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Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair delivered the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment briefing to the Senate intelligence committee today, and somehow, the prospect of swarthy men detonating a mall in Sheboygin didn’t make the grade. Walter Pincus:
"Roughly a quarter of the countries in the world have already experienced low-level instability such as government changes because of the current slowdown," Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, delivering the first annual threat assessment in six years in which terrorism was not presented as the primary danger to the country.
Read through and you’ll see there’s a rather nuanced assessment of Al Qaeda capabilities, particularly in Yemen, where the organization is expanding in an alarming way. What Blair doesn’t do is treat terrorism as an undifferentiated phenomenon that’s already snuck up behind your unsuspecting grandparents. The prospect of a global depression will have multifaceted security implications — the last one contributed, you know, to a world war — and it’s only sensible to explore their prospects. Still, expect the right to denounce Blair’s report and warn us that the only thing we have to fear is the lack of fear itself.
Crossposted to The Streak.
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‘…as more religious leaders question the use of terror tactics against fellow Muslims.” sorta suggests that they got some more (or less) nuancing to do.
Not only did FDR cause the Great Depression, but he caused the fear that (a) was due to fear itself, or (b) was due to the lack of fear itself.
Oh, and he bombed Pearl Harbor too, flying his own dive bomber equipped with controls for the paralyzed legs.
/snark
The real question is much bigger, and much more important.
Are we in a place where peak oil, resource starvation, climate change and water and food shortages are redefining our place in this world.
There doesn’t seem to be enough discussion about our place in a twenty first century world that cannot sustain itself. And not enough discussion about what sustainability might look like over the next 25, 50 and 100 years.
That we’re sitting at a nexus in global human history doesn’t seem to be in doubt. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, and operating as if it doesn’t exist will leave you a loser.
Global negotiations and alliances are one path. Isolation and hatred are another. I’ll leave it to you to decide where the best hope lies….
mikey
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair delivered the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment briefing to the Senate intelligence committee today,
This made me think of Colbert’s Threat Down. Maybe I watch too much TCR and TDS.
I believe al Qaeda is a grave threat, though part of the threat is managing to sick the US of fellow Muslims.
Al Qaeda’s dreams that a Muslim nation united again will come into being due to war may be ridiculous. But it knows that if Obama manages to make peace with some Muslims, al Qaeda will become total outsiders like they were before 9/11 when almost the entire Muslim world was disgusted with Taliban extremism.
Bush and bin Laden preferred to fight in Iraq. For Bush better than in the US and for bin Laden better than in Pakistan. But the unsigned agreement to limit the war mostly to Iraq is over under Obama.
For more details go to,
http://capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/15268
RichardKanePA google RichardKanePA
For 68 years ever since Pearl Harbor America has lived with fear, at first fear of other great powers then fear of terror.
Now the President, the opposition party, and people on the street are worried about other things instead. Bin Laden likes economic targets the attack of the Twin Towers was an attack on what was called the financial center of the US and in the doctors plot cryptically warned three months earlier by, “Those who heal you will kill you” was meant to stop the US and Britain from hiring doctors and engineers from abroad. German business one might remember said their economy was hurting severly from being unable to hire computer experts from abroad,
http://capitolhillblue.com/cont/blog/2419
By the way mikeyhemlok in the comment above. If the world economy continues to wither, stimulosus attempts by encouraging Detroit to have fuel efficient cars and tax credits for homeowners to weatherize homes will backfire because a bad world economy means temporarily plenty of cheep fuel. So the fewer people who are buying will again avoid American goods.
If someone manages to keep a job in a disastrous economy with shrinking wages. By having a big old car, and picking up and charging fellow employees on the way to work will prevent him from having to walk 30 miles to get to his job, and prevent the boss from laying him off till the very end.
The results of what Obama and the US does will partly be dependant what other countries succeed at doing or not, with a couple of groups such as al Qaeda believing they have a stake in things not working out.
I can’t mention World Government coordination without some people going bananas, but any stimulus plan needs to be pegged to keep changing in relationship to where the world economy is at, at the moment.
http://capitolhillblue.com/cont/blog/2419
RichardKanePA