The crying foul of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try captured Al Qaeda members in U.S. Federal courts in New York, seems to have calmed down somewhat since the news that a surge in the number of U.S. Troops (30,000 ) going to Afghanistan has been announced, and the Obama administration is making a real effort to now focus on the main street economy of the average American.
But even as President Obama announced the troop increase in parts of Afghanistan, he invoked the memory of 9/11 and the terror attacks that took place on that day. And although it is perhaps proper, and one can probably make a good case that all those who engage in such heinous acts should be labeled terrorists, there is another school of thought that claims these international networks are nothing but criminal gangs who engage in unlawful activity in order to fund their operations, using the terror of violence as a means to further their particular religious, political, social and financial agendas.
The New Al-Qaeda
In a series of articles by BBC News correspondent Peter Taylor, which appeared on BBC News.com, Taylor makes the argument that a new Al-Qaeda has emerged, one that is seeking to become more mainstream and has adopted Western dress and lifestyles as a cover for their activities. The latest nuance seems related to Al-Qaeda's varied recruitment of operatives from accomplished professionals to drug dealers and other criminals into their ranks.
According to Taylor, the profiles of these new recruits known as Takfiris, could not be further from the common image of a classic international terrorist. They can be doctors and PhD-trained professionals as those that took part in the Glasgow, Scotland Airport attack in 2007. Or, they could look and act like ordinary citizens, similar to the group of 3-5 people who recently committed an act of sabotage by derailing the Nevsky Express, (a luxury train that runs between between Moscow and St. Petersburg). Taylor says they may also have ties to powerful Latin American drug lords, seeking to take advantage of decades-old drug and human smuggling networks into the United States.
Al Qaeda an International Criminal Gang
In a 2001, Time Magazine article called Hate Club, by Michael Elliot, describes Al Qaeda's criminal enterprises that stretch from drug dealing with the Taliban in Afghanistan, to supporting instability and international piracy in Somalia, to using Yemeni corporations to funnel cash to operations and operatives around the world, or actually hiding in Yemen, often with government approval. In Algeria, Al Qaeda has ties to the Armed Islamic group (gia), and has joined Islamic fighters in Chechnya and Bosnia and worked with extremist groups in the Philippines. In addition, Al Qaeda cells have been broken up in the United States, Italy, France , Spain, Germany, Albania Uganda, and elsewhere. And many of these organizations seem to have had crime as a root element of their modus operandi and factored prominently in their ultimate goals.
In a November 2008 article, Danger Room Debrief: Gang Threat Could Top Al Qaeda. Mr. President-Elect, written by Noah Shachtman, the rapidly evolving danger of nacro-cartels and gangs is discussed in the online magazine WIRED. In the article, Lieutenant John P. Sullivan, the co-founder of the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning group within the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, states that the drug mafias have abandoned subtle co-option of the government and instead are embracing active violence to secure safe havens to ply their trade. This de facto criminal insurgency (similar in many ways to the ones in Afghanistan and Pakistan) threatens the stability of the Mexican state.
Shactman and Sullivan go on to detail how the ungoverned, lawless zones the gangs and cartels leave in their wake provide fertile ground for extremists and terrorists to exploit. Terrorists, gangs and organized crime can exist as independent threats, but increasingly they interact in a number different ways. Terrorists or insurgents may exploit organized crime, criminal gangs may act as middle men in small arms, explosives or human trafficking; drugs may finance operations and actors on both sides...may conduct or facilitate attacks for each other.
Combating Al Qaeda Calls for New Tactics
Perhaps in understanding the redesigned Al Qaeda, new and better tactics can be employed to stamp out the threat this global organization presents to world stability and security. In his book, Transformation Under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights, author Douglas A. Macgregor discusses the changes that the United States armed forces, especially the Army has undertaken to combat post 9/11 threats. Macgregor mentions that military power is no longer based on the mobilization of the manpower and resources of the entire nation-state, but rather on professional armies that can rapidly respond to a very wide range of military [and civilian] contingencies on short notice.
Col. Macgregor goes on to say that throwing masses of men, firepower, and material at unconventional enemies does not compensate properly to combat the current threats that are a combination of capability and proliferation. Many military experts point to the continued but broader use of financial incentives along with an increased ability to disrupt the material and financial support which flows to these criminal organizations along with a larger U.S. and NATO presence as a good start; not only in Afghanistan, but Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen as well.
However the military used as a fighting force alone may not prevail against these international criminal organizations. In their book The Counterterrorism Handbook: Tactics, Procedures, and Techniques, authors Frank Bolz, Kenneth J. Dudonis, and David P. Schulz,suggest the use of confidential informants and other human intelligence is considered vital to any program to combat criminal activity, terrorist or otherwise, in addition to the use of special forces and black ops. With the goal of capture and hold of those people who would seek to run criminal organizations with the intent of harming innocent civilians, or cooperating with or give comfort to, or harbor those individuals that committed these acts, in an attempt to keep them away from justice.
Utilizing the International Court at the Hague
According to author Paul Wilkinson in his book, Terrorism Verses Democracy: The Liberal State Response the efforts to develop international cooperation against terrorism goes back to the 1930's when King Alexander of Yugoslavia and French foreign minister Louis Barthou were assassinated at Marseilles and led France to propose the creation of an international criminal court to try terrorist criminals.
Today, many legal experts think that Instead of holding many of these criminal terrorist suspects in a place like the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or in penal institutions in the affected countries, perhaps facilities at the International Criminal Court or World Court at the Hague could be enhanced and utilized to forgo any further trauma to the victims of these criminal conspiracies.
Paul Hamilton - My name is Paul Edward Hamilton, I am a current contributing writer for Suite 101 and Examiner.com and post things that I write on ...
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