machines, flying a "search pattern"! NOT routine!

* Radio communications in abundance to coordinate the "hunt"!

These elements create a "footprint", a "signature" THAT IS AN INSTANTANEOUS TIP-OFF! Alarm bells are going off all over the place, especially for a person as wily and alert as Rudolph. All that activity only means the quarry becomes just that more difficult to find! 

Eric Robert Rudolph in particular presented a unique and difficult challenge for the "searchers":

* Had military training courtesy of the U.S. Army.

* Operated as a "lone wolf". NO support mechanism that could be discerned. Could not be traced through "connections"!

* Was a practiced survivalist since the age of fourteen!

* Had trained himself to go without eating for twenty to thirty days at a time!

* When he did eat, subsisted on a diet strictly consisting of sardines, oatmeal, and green beans!

* And, as a religious zealot, HAD THE MENTAL WHEREWITHAL FOR A LONG, DRAWN-OUT "CAMPAIGN" LASTING YEARS AGAINST WHAT HE PERCEIVED AS THE "FORCES OF DARKNESS"!!! YOU CANNOT WAIT HIM OUT, HE WILL WAIT YOU OUT!!

The more is better approach did not work with regard to Eric Robert Rudolph. Eric was able to elude his pursuers for years. FINALLY APPREHENDED BY A LONE POLICE OFFICER, WHO WHILE ON ROUTINE PATROL, ESPIED ERIC "DUMPSTER DIVING" TO SCAVENGE FOOD!!

The pursuit of the Apache Geronimo should act as an archetype in the case of search for Osama? NO MORE than thirty soldiers chasing after fifteen American Indian warriors. Doing so heedless of international boundaries, Tom Horn, civilian tracker/translator/outdoors man leading the way!

Bert is wrong here? Who is Bert to question the approach of the CIA/Special Operations? 

coolbert.

Wanted!

This is coolbert:

From the Chicago Tribune:

"Drone spy planes could see more use in bin Laden hunt"

"7 years after his last confirmed sighting, U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are taking a new look at how they’ve conducted the search"

"PESHAWAR, Pakistan - - Frustrated by repeated dead ends in the search for Osama bin Laden, U.S. and Pakistani officials said they are questioning long-held assumptions about their strategy and are shifting tactics to intensify the use of the unmanned but lethal Predator spy plane in the mountains of western Pakistan."

"There have been no confirmed trace of bin Laden since he eluded the CIA and the U.S. military after the battle near Tora Bora. Afghanistan in December 2001, accord to U.S. Pakistani and European officials. They said they are now concentrating on a short list of other Al Qaeda leaders who have en sighted more recently, in hopes that their footprints could lead to bin Laden."

"Although they lack hard evidence, U.S. officials said it is only logical that bin Laden is in Pakistan, where he has roamed the mountains along the Afghan border for two decades and enjoyed the protection of Taliban leaders."

"’In many ways, it’s a perfect place’, said Bruce Riedel, a former South Asia analyst for the CIA and National Security council ‘But there’s not a scintilla a of evidence that we have any idea where he is.’"

"NOT A SCINTILLA OF EVIDENCE!!" NOT EVEN REALLY A SIGHTING EITHER IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS!! THE LAST "SIGHTING" WAS ACTUALLY THE HEARING OF A RADIO COMMUNICATION DURING THE TORA BORA BATTLE!!

The man was not actually seen, ONLY HEARD ON THE RADIO!!

"In many ways, it’s a perfect place"!! "It is only logical"!!

HAS ANYONE CONSIDERED THAT THE PERFECT PLACE AND THE ONLY LOGICAL PLACE - - IS THE LAST PLACE THE MAN WILL BE??!! MAYBE HE IS HIDING IN THE OPEN, DEFYING ALL THE "ASSUMPTIONS" THAT HAVE BEEN MADE!!

TODAY - - OF COURSE, IS 9/11!! AND IT DOES SURPRISE ME THAT BIN LADEN HAS NOT BEEN RUN TO GROUND AND EITHER KILLED OR CAPTURED.

There is precedent for this sort of thing!! During the time of the British Raj [1920's], a fugitive from governmental authority, a Pushtun agitator - - on the run - - hiding in the Swat valley, the North West territories, the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, eluded his pursuers - - and did so FOR DECADES!!

This precedent does not bode well for U.S. efforts in the hunt for bin Laden!

coolbert.