Some links to readings for Sunday

Perhaps an unusual read for national security but perhaps Joshua gives us something to think about when we see talking heads on the television.  But I mean no disrespect to all my good friends who are true professionals who work in thank tanks.

But what this may be an illustration of is the young aspiring professionals and how they have to try to break into the national security space and what happens to them as twentysomethings.

The Drink Tank

Joshua Foust

http://mobiusmagazine.com/fiction/drinktan.html

I actually think this is good advice for attendance at any PME institution as well as graduate school.

How to Enjoy Lobster in Newport: Preparing for the Naval War College

by Joe Byerly

SWJ Blog Post | February 28, 2015 - 10:46am

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/how-to-enjoy-lobster-in-newport-preparing-for-the-naval-war-college

Perhaps Siharon has lost another arm or maybe his horse was killed.  But I really wish the military leaders would stop putting time estimates on when they will have the enemy "totally decimated."

The Joint Task Group Sulu has received information that Abu Sayyaf leader Radulan Sahiron was wounded during one of the encounters but this is still being verified.

“Philippines is looking for a decisive engagement but the Abu Sayyaf do not clash with us head on. They have been avoiding us since they sustained losses during the previous engagement,” Padilla said.Armed Forces spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla said another Abu Sayyaf leader, Hatib Sawadjaan, was also injured but the report has also to be validated.

With regard to the BIFF, the breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Catapang said it would take about six months before the rebels are totally decimated.

Military steps up offensive vs BIFF, Abu Sayyaf

By Alexis Romero (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 2, 2015 - 12:00am

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/03/02/1429131/military-steps-offensive-vs-biff-abu-sayyaf

Hold on here.  Where does this "Camp Aguinaldo insider" get this?

But a Camp Aguinaldo insider said the US decision was in response to threats from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East.

Downsizing of US-Phl TF to affect anti-terror drive

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2015/03/01/1428824/downsizing-us-phl-tf-affect-anti-terror-drive

I will cut right to the chase:

The Bush Doctrine, by contrast, is the path to victory — if we get that one addendum right.

It is this: Our enemies are not driven by American foreign policy, our friendship with Israel, our detention of jihadists at Gitmo, or the supposed “arrogance” our current president likes to apologize for. Those are all pretexts for aggression.

Our enemies are driven by an ideology, Islamic supremacism, that is rooted in a classical interpretation of sharia — Islamic law. Islamic supremacism is rabidly anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic. It rejects the fundamental premise of our liberty: that people are free to govern themselves, rather than be ruled by a totalitarian legal code that suffocates liberty and brutally discriminates against non-Muslims and apostates. And sharia is an actual war on women — denying them equal rights under the law, subjecting them to unthinkable abuse, and reducing them in many ways to chattel.

In the “you are with us or you are with the terrorists” view of national security, any Muslim nation, organization, or individual that adheres to Islamic supremacism is on the wrong side. Failing to come to terms with that brute fact is where the Bush Doctrine went awry.

Bring Back the Bush Doctrine—with One Addition

There is a path to victory in the fight against radical Islam, and our next president should embrace it.

By Andrew C. McCarthy — February 28, 2015

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/414588/print

We should ask ourselves whether this will lead to real changes in regime behavior or whether this could lead to regime change from within.  Will this grow the nascent resistance within north Korea and if so what comes next?

There are tantalizing signs of liberal reforms in North Korea

• THE ECONOMIST
 
•   

• FEB. 28, 2015, 12:23 PM
• 9,709
 
• 1

http://www.businessinsider.com/there-are-tantalizing-signs-of-liberal-reforms-in-north-korea-2015-2

9/11 and the black flag movement

Some little known terrorism history.

I strongly recommend Maria's new book (published this past spring) From bin Laden to Facebook.

V/R

Dave

9/11 and the black flag movement

BY MARIA A. RESSA
POSTED ON 09/11/2013 9:28 PM  | UPDATED 09/12/2013 11:45 AM

HTTP://WWW.RAPPLER.COM/THOUGHT-LEADERS/38692-9-11-BLACK-FLAG-MOVEMENT

12 years ago, al-Qaeda attacked and destroyed the Twin Towers, killing nearly 3,000 people. 9/11 was al-Qaeda’s coming out party: a group that harnessed Muslim anger of distinct, disparate groups and framed the battle against the West.

While there have been victories, the battle continues, and events in 2012 show how al-Qaeda central has morphed into a social movement that’s making it difficult for military and law enforcement groups globally to reframe a changing threat.

One year ago, a mob stormed the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya and killed 4 Americans, including US ambassador Christopher Stevens, and raised the black flag associated with al-Qaeda — the same flag that appeared in violent Muslim protests around the world.

That week, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, protests spread to more than 20 countries, resulting in the deaths of more than 30 people. Black flags were raised by angry mobs in countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.

Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), said the attack in Libya was to avenge the killing of its Number 2, Abu Yahya al-Libi, and urged Muslims to kill US diplomats in Muslim countries.

Abu Sayyaf and the black flag

It was also in September last year that Philippine police discovered a black flag in the Abu Sayyaf camp of Khair Mundos, who carried a US$500,000 reward from the US Department of Justice. Mundos managed to escape.

As early as 1988, al-Qaeda’s financial network in the Philippines was established by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. By then, Al-Qaeda leaders, including the architect of the 9/11 attacks, had trained members of the Abu Sayyaf.

Mundos escaped from a provincial prison in 2007 and headed the Abu Sayyaf group in Basilan. During the raid in 2012, intelligence sources told Rappler that inside the camp, they found the black flag, along with training manuals from Jemaah Islamiyah, once al-Qaeda’s arm in Southeast Asia.

It wasn’t the first time the black flag surfaced in the Philippines, the symbol used by the group behind the latest spate of bombings in Mindanao.

Following the black flag shows how the threat posed by al-Qaeda has evolved since 9/11.

BLACK FLAG. Filipinos carry the black flag in the southern Philippines. Sourced by Rappler

Symbol of unity

The black flag taps into a secret motivation of al-Qaeda: a “narrative that convinces them that they’re part of a divine plan,” according to former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Ali Soufan in his book,"The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda."

Al-Qaeda believes its black banners herald the apocalypse that will bring about the triumph of Islam.

It’s based on what they believe is a hadith or a saying of the prophet Muhammad: “If you see the black banners coming from Khurusan, join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice; no power will be able to stop them, and they will finally reach Baitul Maqdis [Jerusalem], where they will erect their flags.” Khurusan is a name for a historical region covering northeastern and eastern Iran and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.

This is where al-Qaeda believes the Islamic version of Armaggedon will emerge. Osama bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States ends with the dateline, Friday, Aug 23, 1996, in the Hindu Kush, Khurusan, Afghanistan.

Local sighting

(Continued at the link below)

HTTP://WWW.RAPPLER.COM/THOUGHT-LEADERS/38692-9-11-BLACK-FLAG-MOVEMENT