[Infowarrior] - Overstating Our Fears

[Richard Forno]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102710_pf.html

Overstating Our Fears

By Glenn L. Carle
Sunday, July 13, 2008; B07

(The writer was a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years  
and retired in March 2007 as deputy national intelligence officer for  
transnational threats.)

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly characterized the threat of "radical  
Islamic extremism" as "the absolute gravest threat . . . that we're in  
against." Before we simply accept this, we need to examine the nature  
of the terrorist threat facing our country. If we do so, we will see  
how we have allowed the specter of that threat to distort our lives  
and take our treasure.

The "Global War on Terror" has conjured the image of terrorists behind  
every bush, the bushes themselves burning and an angry god inciting  
its faithful to religious war. We have been called to arms, built  
fences, and compromised our laws and the practices that define us as a  
nation. The administration has focused on pursuing terrorists and  
countering an imminent and terrifying threat. Thousands of Americans  
have died as a result, as have tens of thousands of foreigners.

The inclination to trust our leaders when they warn of danger is  
compelling, particularly when the specters of mushroom clouds and  
jihadists haunt every debate. McCain, accepting this view of the  
threats, pledges to continue the Bush administration's policy of few  
distinctions but ruthless actions.

I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the  
government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our  
country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the  
jihadist threat.

We rightly honor as heroes those who serve our nation and offer their  
lives to protect ours. We all "support the troops." Yet the first step  
for any commander is to understand the enemy. The next commander in  
chief should base his counterterrorism policies on the following  
realities:

We do not face a global jihadist "movement" but a series of disparate  
ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of  
which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which  
long predate the existence of al-Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats  
whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaeda is the only global  
jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization  
that targets the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking  
here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The  
organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of  
planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda  
threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear  
weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires. Even  
the "loose nuke" threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a  
very low probability. For the medium term, any attack is  
overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional  
explosives.

No other Islamic-based terrorist organization, from Mindanao to the  
Bekaa Valley to the Sahel, targets the U.S. homeland, is part of a  
"global jihadist movement" or has more than passing contact with al- 
Qaeda. These groups do and will, however, identify themselves with  
global jihadist rhetoric and may bandy the bogey-phrase of "al-Qaeda."  
They are motivated by hostility toward the West and fear of the  
irresistible changes that education, trade, and economic and social  
development are causing in their cultures. These regional terrorist  
organizations may target U.S. interests or persons in the groups'  
historic areas of interest and operations. None of these groups is  
likely to succeed in seizing power or in destabilizing the societies  
they attack, though they may succeed in killing numerous people  
through sporadic attacks such as the Madrid train bombings.

There are and will continue to be small numbers of Muslims in certain  
Western countries -- in the dozens, perhaps -- who seek to commit  
terrorist acts, along the lines of the British citizens behind the  
2005 London bus bombings. Some may have irregular contact with al- 
Qaeda central in Waziristan; more will act as free agents for their  
imagined cause. They represent an Islamic-tinged version of the  
anarchists of the late 19th century: dupes of "true belief," the  
flotsam of revolutionary cultural change and destruction in Islam, and  
of personal anomie. We need to catch and neutralize these people. But  
they do not represent a global movement or a global threat.

The threat from Islamic terrorism is no larger now than it was before  
Sept. 11, 2001. Islamic societies the world over are in turmoil and  
will continue for years to produce small numbers of dedicated killers,  
whom we must stop. U.S. and allied intelligence do a good job at that;  
these efforts, however, will never succeed in neutralizing every  
terrorist, everywhere.

Why are these views so starkly at odds with what the Bush  
administration has said since the beginning of the "Global War on  
Terror"? This administration has heard what it has wished to hear,  
pressured the intelligence community to verify preconceptions,  
undermined or sidetracked opposing voices, and both instituted and  
been victim of procedures that guaranteed that the slightest terrorist  
threat reporting would receive disproportionate weight -- thereby  
comforting the administration's preconceptions and policy inclinations.

We must not delude ourselves about the nature of the terrorist threat  
to our country. We must not take fright at the specter our leaders  
have exaggerated. In fact, we must see jihadists for the small,  
lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are.

The writer was a member of the CIA's Clandestine Service for 23 years  
and retired in March 2007 as deputy national intelligence officer for  
transnational threats.