"Clash of Civilizations" -Technology & the War on Terror

"From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future." Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to U.S. officials.

Imagine that you could beam youself into a screening room in the secet warrens of the CIA. An assembled team of analysts are watching a real-time video filmed in the White Mountains of the Pakistan Tribal Region. It was taken from an unmanned Predator drone armed with two laser-targeted Hellfire missiles, and beamed back to the control team ten time zones away.

The drone was sent to destroy a small caravan believed to be made up of the Osama bin Laden and his entourage. The high-resolution, full-color film bursts to life, racing over a mountainous terrain bisected by a sheer-walled canyon. A caravan winds its way like a line of black ants alongside a blue ribbon of a river that snakes through the canyon floor. The sightless gaze of the Predator camera zooms in, bringing the ragged line of armed men, heavily laden donkeys and pack horses into life-sized focus. At the center of the thin line is a tall bearded male wearing a flowing white robe, black vest, and turban. An AK-47 was slung over his shoulder. The figure suddenly freezes in his tracks and looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes with his hand. In the next instant a missile fired from the drone explodes, vaporizing in a blinding flash from the sky what a moment before had been the string of trekkers.

“We sent in a helicopter team to gather forensic evidence the next day,” our imaginary lead analyst intones as the screen goes blank. “But our DNA analysis showed without a doubt that it was a case of mistaken identity. The tall aristocratic guy in the middle obviously hears the drone overhead—it sounds like a combination propeller plane and lawn mower. But, unfortunately, he was not bin Laden. His trail has gone stone cold."

Although the scene above is imaginary, you can be sure it's happened dozens of times since 9/11.

Why is it that in this day and age, with the full force of the U.S. military establishment and 21st-century technology at its beck and call, the intelligence services don't have a clue about bin Laden's actual fate or Ayman al-Zawaheri's whereabouts? The National Reconnaissance Office was uses the U.S. spy-satellite system, the BRITE system or Broadcast Request Imagery Technology Experiment, that generates real-time spy-satellite ground photos with resolutions up to four inches, to help lead to the capture of al Qaeda’s leadership. Satellite imagery is used during daylight and clear skies; radar imagery is used for nighttime and cloudy weather. Critics point out, however, that neither provides the ability to distinguish a face or to tell the difference between bin Laden's caravan and a group of refugees or tribal villagers.

With the increasing intensity of global USA and British electronic and satellite surveillance of al Qaeda, the leadership of the global terrorist groups have gone "dark," an unintended consequence of successful surveillance by NSA and other intelligence sources. Terrorists have switched from using satellite phones and email to employing centuries-old hand-delivered messenger networks, cutouts at Internet cafes, and a vast network of honey stores that have existed throughout the Islamic world since biblical times to generate income and secretly move weapons, drugs, and agents.

For a contrarian view of the "Clash of Civilizations" check out this Noam Chomsky Interview. Original post by Casey Kazan.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden

Islamic Adhan -The Emerging Icon of the 21st Century

Comments

Casey,

Your text in the above story is all frakked up. Love the site, hate the frakked up copy.

Posted by: Carbonfish | March 19, 2007 at 09:22 PM

Never mind. It might just be the way TypePad is being rendered by Firefox or something. When I refresh the page it goes away until I scroll. Then it screws the text up again.

Weird.

I'll come back on the Linux box and see what happens...

Posted by: Carbonfish | March 19, 2007 at 09:28 PM