So why do attacks keep happening here [Europe]? And why, since the horror of 9-11, has America avoided another assault?
Karl-Heinz Kamp, the security policy coordinator at Germany’s prestigious Konrad Adenauer research center, said it was easy to understand why.
“The U.S. has a historical advantage; America is still the land of opportunity to the whole world. The people moving there believe the American dream of social mobility,” he said. “In Europe, we’ve historically treated our immigrants as hired help, and waited for them to finish the work they arrived for and go home.”
Bob Ayers, a security and terrorism expert with London’s Chatham House, a foreign-policy research center, thinks that immigrants to the U.S. actually become Americans, giving the United States a huge advantage in avoiding homegrown al Qaida terrorists. Europeans encourage immigrants to retain their native cultures, causing them to be ostracized more readily.
“The Islamic population in the United States is better assimilated into the general population, whereas here, in Germany, in France, they’re very much on the outside looking in,” he said. “When people get disaffected, sadly, there’s not much loyalty to country in that sort of situation.”
There is quite a bit to this–in Europe is it is difficult, if not impossible, for first-generation immigrants to achieve citizenship in their new country-indeed, it is often a trial for second and third generations to do so. Many in the anti-immigration faction often malign the application of the 14th Amendment that results in all being born on US soil automatically gaining US citizenship, but that provision does simplify a situation that otherwise would be radically complicated and it is one that automatically offers hope to the progeny of all who immigrate to the US. Yes, there are problems that emerge, such as children who are citizens and parents who are illegally in the country, but that beats the kinds of problems we have seen in recent years in places like France and Britain. Hope is a very important human emotion, and knowledge of the security of one’s children is a driving force in our behavior. In the US an immigrant (legal or illegal) knows that any of their children born in the US will have citizenship, and therefore a significant amount of security. Such a situation creates a forward-thinking attitude that is infused with hope. This is not the case for most (all?)* immigrants to Europe.
If the concern is that migrant groups will not assimilate into the culture, it is rather obvious that in Europe, where citizenship is either impossible to achieve or is extremely difficult to acquire, that assimilation is more difficult over time and that the only option for immigrants to is to live in semi-autonomous enclaves.
Now, I would agree that part of the appeal of Europe is that it is easier to get to than is the US (there’s that whole ocean thing)–however, the 7/7/05 attackers in London were home-grown types. And, indeed, the primary concern in the UK has been about existing communities and the ability of Islamists to radicalize those groups. If one considers all the pent-up frustration (and sometimes not so pent-up) of North African immigrants in France of late, one can see how it is easier in Europe to radicalize members of those populations. These are problems we don’t have in the US.
* I am not an expert on the citizenship laws of various European states, but am aware that guest-worker policies have long created a situation in which first generation immigrants have no chance of citizenship in many locales. Germany, for example, has long had such policies. I want to say that in the German case that citizenship doesn’t become easy until the third generation, but it has been a while since I reviewed those rules. I am unaware of any 14th Amendment-like policies in Europeans countries (i.e., where birth alone confers citizenship regardless of the legal status of the parent).
If anyone has specific knowledge of citizenship rules for migrant workers and their children, please feel free to share.
I suspect a simpler explanation: Country of origin.
Most of the Islamist terrorists are Pakistani or Arab Muslims. Arabs in the US are disproportionately Christians; there are very few Arab Muslim communities in which potential terrorists might be bred and hidden. Most American Muslims are either native-born African-Americans or are from South and Southeast Asia (where radical Islam is less established). There are hardly any Pakistani communities in the US.
Meanwhile, the UK has a huge Pakistani immigrant population and it is within those communities that most of the cells have formed or hid. There are also substantial communities from the former British colonies in the Arab world.
Also, on many indicators, Britain’s Muslims are better integrated than America’s. One of the shadow ministers of the Conservative Party is a Muslim, for example. When will the Republicans have one of their leaders a Muslim? And there are several Muslim members of parliament in the UK, and nothing especially controversial about that. It was rather controversial in some quarters here when the first Muslim (native-born and African-American) was elected to Congress just last year.
Are UK immigration laws as strict as you characterize? There is indeed no equivalent to the 14th Amendment. But there is the Commonwealth, and citizens of those countries (which include Pakistan) do have certain privileged access.
I wonder (because I really do not know) what the Commonwealth benefits are. To what degree is an about movement and residency and how much of it is about citizenship?
I think that the issue about one’s children’s status is key.
It is something to look into.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Monday, July 9, 2024 @ 11:50 am
Can’t help very much as to the UK, the issue has never really come up for me. But - from my passport - there are various types of citizenship and national status, in addition to British citizen: British national, British Dependent Territories citizen, British Nationals (Overseas), British Overseas citizen, British protected person and British subject. None of these, apart from British citizen, result in right of abode in the UK. I’ve not much time (exams) or I’d look into this further…
As far as Portugal is concerned, acquiring Portuguese nationality seems to be fairly easy, even for first generation immigrants. Marriage to Portuguese person after 3 years will do it, or meeting a number of conditions such as:
residam em território português ou sob administração portuguesa, com título válido de autorização de residência, há pelo menos, 6 ou 10 anos…;
conheçam suficientemente a língua portuguesa;
comprovem a existência de uma ligação efectiva à comunidade nacional;
possuam capacidade para reger a sua pessoa e assegurar a sua subsistência; …
As a rule, children born here automatically earn Portuguese nationality, even if both parents are foreign (happened to me.)
Sorry about copy-pasting in Portuguese but I know you’ll understand it…
Ireland had a law written into its constitution allowing citizenship for anyone born while in the country and this law was a disaster during its last decade before being rescinded. A truly enormous number of London-resident young women (mostly young African women but also some other) slipped into Ireland during the last stages of pregancy since there is no passport control with the UK, quickly had their baby in a hospital in Ireland, and then demanded citizenship for their child, and associated legal residency for themself. It was such a huge wave of people doing this that 1 out of 3 births in Dublin during the latter stages of the law’s existence were in this category.
Ireland had to go to enormous trouble and expense to re-write the constitution and have the changes to the law endorsed by national referendum. The tens of thousands of young women and their children who had gotten in before the changes are still there and unlikely to ever leave.
Comment by Tom Connor — Tuesday, July 10, 2024 @ 4:24 am
My sister married a Brit, and in order just to be legal there all of her immediate family had to give her affidavits of net worth, apparently to show that she wasn’t a Trojan Horse, just waiting to let us in to go on the dole.
Comment by masaccio — Tuesday, July 10, 2024 @ 5:27 pm
By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.
The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London’s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists.
[…]
If the program is fully financed, it will include not only license plate readers but also 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, as well as a center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.
Given that we are primarily concerned about suicide bombers, it is unclear to me how these cameras are supposed to act as a deterrent. If being blown up in the act of the crime isn’t enough of a reason not to act, I somehow doubt being photographed while so doing will discourage the actors in question. Even those perpetrators who don’t engage in suicide bombing are so certain of their reward in the hereafter that it would seem that the possibility of being caught is not all that much of a deterrent–certainly the presence of all those cameras in London didn’t deter the 7/7/05 attacks, the 7/21/05 attempt nor the recent car bombing attempt . As such, I am not sure I buy the argument that such a system actually dissuades attacks.
That thousands of cameras can be useful in solving a crime after it happened I do not doubt. However, I can’t help but wonder whether that is worth the trade-offs that we have been engaging in post-9/11 wherein governmental authorities gather enormous amounts of data on the activities of the innocent.
BOY DID you say it. The only lives that have been changed by Sept. 11, 2024 have been OURS. The so-called ‘terrorists’ are skipping along all the same, eh?
I have my doubts that most of these folks are ‘terrorists’.
Just more rhetoric and fear from the bushites. Anyway, thanks for your article of common sense and clear thinking.
AT least one of the suspects being quizzed over the alleged plot to set off car bombs in Britain was in recent contact with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, senior security officials said yesterday.
Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command SO15 is understood to have uncovered evidence that in the months leading up to the attacks one or more of the suspects communicated by telephone or e-mail with terrorist leaders in Iraq.
The development has fuelled a theory that the failed attacks in London and Glasgow were designed as a farewell to Tony Blair to punish him for his role in Iraq. Details of the Al-Qaeda role in the three failed car bombings are expected to emerge over the next few days.
The development suggests that intelligence received by MI5 earlier this year about a possible Al-Qaeda attack to mark Blair’s departure was accurate. A report in April by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) warned that a senior Iraqi Al-Qaeda commander had outlined details of a big attack on Britain.
The report said the commander “stressed the need to take care to ensure the attack was successful and on a large scale”. It was aimed “ideally” to take place before Blair stepped down. It said JTAC, which is based at MI5’s London headquarters, was “aware that AQI [Al-Qaeda in Iraq] . . . networks are active in the UK”.
A key question that needs addressing is why it has been seemingly easier to radicalize persons in Britain/establish cells there than it has been in the US.
In regards to the AQI link, James Joyner rightly notes:
There’s a lot of speculation here. Basically, a terrorist in London at some time in the months leading up to the plot sent an email or made a phone call — we’re not sure — to “terrorist leaders” in Iraq. This, in turn, has led to some guessing — on the part of whom we don’t know — that there may be a connection.
I wonder if there is any validity to the theory it was a farewell to Blair, any evidence or if it is just speculation based on timing. If this bombing attempt was a farewell to Blair, what can we expect in Jan 2024 in the US?
Police in Australia have seized new evidence and questioned five more doctors over last week’s failed car bomb attacks in the UK.
Computers and other materials were taken from two Western Australian hospitals, one in Perth and one in the Outback mining town of Kalgoorlie.
Police said the doctors questioned had not been arrested.
The raids came as Australian police were given more time to question a relative of two men held in the UK.
This whole bombing-doctor business is quite odd, although I will confess as to not having paid great attention to all the details this week. Still, it is concerning that educated persons, indeed persons schooled to “do no harm” would be involved in such activities.
The Australia connection seems to be nothing more than checking on associates–although the seizing of computers indicates serious suspicions. Of course, I wouldn’t put it past government to over-react in a situation such as this.
This Jihadist ideology is not about money, education or personal comfort. It is about acquiring power over others to give yourself (the jihadist) a feeling of worthiness and meaning and righteousness. It means he is superior to the rest of us. And there is the bonus of having the deity approve. And it has been going on for a VERY long time . Hate your enemy is more viscerally satisfying than love your enemy.
What don’t you understand?
Prof.HMC
British police arrested a fifth person on Sunday after a fuel-filled jeep was rammed into Scotland’s busiest airport, a terrorist attack that police said was linked to two failed car bombings in London.
Three of the arrests were in northern England and followed the detention of two men, who witnesses described as Asian. They were seized on Saturday immediately after they slammed a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport and set the vehicle ablaze.
[…]
Outside Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, police in white body suits searched houses in a town a short drive from the airport and set up forensic tents behind one building.
Neighbors said two Asian men had moved into one of the houses a month ago but had kept very much to themselves.
“I don’t remember seeing them at all,” said Mae Gordon, 67. “They were the only people around here you would never see.”
Police said the three arrests in the north of England were related to both the Glasgow and the London attacks, but did not provide further details. Two of the arrests were made overnight on a major highway and the third was made later on Sunday.
Of the two men detained at Glasgow airport, one was badly burnt and listed in critical condition in hospital.
All of which amounts to not a whole lot of information on who these folks are.
The good news is that the attackers in this case don’t seem especially proficient, especially in terms of the Glasgow attack–for while it was dramatic, in terms of causing death and destruction, dousing the car in gasoline and igniting it isn’t a devastating weapon. And hopefully the London car bombs failed due to lack of expertise.
A US military judge has thrown out charges against two Guantanamo Bay detainees, casting fresh doubt on efforts to try foreign terror suspects.
Both cases collapsed because military authorities had failed to designate the men as “unlawful” enemy combatants.
[…]
Under a new system of military justice approved by Congress last year, detainees facing trial must be designated “unlawful enemy combatants”.
When they were assessed years earlier they were described only as “enemy combatants”. The word “unlawful” did not appear, giving the new tribunals no jurisdiction.
It seems the same may apply to all the other 380 detainees, leaving the tribunal system in legal limbo while Bush administration lawyers race to clarify the situation.
While it may seem like a formality, the issue of whether these combatants are “lawful” or not is quite significant. Indeed, much of the predicate of Gitmo is that we had to find a way to deal with a new kind of militant on the battlefield: a large number of unlawful combatants.
Sadly, this current turn of events is emblematic for this entire ill-fated policy in Guantanamo–poor planning, inadequate definition of concepts and goals, and sloppy thinking.
So, what does this all mean?
The US government has basically three options, our correspondent says:
* throw the whole system out and start again, which would be very embarrassing for the Bush administration
* redesignate all the detainees as “unlawful enemy combatants”, which would require a separate administrative hearing
* appeal against the ruling - but this would need to be handled by an appeals court, the military commissions review, which has not yet been established
The fact that we also find ourselves to still not have the entire apparatus in place (i.e., point number three and the fact that an appeals process hasn’t been established) is a further embarrassment–and creates serious problems. To wit:
The judge left open the possibility that Mr Khadr could be re-charged if he appeared before an official review panel and was formally classified as an “unlawful” enemy combatant.
He said prosecutors could lodge an appeal within 72 hours, although it was not immediately clear who they could appeal to. Prosecutors have indicated they intend to appeal.
Remarkable–it is quite difficult to file an appeal, especially with a 72 hour time frame, when there is no one to whom one can appeal. (And this isn’t the first time that the incomplete nature of the rules has reared its ugly head).
My guess is that the administration will pursue the middle route.
The Congress may have to revisit the situation:
Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the New York Times that Monday’s ruling could prompt Congress to re-evaluate the legal rights of detainees.
“The sense I have is that there’s an unease, an uncomfortable sense about the whole Guantanamo milieu. There’s just a sense of too many shortcuts in the whole process,” he said.
Gee, ya think?
The thing is, like much of the anti-terrorism policies of this administration, we have been told of the clear and obvious need for the Guantanamo prison and for a new and separate justice system to deal with the detainees held there. All of this is sold as a requirement for the safety of the United States. However, when it comes to execution of the policy we see bumbling, half thought out proposals and a general lack of direction and logic save for a generic “we are doing it to keep us safe.”
The administration has a pattern of asserting that they understand a broad and comprehensive approach to dealing with terrorism, but when it comes down to actually demonstrating that they know what they are doing, and that we should “trust them” they fail to demonstrate competency. Indeed, at the end of the day they clearly have a far smaller understanding of the basic problem than they claim, and have similarly spent far less time trying to figure it out than they should have done.
This is not a surprise at this point, and amounts to old news, but it is a gift that, unfortunately, keeps on giving.
At a minimum, if Guantanamo was filled with slam-dunk cases of evildoers, it would seem that this would be a little easier to figure out what to do with them than it has been.
I’ve been very interested in this legal maneuvering. For a long time we were told that the military courts were absolutely unable to be fair to the enemy. It seems that the military legal system is triple-checking everything to show that it really can be fair.
Or it could be that the people who run the military court system don’t agree with the tribunals, and are doing what they can to protest the whole thing. Institutional inertia.
> He said prosecutors could lodge an appeal within 72 hours, although it was not immediately clear who they could appeal to.
Something tells me that’s the judge’s hint that he doesn’t think the whole thing’s fair. By putting such a short deadline on the appeal he seems to be closing the door on future appeals because prosecutors “already had their chance.” The prosecutors can’t cry foul, because if they can’t truly appeal, neither could the accused combatant.
So does this mean I’ve come ’round to seeing Guantanamo as the worst the the US has ever done? No. For years we heard people complain that prisoners were being held in Guantanamo without trial, but now that some of them are being charged with crimes and put on trial, those same people complain that it’s not fair to charge them! Apparently the war in Afghanistan was supposed to be the first time that the US military wouldn’t take any prisoners (but wouldn’t shoot them, either; that’s against the Geneva Conventions). How that’s supposed to work, I have no idea.
I will agree that it is both surprising and embarrassing that fundamental questions of how these tribunals work haven’t been ironed out. Until Congress rewrote the relevant law, the tribunal system dated back to WWII. The fact that it hadn’t been updated implies that all through Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Beirut, Gulf War I, and several other conflicts, the US military simply didn’t charge its prisoners with war crimes (aside from, say Manuel Noriega, but I believe he was charged with regular felonies, not war crimes). That would imply, then, that any prisoners taken in those conflicts were held without trial. Oh my gosh! It appears Bush didn’t invent the idea that POWs aren’t criminals, and aren’t necessarily going to be tried as criminals. What a scandal!
Comment by Max Lybbert — Tuesday, June 5, 2024 @ 4:12 pm
The problem with comparisons to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War I is that those were conflicts with uniformed militaries and the prisoners would have been treated under the Geneva Conventions and released when the wars were over. The problem with Gitmo and the who “illegal combatant” issue is that there is not precedent to fit this many prisoners from a conflict that could theoretically never end (the “War on Terror”).
Indeed, they aren’t even technically POWs.
This is actually a very, very thorny situation.
(And I can’t imagine that we had many, if any, prisoners from Grenada, Panama, Beirut, etc. And those were very different types of conflicts to the one we now face.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Tuesday, June 5, 2024 @ 4:38 pm
That there is no precedent to fit this many prisoners from a conflict is not true. I think the official count from the Gulf war was something like 60,000.
That there is a difference between “uniformed combatants” and any other combatants is a distinction made only in academic circles. I was a soldier in this war, and as far as I’m concerned, if I am uniformed (and I always was), and someone shoots at me (and they frequently did), regardless of whether they are part of a national army, regardless of whether they are uniformed, they were a combatant in the same sense of the word as a German soldier in WW2. It may be an interesting intellectual exercise to think of different categories of combatants, but from my point of view such categorization is silly. There are two categories that matter: combatants and non-combatants. Either you’re a shooter or an innocent bystander. There are no halfway points.
In the past it may have sometimes been easier to tell which was which, but not always. In most of the conflicts of the 20th century there were cases of combatants being caught out of uniform. The reason you don’t typically hear about them is that they were dealt with far more harshly than the way we are dealing with unconventional combatants today. I’m not speaking on the rightness or wrongness of that; I’m just saying, in previous conflicts, without embedded reporters, without the internet, these people were interrogated in the field for what data could be gleaned from them and then disposed of in the manner that was most convenient to the command, and no one was ever the wiser. This is not the first time there has been muddy water; it’s just the first time people have seen it.
What I see happening is not so much the bumbling of the administration (though there is a fair share of it) but a larger issue in the errosion of the trust in the military, in the soldiers, to make the distinction between friend and foe. In past conflicts the men on the ground, who actually participated in the capture of combatants, were trusted to make the call as to whether they should be handled as prisoners of war and detained or set free as innocent bystanders.
Where I think the administration erred was in accepting the idea of a separate justice system in the first place. That they failed to deliver it is a blessing in disguise; it is not needed, and will only interfere with the ability of our military and intelligence professionals to do their jobs. There is no need for a new justice system, or any justice system save the military tribunals that are being offered. Enemy combatants should be held as long as they have intelligence value or as long as the command deems them capable of rendering aid to our enemies. It is unfortunate for the detainees that this could be a very long time, but they had their chance in choosing sides - they chose the wrong one. War is unpleasant and many lives are destroyed by it. Realism.
When you choose to fight in a war (and I don’t care if you have a uniform on or not), you choose to throw a lot of the niceties of life out the window. One of the things you throw out the window is your right to a day in court. I wouldn’t have got it if I had been caught by the Taliban, or by one of the militias in Iraq. That’s just not the way wars are fought, and it’s sad, but it’s just a cold slice of realism to admit that.
If anything, I have far LESS compassion for the prisoners of this conflict than I might have for prisoners of historical conflicts. In the past, men were drafted or conscripted and pressed into service. I knew going into every gunfight in Iraq that every single one of the guys shooting back at me was a volunteer. If anything, it was MORE clear to me who was guilty and who was innocent. The innocent were the people running away from the explosions and the gunfire; the guilty were the people running towards. I know the guys at Guantanamo need to be there. I trust the professionals who were trained to make that distinction. It’s not a matter of trusting THE ADMINISTRATION! George W. Bush and his staff are not scouring the world in person, rounding up combatants.
What is really a very black and white distinction to people like me has been turned into a mushy shade of gray by people who are not directly connected to the conflict, and that, too, strikes me as a bit presumptive.
Comment by CPT D — Wednesday, June 6, 2024 @ 12:49 am
Robert,
You are talking about on the battlefield, where I will readily grant that shooter/non-shooter is a wholly legitimate issue.
And the issue here is not numbers: it is time and a host of other issues. We did hold prisoners from the first gulf war for five years with no idea of how much longer we would hold them.
Further, it isn’t about some mushy discussion limited only to academics–it is a legal issue and not an inconsequential one. There are also very important policy questions that need answering.
I understand where you are coming from, but no one, not even soldiers on the ground, are infallible. The notion that in the fog of war that all persons detained are, ipso facto, guilty (and all equally guilty) because they were apprehended is a problematic position to take.
Mistakes are made on the battlefield, and you know that to be true.
So, while I understand that you have great faith in your fellow soldiers, you can’t just, by faith, declare their actions to be perfect and you can’t just say that because US soldiers have been involved in an action that the resultant policies created by the US government in regards to detainees therefore is immaculate and just.
I have to conclude and state that I utterly reject the notion that only those directly involved in a conflict are allowed to comment on it or to critique it. That way lies the destruction of democracy. Indeed, sometimes it is too easy to see black and white when one is involved in something and it takes a voice from the outside to ask whether, in fact, things are as black and white as they seem.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, June 6, 2024 @ 8:45 am
The problem with comparisons to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War I is that those were conflicts with uniformed militaries …
But the uniform issue, when it comes to “holding people without trial” is, frankly, irrelevant. It’s a binary question; you’re either held without trial or you’re not (meaning you’re let go or you are charged). Are you saying it’s perfectly fine to hold people in uniform without trial? I thought that being held without trial was a terrible thing.
Now, to be honest, the full quote is:
The problem with comparisons to Korea, Viet Nam and Gulf War I is that those were conflicts with uniformed militaries and the prisoners would have been treated under the Geneva Conventions and released when the wars were over.”
The Geneva Conventions specifically distinguish between regular soldiers in a uniformed military and irregular “belligerents.” And the Conventions state that the uniformed soldiers get more protections than irregular belligerents. If it’s perfectly acceptable to hold uniformed soldiers without trial, then it must be perfectly acceptable to hold irregular belligerents without trial.
As to the “and released when the war was over”:
The problem with Gitmo and the who “illegal combatant” issue is that there is not precedent to fit this many prisoners from a conflict that could theoretically never end (the “War on Terror”.
Korean and Vietnamese POWs were released at the end of the Korean and Vietnamese conflicts, and not kept until the end of the Cold War. It seems pretty obvious to me that detainees captured in Afghanistan can only be held until the end of fighting in Afghanistan, and enemies captured in Iraq can be held until the end of fighting in Iraq. That is, unless the detainees are found guilty, in some court, of war crimes. Which is precisely why they are being charged.
But what about Padilla? Padilla was captured by civil authorities and transferred to military custody. I have concerns about that. However, when he was transferred, the argument given was that he had been fighting US forces in Afghanistan, therefore he can only be held as a detainee until fighting ends in Afghanistan. If he’s convicted of a war crime or a regular felony, he can be held as a criminal until his sentence is over.
Any guess why he’s been charged with crimes?
Comment by Max Lybbert — Wednesday, June 6, 2024 @ 10:39 am
Let’s reduce it to the basic challenge here: we do not a precedence, process or set of international agreements (or domestic laws) that provide a framework for dealing with a substantial number of belligerents captured on the battlefield who could theoretically be held indefinitely.
The nice think about uniformed soldiers, to oversimplify a bit, is that one knows a) to whom they belong and b) therefore what to do with them once the hostilities cease with the government in question. Further, you know that uniformed soldiers are functioning as the agents of a legally recognized entity: a given state in the context of a conflict between states.
It creates a lot more clarity than we currently have–which is the point.
The current detainees are in a limbo in terms of classification: are they agents of a given state? of an organization? Are they soldiers or criminals? Are they a danger even if certain states have been re-constituted (e.g., Afghanistan).
And really, the administration is not treating Iraq and Afghanistan as discrete conflicts–they are treating them as part of the War on Terror and therefore the release date of belligerents captured in such a context is vague at best. I think that it is the abstraction caused by the whole War on Terror policy that is leading to a lot of the confusion within the administration itself–sloppy thinking tends to beget more sloppy thinking. I have reached a point where I don’t except that we have slam-junk cases against all of these people that would justify indefinite detainment. Some, yes, but not all. However we have placed ourselves in a confusing place in terms of policy making and so we get the kinds of results that led to the original blog post above.
Padilla raises his own can of worms, which I have blogged on separately.
And the bottom line is we still haven’t figured out how to charge and try these people. It is a clearly problematic situation.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, June 6, 2024 @ 10:58 am
Let’s reduce it to the basic challenge here: we do not [have] a precedence, process or set of international agreements (or domestic laws) that provide a framework for dealing with a substantial number of belligerents captured on the battlefield who could theoretically be held indefinitely.
That depends on the definition of “indefinitely.” During any conflict, there is no set date when hostilities will cease, and under precedence and international agreements we can hold any number of POWs, belligerents, people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time until the hostilities cease. Under some definitions of “indefinitely,” that is “indefinite detention.”
Of course, in Hamdi, the Supreme Court (1) could not find any domestic law (or treaty obligations) that put any more limit on these kinds of detentions, and (2) decided that the question had never been addressed, so it fashioned a review process — modeled after Social Security appeals — for the government to justify continued detention of prisoners.
And really, the administration is not treating Iraq and Afghanistan as discrete conflicts–they are treating them as part of the War on Terror and therefore the release date of belligerents captured in such a context is vague at best.
I’ll concede that they conflate the two in speeches.
It’s unusual for the US to be involved in two wars simultaneously. The first example that comes to mind is WWII (Japan, Germany/Italy, and skirmishes in Africa and the Middle East). The history books have conflated those conflicts, and FDR’s rhetoric at the time did the same; but you will notice that the various conflicts were easily delineated, and that recovery efforts were likewise delineated (the Marshall Plan, for instance, had defined geographic boundaries).
Using a phrase like “War on Terror” does not give rise to these kinds of concerns any more than speeches that referred to the “Cold War” meant that the US could hold Vietnamese prisoners as long as a Communist government ruled in Moscow. Or that the War on Poverty had to be governed by the Geneva Conventions.
Comment by Max Lybbert — Wednesday, June 6, 2024 @ 3:20 pm
I would argue that they do more than just conflate the two in speeches.
In re: the “Cold War” v. “WoT”–but the point is, as you noted, we didn’t hold prisoners from Korea or Viet Nam or elsewhere until 1991.
And no, terminology does not give rise to anything in and of itself–you could call it “Fred” and it wouldn’t automatically result in policy. Still, the administration’s muddle definition of the concept has led us to where we are, and isn’t exactly a picture of policy-making brilliance (or even competence).
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Wednesday, June 6, 2024 @ 3:30 pm
Authorities have arrested a former cargo worker at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City who allegedly recruited an FBI informant to help blow up jet fuel tanks and a fuel pipeline at the airport, law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Two additional arrestes were made in Trinidad, a law enforcement source said. A source identified the suspect arrested in the United States as Russell Defreitas.
The plotters had “indirect” links to overseas terror elements and the plot had links to Guyana, Trinidad and possibly Germany, a source said.
Officials viewed the alleged plotters as a credible threat, but sources said they apparently did not have the technical savvy to carry out the plot.
The planning for the plot was said to be going on for two to three years but sources claim the alleged plotters were nowhere near any ability to put it into place.
One official said the plan “was not technically feasible.” Officials added that the alleged plotters had no explosives and had not yet figured out a way to get some.
I must confess I am now to the point with these arrests that I have to wonder exactly what we have here. Is this really a “terror” plot or is it the work of disgruntled worker? Was this simply the ranting fantasies of a few people or was this some more nefarious plan?
When we are talking about “indirect” links to overseas “terror elements” and the fact that these guys lacks the “technical savvy” to carry out the attack, I lean towards assuming we have here disgruntled cranks.
At a minimum it sound more like the Miami 7 than a serious plot.
The terrorist links seem to be as follows:
Sources said that the plotters several times mentioned the name “Adnan,” and Trinidad and Guyana. That may suggest a link with Adnan Shukrijumah, the son of the imam at the mosque where some of the 9/11 plotters worshipped, although authorities were never able to prove or disprove a link to him.
Shukrijumah, a Saudi, left the United States shortly before 9/11. Shukrijumah is considered extremely dangerous by the FBI and has a $5 million bounty on his head. He’s known to travel on a Guyanese passport and a Trinidadian one as well.
However, A FBI spokesperson in Miami said the squad assigned to Shukrijumah was aware of the case but found “no connection” to the wanted al Qaeda figure. He is believed to be with top al Qaeda leaders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the FBI spokesperson said.
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Fifteen North Africans were arrested in Spain on Monday on suspicion of recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq and other countries.
Spain’s Interior Ministry said computer material, jihad propaganda and several cell phones were seized during at least five pre-dawn raids throughout Spain. No arms or explosives were discovered.
Thirteen of the 15 were Moroccan and two were from Algeria, according to the statement, which said the group was operating as a cell that allegedly send money and fighters to different terrorist organizations in north Africa, Iraq and other countries.
When one wonders “why Spain?” one must remember:
Al-Qaida has frequently claimed that it intends to recover ‘’al-Andalus,'’ a reference to the vast area of Spain ruled by the Moors for 800 years until 1492.
The article is about recruiting people to fight in third countries, not in Spain. How on earth would recruiting people to fight in Iraq restore Andalusia to Muslim rule? It wouldn’t. What we have here is Muslim recruiters targeting Muslim immigrants because they’re the natural recruiting pool. It could and does happen anywhere there’s a Muslim community.
My point was that one of the main reasons is easier to radicalize Muslims in Spain is because of the whole Andalusia business.
There has been a great deal of activity and arrests in Spain–moreso than say, France, or other states in the region that also receive a great number of muslim immigrants. I think that the whole reclaiming of the Caliphate issue is a propaganda aid to al Qaeda types. I don’t see why that would be a stretch.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Monday, May 28, 2024 @ 10:54 am
IRS investigators look at paper documents and use a limited terrorist watch list to pinpoint possible ties between charitable and other nonprofit groups and terrorists, said the office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which does independent oversight of the tax agency.
As a result, it said, “There is a risk that these charities will not be reported to the federal government authorities fighting terrorism.”
And how’s this for a methodology?
[Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max] Baucus, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, noted that IRS personnel told the Treasury Inspector General that they mainly look for “Middle Eastern-sounding names” when considering which tax filings to flag for further review.
Sheer genius. I feel safer already.
Seriously, while I understand and support the general policy goal of stopping financial flows to terrorist organizations, there is a legitimate question here as to whether such activities are really in the purview of the IRS. Surely their job is the collecting of taxes owed, not in the policing of international terrorist networks.
I suspect a simpler explanation: Country of origin.
Most of the Islamist terrorists are Pakistani or Arab Muslims. Arabs in the US are disproportionately Christians; there are very few Arab Muslim communities in which potential terrorists might be bred and hidden. Most American Muslims are either native-born African-Americans or are from South and Southeast Asia (where radical Islam is less established). There are hardly any Pakistani communities in the US.
Meanwhile, the UK has a huge Pakistani immigrant population and it is within those communities that most of the cells have formed or hid. There are also substantial communities from the former British colonies in the Arab world.
Also, on many indicators, Britain’s Muslims are better integrated than America’s. One of the shadow ministers of the Conservative Party is a Muslim, for example. When will the Republicans have one of their leaders a Muslim? And there are several Muslim members of parliament in the UK, and nothing especially controversial about that. It was rather controversial in some quarters here when the first Muslim (native-born and African-American) was elected to Congress just last year.
Are UK immigration laws as strict as you characterize? There is indeed no equivalent to the 14th Amendment. But there is the Commonwealth, and citizens of those countries (which include Pakistan) do have certain privileged access.
Comment by MSS — Monday, July 9, 2024 @ 11:42 am
All valid points.
I wonder (because I really do not know) what the Commonwealth benefits are. To what degree is an about movement and residency and how much of it is about citizenship?
I think that the issue about one’s children’s status is key.
It is something to look into.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Monday, July 9, 2024 @ 11:50 am
Can’t help very much as to the UK, the issue has never really come up for me. But - from my passport - there are various types of citizenship and national status, in addition to British citizen: British national, British Dependent Territories citizen, British Nationals (Overseas), British Overseas citizen, British protected person and British subject. None of these, apart from British citizen, result in right of abode in the UK. I’ve not much time (exams) or I’d look into this further…
As far as Portugal is concerned, acquiring Portuguese nationality seems to be fairly easy, even for first generation immigrants. Marriage to Portuguese person after 3 years will do it, or meeting a number of conditions such as:
residam em território português ou sob administração portuguesa, com título válido de autorização de residência, há pelo menos, 6 ou 10 anos…;
conheçam suficientemente a língua portuguesa;
comprovem a existência de uma ligação efectiva à comunidade nacional;
possuam capacidade para reger a sua pessoa e assegurar a sua subsistência; …
As a rule, children born here automatically earn Portuguese nationality, even if both parents are foreign (happened to me.)
Sorry about copy-pasting in Portuguese but I know you’ll understand it…
Regards.
Comment by james — Monday, July 9, 2024 @ 6:15 pm
Ireland had a law written into its constitution allowing citizenship for anyone born while in the country and this law was a disaster during its last decade before being rescinded. A truly enormous number of London-resident young women (mostly young African women but also some other) slipped into Ireland during the last stages of pregancy since there is no passport control with the UK, quickly had their baby in a hospital in Ireland, and then demanded citizenship for their child, and associated legal residency for themself. It was such a huge wave of people doing this that 1 out of 3 births in Dublin during the latter stages of the law’s existence were in this category.
Ireland had to go to enormous trouble and expense to re-write the constitution and have the changes to the law endorsed by national referendum. The tens of thousands of young women and their children who had gotten in before the changes are still there and unlikely to ever leave.
Comment by Tom Connor — Tuesday, July 10, 2024 @ 4:24 am
[…] Cross-posted from PoliBlog: […]
Pingback by Political Mavens » Terrorism, Immigration and Integration — Tuesday, July 10, 2024 @ 9:22 am
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Pingback by Political Mavens » Terrorism, Immigration and Integration — Tuesday, July 10, 2024 @ 9:22 am
My sister married a Brit, and in order just to be legal there all of her immediate family had to give her affidavits of net worth, apparently to show that she wasn’t a Trojan Horse, just waiting to let us in to go on the dole.
Comment by masaccio — Tuesday, July 10, 2024 @ 5:27 pm