On Thursday, January 7, Barack Obama appeared before the cameras for the fourth time since December 25, trying to explain how his administration had so thoroughly bungled events leading up to the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Confronted with a terrorist act by a young Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Obama Administration mumbled, fumbled, misconstrued and misrepresented.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0It\u2019s not as if the Nigerian suddenly appeared out of nowhere.\u00a0 He first came to the attention of British MI5 while a student at University College London.\u00a0 During that period he had repeated contacts with radical Islamists who were themselves the subjects of wiretaps, email intercepts, and other forms of surveillance.\u00a0 As a result, his British entry visa was revoked and he was under surveillance by British intelligence for several years prior to December 25, 2009.<\/p>\n
Approximately four months ago the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted \u201cchatter\u201d among al Qaeda leaders in Yemen in which they discussed using a \u201cNigerian\u201d in a planned terrorist attack against the U.S.\u00a0 The intercepts were translated and disseminated to all of the appropriate intelligence services, including the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), months before Abdulmutallab boarded Flight 253 in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
Then, in November, Abdulmutallab\u2019s father\u2019s visited the U.S. embassy in Lagos, informing our State Department and the CIA that his son had been radicalized by Muslim fanatics and that he feared his son would commit an act of terror.\u00a0 As a result, Abdulmutallab\u2019s name was added to the NCTC\u2019S Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) list\u2026 a list containing the names of some 550,000 individuals\u2026 but no one in the U.S. intelligence community was able to connect the necessary dots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the Times of London<\/em> editorialized, \u201cOne would have thought that a warning about Abdulmutallab’s possible involvement with terrorists, by<\/em> his own father no less<\/em>, a former top official in a government friendly to Washington, numerous NSA intercepts, a CIA dossier and MI5 reports would have raised at least one<\/em> red flag!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not what happened.\u00a0 Abdulmutallab paid $2,800 in cash (red flag) for a one-way ticket (red flag), boarded planes in Lagos and Amsterdam with no checked baggage (red flag), and traveled to Detroit under a 2-year entry visa that should have been cancelled the moment his name appeared on a terrorist watch list (red flag).\u00a0 As the London Examiner<\/em> described it, \u201cIn the suspect’s case, there were so many red flags flying you\u2019d have thought the Red Army was parading through Amsterdam\u2019s Schiphol Airport!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As news of the foiled bombing spread around the globe, Obama and his team sprang into action.\u00a0 Obama took time out from a round of golf in Hawaii to make a phone call to his national security advisors: Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, and NCTC Director Michael E. Leiter\u2026 who also was upset to be interrupted in the midst of a round of golf.<\/p>\n Napolitano went before the TV cameras in a hastily-called press conference to announce that \u201cthe system worked.\u201d\u00a0 It was the most inane statement by a public official since Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) described his colleague, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), a former Grand Kleagle of the KKK, as a man who would have been \u201ca great senator at any moment\u201d in our nation\u2019s history.\u00a0 However, when asked by CNN’s Candy Crowley how that could be possible when Abdulmutallab was able to smuggle an explosive compound onto the aircraft, Napolitano responded, \u201cWe’re asking the same questions.\u201d\u00a0 She went on to say that there was no suggestion that Abdulmutallab was \u201cimproperly screened.\u201d<\/p>\n But it was left to Obama himself to prove how totally clueless he and his top aides really are.\u00a0 Waiting a full 72 hours to publicly comment on what was only the most recent terrorist attack of his time in the Oval Office, Obama described Abdulmutallab as an \u201cisolated extremist<\/em>\u201d and the event itself as an \u201cattempted<\/em> terrorist attack<\/em>\u201d in\u00a0 which a passenger \u201callegedly<\/em>\u201d tried to ignite an explosive device aboard an aircraft.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s fellow Chicagoan, Al Capone, once said, \u201cYou can go a long way with a smile.\u00a0 You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.\u201d\u00a0 In prosecuting the War on Terror, it appears to be the one lesson that Obama has learned.\u00a0 It is the basis for his approach to al Qaeda but it doesn\u2019t go nearly far enough, as evidenced by his fourth public clarification on Thursday, January 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n In announcing a series of four steps his administration would be taking to prevent any similar attacks from occurring, he said, \u201cIn our ever-changing world, America\u2019s first line of defense <\/em>is timely, accurate, intelligence that is shared, integrated, analyzed, and acted upon swiftly and effectively.\u201d\u00a0 He said not a word about going on the offensive<\/em> against al Qaeda.\u00a0 Unlike James Monroe, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, Obama appears incapable of drawing a line in the sand\u2026 of saying \u201cthis far, and no farther!\u201d\u00a0 Obama appears wedded to the concept of winning by playing only defense, hoping he can score enough points to win victory.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work that way on the football field and it certainly doesn\u2019t work that way in war.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Considering the nature of our enemy, it becomes immediately evident that the United States, even with all of our NATO allies and the Israelis behind us, cannot win a war of attrition against the forces of radical Islam.\u00a0 We cannot win a war in which they kill 3,000 of our people, we take a year to kill 30,000 of their people, they kill another 3,000 of us, we take a year or two to kill another 30,000 of them, etc., etc., etc.\u00a0 The Muslim Umma now numbers somewhere near 1.6 billion people and they have a birth rate that far exceeds that of any Western nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n So we cannot win a war of attrition against Islam, nor is it even remotely conceivable that the United States would ever consider a war of annihilation, using unremitting nuclear carpet bombing as an alternative\u2026 but we MUST win this war.\u00a0 So how do we approach the problem?<\/p>\n In a recent column, titled \u201cChuck de Caros\u2019s War,\u201d we discussed the benefits of Information Warfare (SOFTWAR), the subject matter of de Caro\u2019s lectures at the National Defense University, the National Defense Intelligence College, the Naval Post Graduate School, the Air War College, the Army Command and General Staff School, and many other Department of Defense institutions.<\/p>\n De Caro defines SOFTWAR as \u201cthe hostile use of global television to shape another society\u2019s will by changing its view of reality.\u201d (See http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KlkLufUU-iI<\/span><\/a><\/span>)\u00a0 But is it possible that Obama, inexperienced and na\u00efve as he is, has the ability to comprehend what it might take to defeat al Qaeda by \u201cchanging its view of reality?\u201d\u00a0 And if he is capable of understanding the concept, is he willing and able to undertake the effort?\u00a0<\/p>\n As de Caro points out in his lectures, \u201cSimply killing or capturing radical Islamic terrorists as a way of winning a globally distributed guerilla war is much like the inept mechanic who reacts to an engine warning light by cutting the wires to the light. \u00a0The problem still exists and it’s in the ENGINE! The engine in the case under consideration here is the widely dispersed al Qaeda body politic which is hiding like a cancer\u00a0in the\u00a0vastly larger\u00a0Umma, which, in turn, is composed of all the believers of Islam.<\/p>\n \u201cThus while there are those among us who would happily don a ski mask and shoulder an MP-5SD3 (silenced submachine gun) to do some serious counter<\/em>-terrorism, what is really needed is a major program of anti<\/em>-terrorism to stem the flow of new <\/em>al Qaeda recruits from the Umma. \u00a0To do that we will need a huge, well funded and coordinated campaign of strategic communications, public diplomacy,\u00a0and information warfare in\u00a0all its forms.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight now,\u201d says de Caro, \u201cthe United States has five\u00a0major organizations doing information projection around the globe: the State Department, the Department of Defense, the White House, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the CIA.\u00a0 But all are grossly under-funded for an operation of the kind needed to confront al Qaeda, and they are grossly undermanned, having few, if any, experts who know how to create a global television and\/or Internet campaign over a generation or two.\u00a0 Worst of all, there is no coherent strategy or leadership. \u00a0Period!\u201d<\/p>\n Given the poor quality and the inexperience of Obama\u2019s closest advisors, is there one among them who understands that going on the offensive against al Qaeda involves, first of all, putting limits on its size and growth?\u00a0 Or that, in order to undertake such a critical offensive, we must become more adept at the use of tools such as global television, motion pictures, and the Internet than are the leaders of al Qaeda and the Islamist jihad?<\/p>\n The goal of radical Islam, led by al Qaeda, is a worldwide Caliphate in which every non-Muslim will have three choices: 1) Convert to Islam, 2) Refuse to convert but pay tribute, or 3) Be killed.\u00a0 Breaking that trilogy of horrors will require a lot of effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n As de Caro explains, \u201cOnce you understand that a monothesistic Islamic world is al Qaeda\u2019s ultimate goal, the first thing to attack is their basic strategy for achieving that goal. \u00a0That strategy is a hybrid product of warfare and marketing which uses high explosives in the same way that Hollywood uses publicity stunts and celebrity tours.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThus, al Qaeda uses kinetic weapons (heat, blast, and fragmentation) to create information.\u00a0 And once an event has been created, they use the most powerful inventions of the information age, instantaneous global television and the Internet, to justify their righteousness to the Umma, to recruit new jihadists, and to spread fear and terror throughout the non-Muslim world.\u00a0 The great irony is that we created global television and the Internet and that our enemy, al Qaeda, now uses it effectively against us.\u00a0<\/p>\n As de Caro explains, \u201cOur military uses all manner of information to support the accuracy and effectiveness of its weapons.\u00a0 Al Qaeda, on the other hand, uses its comparatively crude weapons\u2026 suicide bombers, IED\u2019s, etc\u2026 to create the information necessary to propel its ideals.\u00a0 Unless the five aforementioned agencies of government grasp this fundamental truth, we cannot win.\u00a0 We may not lose, but we will spend hundreds of billions of dollars and we will not emerge as a clear victor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the suicide bomber who murdered the CIA and Blackwater personnel in Khost, had a well-lighted, well-scripted,\u00a0and ready-to-distribute video in the can before<\/em> <\/strong>he set off his bomb, demonstrates the al Qaeda\u00a0strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n George W. Bush understood the gravity of the situation, but one wonders whether Obama has the intellect to share that understanding.\u00a0 He is given credit for having surrounded himself with a great many bright people.\u00a0 However, it is doubtful that Obama himself, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and all thirty-five or forty White House czars, taken together, could formulate a single cogent proposal for a SOFTWAR campaign against al Qaeda.\u00a0<\/p>\n During World War II, FDR had his Bill Donovan, and Donovan had radio and television pioneer David Sarnoff and movie producers Frank Capra, and John Ford. \u00a0So the question arises, does Obama have a modern day Bill Donovan at his disposal, and does he understand the problem well enough to assemble a team capable of exploiting the unique capabilities of television and the Internet as the principal weapons in a global SOFTWAR offensive?\u00a0 Time is running short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During World War II, FDR had his Bill Donovan, and Donovan had radio and television pioneer David Sarnoff and movie producers Frank Capra, and John Ford. So the question arises, does Obama have a modern day Bill Donovan at his disposal, and does he understand the problem well enough to assemble a team capable of exploiting the unique capabilities of television and the Internet as the principal weapons in a global SOFTWAR offensive? Continue reading