James Jay Carafano's blog
Posted at 1:14pm on Feb. 21, 2008 A Better Way to Inspect Terrorist Threats
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- The more I look at how some things are done “over here” (talking with British officials about their counterterrorism measures), the more I wonder about some of the things Congress is doing “over there.”
A law passed by Congress last year requiring inspecting 100% of everything that gets put on any airplane is a case in point. A first glance, the U.S. law might make sense. In practice, it is little more that a sledgehammer approach to homeland security that will spend a lot of money to make us just not that much safer.
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:10am on Feb. 21, 2008 'Severe' Terror Threat in London
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- While visiting Great Britain to talk to government officials about terrorism, it does not take long to figure our one thing -- they are really worried about terrorists. On any given day, the government admits it is undertaking about 30 investigations, tracking 200 groups and looking for about 2,000 suspects.
The British have terrorist alert levels similar to the United States. They use adjectives instead of colors. They are the “severe” level, indicating a terrorist attack is likely. They don’t anticipate the level will change anytime soon. For the rest of the Long War, Britain will likely remain “severe,” just as America will likely always be “orange.”
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:23am on Feb. 20, 2008 Container Security Silliness
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- The security alarm went off! Radiation detected! It happened today. I was there.
The inspector at the port of Southampton where a British-U.S. Customs team is testing the feasibility of scanning and screening 100% of all containers bound for American shores calmly flipped a switch. Nothing to worry about. Since they started the test in October, they have had more than 700 radiation alerts -- all of them real. This was for natural radiation found in China clay. All the others were similar.
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:18am on Feb. 19, 2008 The Wrath of Khan
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- In the middle of meeting with British officials to discuss counterterrorism policies comes a reminder of why we are meeting. Headlines in the London papers report the sentencing of Parviz Khan from Birmingham. Khan planned to behead a British soldier live on the Internet.
Khan had declared “cut it off like you cut a pig, man. Then we throw the body, burn it, send the video to chacha [a reference to terrorist leaders in Pakistan]. They [British authorities] will go crazy, they will start searching ... London, Birmingham, Newcastle, where are these people?” The court knew Khan had said this because they had it on tape. A British counterterrorism unit had him under surveillance and had “bugged” his residence.
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:28am on Feb. 18, 2008 The Visa Wave
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- The United States, Great Britain and about two dozen other countries participate in a visa-waiver program, allowing citizens to visit with only their passports for up to 90 days of tourist and business travel.
It might seem like not requiring visas in a post-9/11 world would increase the risk of terrorism, but the opposite is true. Some terrorists will almost certainly get visas, but so do tens-of-millions of other people.
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:05pm on Feb. 16, 2008 London's Lessons in Counterterrorism
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- This city’s successes and failures in fighting terrorism have elicited all kinds of lessons. The ones heard the most often make the least sense. There are three lessons not to learn from London, they include:
1) Buy lots of cameras. London is ringed with a government video-surveillance system -- the world famous “ring of steel.” That's great, but it doesn’t mean filming every city street in America is a good idea. The ability to film the event live will not prevent or deter an attack. And there are many ways to investigate after an incident -- means that are probably more cost-effective. At the end of the day, being watched everywhere (a “surveillance society”) won't make us much safer, but it will cost a lot of money and make us feel a lot less free. Technology is not a silver bullet to stopping terrorism.
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:04pm on Feb. 16, 2008 The Terrorist Threat in London
By James Jay Carafano
LONDON -- Outside of the United States, few nations represent a more choice transnational terrorist target than Great Britain. London sits in the center of the bull’s eye. There are few better places to go to gauge the state of the terrorist threat and the state-of-the-art technology used to combat terrorism.
The 7/7 London bombings on July 7, 2005, killed 52 innocents and injured 700, the most terrible terrorist act in the nation’s history. In 2006, authorities busted a London-based plot to smuggle liquid explosives on flights bound for the United States. In 2007, British police uncovered a car stuffed with explosives, seemingly ready to bring a bit of Baghdad to the city.
Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:43pm on Nov. 8, 2007 Blogging from GITMO IV: The Truth About Military Commissions
By James Jay Carafano
At the hearing of Omar Khadr, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay accused of murder and other crimes during the war in Afghanistan, the prosecutor seemed ready to go to war himself.
The defense team refused to challenge the right of the tribunal (established last year by Congress in the Military Commissions Act of 2006) to have jurisdiction over the case. The prosecution, it appeared, had really hoped that the defense would raise that objection. The prosecutor apparently had a slew of witnesses and evidence ready to go argue that under the statute the Military Commission had every right to handle the case. The evidence included a video of Khadr making and planting bombs and witnesses that saw him in combat in Afghanistan.
Posted in War — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 7:35pm on Nov. 8, 2007 Blogging from GITMO III: Play by Play of the Hearing of Omar Khadr
By James Jay Carafano
On a spit of land overlooking Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, more fit for a luxury hotel than a court, the U.S. Military Commission, authorized by Congress in 2006 began its first proceedings against Omar Khadr. Khadr was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and is accused of murder, attempted murder, providing material support to a terrorist group, and espionage. These alleged crimes include throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier. Among the evidence the prosecution plans to introduce is a video captured with Khadr, showing him making and emplacing improvised explosive devices (roadside bombs).
Posted in War — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 6:44pm on Nov. 8, 2007 Blogging from GITMO II: Lawfare
By James Jay Carafano
The U.S. Court of Appeals rejected an effort yesterday by lawyers for Omar Khadr to block his trial by Military Commission here at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So it looks like the case will go to the military judges tomorrow morning.
One of the most extraordinary things I have observed so far is the extraordinary efforts made to do things rights. Not only have lawyers had every possible access to challenge the legality of the proceedings in U.S. courts, the military has gone to extraordinary lengths to conduct the proceedings in an appropriate manner including building a state-of-the-art hearing facility on par with the most modern federal court rooms in the United States. Virtually everyone in the courtroom will have access to screens and monitors providing audio and video feeds including simultaneous translation in multiple languages.
Posted in War — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:40pm on Nov. 7, 2007 Blogging From GITMO: The Trial of Omar Ahmed Khadr
By James Jay Carafano
Over the next several days I’ll be at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an observer to the proceedings against Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was taken into custody on the battlefields of Afghanistan. Congress established military commissions for unlawful combatants held at GITMO that the government wants to try as criminals.
Read on . . .
Posted in War — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 6:57pm on Oct. 11, 2007 Lessons Learned
By James Jay Carafano
Spending time with the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection on the border of the San Diego sector proved a real opener. Here is what I learned:
We are safeguarded by great men and women – dedicated, talented professionals who take their jobs seriously. For years they have been fighting a losing battle because Washington never gave them the real resources they needed to get the job done. They are finally starting to get what they need to fight the good fight. Congress should support them and stop trying to micromanage them.
Posted in Immigration — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:17am on Oct. 11, 2007 The Crossing
By James Jay Carafano
San Ysidro is busiest land border crossing site in the world. Every day Customs and Border Protection officers check tens-of-thousands of people, cars, and buses back and forth from Mexico to the United States. They also arrest career violent criminals, absconders with felony warrants, drug smugglers, people smugglers, arms smugglers, people with forged documents, and illegal aliens. Spending time watching them do their job offers a real lesson in understanding how important their job is.
Posted in Immigration — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 6:49pm on Oct. 10, 2007 “Virtual Fences”
By James Jay Carafano
More lessons from walking the border with the Border Patrol in San Diego.
The Department of Homeland Security recently received a lot of criticism for its Secure Border Initiative Net (SBI-NET) project which aims to integrate technologies on the border to help stem the flow of illegal crossings. A recent test of a pilot-project “virtual fence” did not go well.
Folks, however, should not be too quick to dismiss SBI Net.
Posted in Archived — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 4:47pm on Oct. 10, 2007 Green Border Security
By James Jay Carafano
Environmental groups are up in arms about building what the Border Patrol calls “tactical infrastructure” to help stop illegal border entry. Well, there's an irony. Surveying some of the fences, cameras, roads, and lighting added in the San Diego sector illustrates that border security actually improves the environment. Heavy illegal border traffic does an enormous amount of environmental damage — trash, soil erosion, destruction of property. What the border patrol has found is that stopping the illegal traffic has allowed sensitive watershed and wildlife sanctuary areas a chance to recover. In addition, in the San Diego sector it has helped deal with a serious water pollution problem — run-off from industrial dumping and raw sewage draining from the other side of the border.
Posted in Immigration — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »
