Showing posts with label War on Terror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War on Terror. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Inside Story - Is the War on Terror Failing?


The topic of terrorism has been at the forefront of world politics for many years. Attacks on western soil dominate the news for weeks after they happen, and the Iraq and Syria wars against ISIL is regularly centrestage on our TV screens.

The subject was on the agenda at the recent BRICS conference in China, and will debated at the upcoming UN General Assembly. This week it's catapulted back into the spotlight for an obvious reason, the 16th anniversary of 9/11.

The September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001 have largely defined U.S. foreign policy since, and affected lives throughout the world. Almost 3000 people were killed when hijackers flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon.

And the attacks triggered a series of events including new wars, new immigration policies, and new prejudices.

What will it take to defeat terror?

Presenter: Jane Dutton | Guests: Max Abrahms, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University; Jim Walsh, Senior Research Associate with MIT's Security Studies Program; Joseph Kechichian, Senior Fellow at the King Faisal Center in Riyadh


Tuesday, December 08, 2015

Monday, November 30, 2015

France: Climate Change as Much a Priority as the War on Terror - Hollande at COP21


Tackling climate change alongside terrorism is among the major global challenges that must be overcome, said French President Hollande in Paris, Monday, adding "we must leave our children more than a planet free of terror."

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Huckabee on War on Terror: 'It's Put Up or Shut Up Time'


Nov. 17, 2015 - 5:09 - Republican presidential candidate says the West is engaged in a battle with 'complete barbarism'

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Comfort for Chaos: 'Al-Qaeda Metastasizes in Mid-East Due to US War on Terror'


Al-Qaeda affiliated groups have been taking advantage of the ongoing civil war by gaining control over chunks of Northern Syria. RT's Gayane Chichakyan investigates how the uprising's breathing new life into the militant organization.

Saturday, June 29, 2013


Woolwich Message: UK Faces Grim Legacy of 'Peacekeeping'

The growing threat of terrorism is appearing at the top of the agenda of the UK government, as the intelligence agencies and armed forces come out as winners in the spending review. It comes just over a month since the brutal machete murder of a British soldier in London, which the killers said was revenge for the UK's military campaigns, but there are mounting doubts over whether the war on terror is actually making Brits safe. The UK intelligence agencies will be getting 100 million pounds annually from 2015. The Treasury Head George Osborne said it's because they are 'on the frontline' and need a boost to their resources. George Galloway joins RT to talk about it.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Listening Post: The Dangers of Reporting the 'War on Terror'

We look at Obama's role in the continued imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist and the issues behind it.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Friday, January 08, 2010

Obama: "We Are at War"

CBS NEWS: President Obama Thursday afternoon publicly called for the intelligence community to do better in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt. In the process, he offered a response to critics on the right who have complained that he has not used rhetoric indicating the seriousness of the situation.

"While passions and politics can often obscure the hard work before us, let's be clear about what this moment demands," the president said. "We are at war." >>> Brian Montopoli | Thursday, January 07, 2010

Wednesday, January 06, 2010


Sicherheitsgipfel im Weißen Haus: Obama wird zum Anti-Terror-Präsidenten

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Er wollte mit der Kriegspolitik seines Vorgängers George W. Bush brechen - doch seit dem vereitelten Detroit-Anschlag ist klar: Auch für Barack Obama wird der Terrorkampf zum Kerngeschäft. Die Rede nach dem Sicherheitsgipfel zeigt, wie sehr die neue Rolle seinen Regierungsstil verändern wird.

Der Präsident lässt sich Zeit - und das macht sein Problem nur noch offensichtlicher. Im Situation Room des Weißen Hauses sitzt Barack Obama mit gut zwei Dutzend seiner wichtigsten Sicherheitsberater zusammen. Der FBI-Chef hält einen Vortrag, ebenso die Heimatschutzministerin und der Justizminister, fast zwei Stunden dauert das Treffen schon. Seit 30 Minuten wird Obama im Foyer zu einer kurzen Ansprache an die Nation erwartet. Die Kameras sind aufgebaut. Doch er kommt nicht.

Also schalten die TV-Sender nach Minneapolis um. Am dortigen Flughafen riegeln Polizisten gerade Gebäude ab, weil ein verdächtiges Gepäckstück gefunden wurde. Die Aufnahmen zeigen Absperrungen, aufgeregte Sicherheitsbeamte, ängstliche Passagiere - wie schon ein paar Stunden zuvor nach einer ähnlichen Warnung an einem kleinen Flughafen in Kalifornien.

Die Bilder machen klar: Auch Obama ist nun ein Terror-Präsident - knapp ein Jahr nach seinem Amtsantritt. Sein Sprecher Robert Gibbs spricht schon vom "War on Terror", als regiere noch George W. Bush.

Als dann die Sitzung endlich vorbei ist, tritt Obama vor die Kameras. Ein Helfer hat rasch noch den Redetext hingelegt. Der Präsident spricht ohne Teleprompter. Diesmal geht es ihm nicht um rhetorische Höhenflüge, sondern um klare Ansagen - zum gescheiterten Terroranschlag an Weihnachten, als dem Nigerianer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab um ein Haar ein Attentat auf den Northwest-Airlines-Flug nach Detroit gelungen wäre. "Wir müssen besser werden" >>> Von Gregor Peter Schmitz, Washington | Mittwoch, 06. Januar 2010

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Is There a War on the Term 'War on Terror'

abcNEWS – Blogs: Is there a war on the term "War on Terror"?

Apparently not.

But that doesn't mean there's nothing to the story.

After days of confusion and denial about whether the Obama administration was officially no longer using the term "War on Terror," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that the Obama administration is no longer speaking of a "War on Terror."

"I haven't gotten any directive about using it or not using it. It's just not being used," said Clinton during a briefing with reporters aboard her plane to the Hague to attend an international conference on Afghanistan.

"The administration has stopped using the phrase and I think that speaks for itself," she said at a different point during her trip. "Obviously."

The discontinuation of the term "War on Terror" marks a departure from the practice of the Bush administration which began using the phrase in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. >>> Jake Tapper, Teddy Davis, and Kirit Radia | Monday, March 30, 2009

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Ophir Falk* – Opinion: Thank You, President Bush

YNET NEWS: George W. Bush led war against terror and should be thanked for that

“Obama Mania” has swept the land of the free and quarters of the oppressed. For good reason. Barack Obama brings hope and ambition for a better day. But even during days of high hopes and clear clouds we should keep our sights on the key issues, give credit where credit is due and define the main mission ahead.

Recent polls depict President George W. Bush as one of the worst American presidents ever. Bush mismanaged the New Orleans hurricane relief efforts and the US economy, which led to grave consequences for millions of Americans and adversely affected global prosperity and livelihood. But at the end of the day, these effects will be no more than footnotes in the Bush legacy.

History will judge Bush on the war he led as leader of the world's only superpower against militant Islam, or in his words, "The War on Terror."

With the privilege of hindsight, it can clearly be determined that few global leaders or statesmen in the course of history were able to grasp the moment and truly address the issue of their time in the manner Winston Churchill did prior to and during Word War II. Yet while leading his people during the dark days of the Battle of Britain and on various other fronts, he earned little recognition from his constituencies, losing their vote after the war. But, once the dust had settled and after all was said and done, the Free World knew that Churchill had led his people through their "finest hour."

George W. Bush is no Winston Churchill; not even close. But he grasped the moment and boldly addressed the issue of our time - The War on Terror. Critics jabber Bush as a simple-minded man who sees things in terms of "true" or "false" - "black" or "white," rather than vetting through the gray.

Perhaps, but in the war on terror there is no room for ambiguities, or in the words of President Bush, "you're either with us or against us." President Bush led the confrontation against terror and should be thanked for that. >>> Ophir Falk, Israel Opinion | Sunday, January 25, 2009

* The author is a Partner at the Naveh, Kantor, Even-Har Law firm and a research fellow at the International Counter-Terrorism Center in Herzliya

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Monday, October 08, 2007

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: ‘War on Terror’ or ‘War on Islam’

With many thanks to Pastorius whose blog entry at the Infidel Bloggers Alliance alerted me to the following excellent video:



Mark Alexander

Thursday, September 13, 2007

We Are Not Winning the War on Islamic Terrorism!

The reason we are failing in our attempts to deal with the threat of Al-Qa’eda and Islamic terrorism is simple: We are trying to eliminate the threat by treating the symptoms, not the disease. A cancer cannot be treated in this way. A cancer has to be excised if a doctor is to effect a satisfactory cure. If the cancer is not excised, then that cancer will simply metastasize. This is precisely what is happening with Islamic terrorism: It is metastasizing! And go on metastasizing it will until our leaders have the courage and insight to identify the problem. In order to win a war, you have to know your enemy. It is imperative; otherwise the war will be lost.

In this particular instance, there is much at stake. In short, our civilization is at stake!

It is high time for the US and its allies to change tactics. Time is not on our side.
THE TELEGRAPH: The al-Qa'eda terror organisation of Osama bin Laden is as strong today as it was six years ago during the September 11 attacks and retains the capability to carry out similar atrocities, according to a report by one of Britain's leading think tanks.

"Core" al-Qa'eda is proving adaptable and resilient and has retained the ability to plan and co-ordinate large-scale attacks in the Western world, says the Strategic Survey published yesterday by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Nigel Inkster, a former director for operations and intelligence for MI6, who contributed to the al-Qa'eda section of the report, said it showed that the tactics being used in the war on terrorism were proving ineffective.

"The bottom line is that for six years the United States and its allies have been struggling to eliminate this threat and it is becoming increasingly clear that they have not succeeded in doing so," said Mr Inkster. Al-Qa'eda 'as strong today as it was on 9/11' (more) By Con Coughlin
Mark Alexander

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

9/11 Six Years On: Time to “Fess Up”

FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS: Six years after 9/11, the evidence is mounting that we will lose the war on terror unless we change our policies radically and soon.

Sun Tzu teaches that to win a war, one must know who the enemy is. Paradoxical as it may sound in late 2007, there is no sound reason to believe that the Bush Administration knows who the enemy is, let alone how to go about defeating it.

Officially, we’re fighting a war against terror, but terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy, and one does not win wars by fighting tactics. Yet the enemy is very real and formidable. Armed with a murderous ideology, it has a worldwide support and recruitment infrastructure, virtually unlimited financing, and single-minded commitment to the destruction of our civilization. Whether we call it Islamism, radical Islam or Islamofascism, it is an aggressive and violent millenarian movement no less reactionary and dangerous than its totalitarian predecessors Nazism and Communism. While this reality is occasionally admitted, not once has Washington “fessed up” to the fact that the threat we are currently facing would have never reached the critical levels it has without nearly thirty years of massive ideological, financial and operational sponsorship by the three pillars of Islamic extremism – Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran.

Saudi Arabia, by spending untold billions for the export of its hateful Wahhabi creed and building the infrastructures of Islamism worldwide; Pakistan, by serving as the world’s largest breeding grounds of Islamic terrorists with the full knowledge of its military and intelligence services; Iran, by openly and aggressively supporting terrorism everywhere even as it seeks to become a nuclear power.

This disastrous state of affairs that the Bush Administration stubbornly refuses to acknowledge was again demonstrated last week in the failed German terrorist plot against U.S. military facilities. According to German government sources, the conspirators were radicalized to the point of planning mass murder in the Wahhabi-controlled “Multicultural House” and the Islamic Information Center in Ulm, and received terrorist training in Pakistan in 2006 – five years after Pakistan, alongside Saudi Arabia, became our “strategic allies” in the war against terror.

The results of Washington’s egregious strategic myopia are clear for everyone to see. We have allowed Iran, which is now directly involved in killing our soldiers, and Saudi Arabia, which provides 50% of the suicide bombers in Iraq, to systematically undermine our efforts there with impunity, making it highly unlikely that the current successes in the surge campaign will last. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has received a new lease on life thanks to unimpeded access and supplies from across the border in the Northwest Frontier Province, which has itself become Talibanized on Musharaf’s watch, and countless Jihadi training camps are again open for business as in the good old pre-9/11 days. Throw in the huge strides the Islamists have made in places like Turkey, Nigeria, Thailand and in the rapidly growing Muslim communities in Europe and the United States, and there is little reason to be sanguine about the Bush Administration’s legacy on national security.

If there is a bright side to this somber picture, it would be the realization that if our president for the past seven years had been named Gore or Kerry we would have very likely already implemented the preemptive surrender option their democratic colleagues in Congress are clamoring for. It is a very small consolation.

- FSM Contributing Editor Alex Alexiev is co-executive producer of Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center and a partner with Martyn Burke and Frank Gaffney in ABG Films Inc. [Source: Bush has Failed By Alex Alexiev]

Mark Alexander

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Gordon Brown Proposes Nonsense: He Wants to Call Islamic Terrorism a Crime Instead of Calling It By Its Real Name: The Jihad!

BARNABUS [FUND] COMMUNIQUE: A shift has been taking place in UK government ministries as to the terminology used to describe the terrorist threat faced by Britain. The Foreign Office has advised ministers to abandon the use of terms such as 'war against terror', 'Islamic terrorism' and 'Islamist terrorism'. The idea is that these terms antagonise the British Muslim community and increase tensions with the wider Muslim world. Using military terminology is seen as counter-productive, contributing to the isolating of communities from each other. According to proponents of this shift, such terms imply a conflict of religions and link Islam, the religion of peace, with terrorism and radicalism. They hold that the widespread use of such terms serves only to alienate and radicalise more Muslims who would otherwise be happy to integrate into a cohesive British society. Terrorists, they believe, use the sense of crisis engendered by the discourse on a 'clash of civilisation' and a 'war against Islamic terrorism' to recruit supporters who feel that Islam is being attacked and that Muslims must defend themselves. Abandoning such terms, according to the Foreign Office, will avoid empowering the terrorists' narrative and weaken the trend to radicalisation.[1] The controversy over terrorism terminology (more)

Mark Alexander

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Holy War Against the West Goes On! Al-Qaïda Threatens UK with Reprisals for Salman Rushdie’s Knighthood

THE TELEGRAPH: Osama Bin Laden's second in command issued a warning yesterday that Britain faced fresh terror attacks as ''punishment'' for Salman Rushdie's knighthood.

The threat - addressed directly to Gordon Brown - came in a 20-minute audio-tape posted on jihadi websites by Ayman al-Zawahiri.

He threatened ''a very precise response'' in retaliation against Britain for having knighted the controversial novelist in the Queen's Birthday Honours last month. Salman Rushdie honour enrages Al-Qa'eda (more) Philip Johnston

TELEGRAPH SPEAKERS’ CORNER: Rushdie knighthood: Foolhardy or brave?

TIMESONLINE: Al-Qaeda deputy threatens retaliation for Rushdie knighthood Michael Evans

THE GUARDIAN: Al-Qaida’s deputy leader threatens retaliation for Rushdie’s knighthood Ian Black in Cairo