THE INTRACTABLE PREDICAMENT OF INNER CITY BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS

NO NEW NEWS HERE

THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME

DESPITE 50 YEARS OF EFFORTS TO ALTER THAT REALITY

Protestors looting a liquor store in West Baltimore Monday afternoon

TAGS: BALTIMORE PROTESTS, BALTIMORE RIOTS, ARSON, LOOTING, MAYHEM,

FREDDIE GRAY, INNER CITY CONDITIONS, PERSISTANT POVERTY,

SOLUTIONS MUST COME FROM WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY,

NOT A “BLACK vs WHITE” CONFLICT, A “BLACK vs BLUE” CONFLICT

COMMENTARY, SUBJECTIVE OBSERVATIONS, EDITORIAL OPINION

(Wednesday May 6, 2015 Baltimore, MD)  The garden variety cynic’s reaction to the tumult in Baltimore after an unarmed young African American man died in police custody was as familiar as it was predictable.  The images and hyperbolic rhetoric broadcast into TV sets across the land showed live images that were sadly similar to those seen from inner cities roiling with racial unrest during the 1960’s.  While the rampant social disorder and civil unrest of the 1960’s was but one aspect of a much broader and very important “movement” for “racial equality”, the rioting and looting in Baltimore served only to reinforce the cynic’s cynicism.  Many in “White” America saw the televised imagery as merely further reinforcing their already lowly regard of inner city “Blacks”.  They were disgusted by the destruction of property, arson, wanton looting of liquor stores and other businesses by opportunistic aimless Blacks ready to commit such deeds at the drop of a hat.  The average cynic had no sympathy for the Blacks and, if anything found themselves asking the same questions they have asked of themselves, their families and of each other every time such a flare-up of urban discord holds the broadcast and cable newsertainment networks hostage.

The disgust voiced by much of White Middle America was as also predictable as it was relevant.  What more could the “country” do for Blacks?  Why don’t these people get jobs and put away this tired argument that 400 years of “oppression” has created the problems endemic in Black America?  How does arson and stealing comport with their arguments about years of police abuse, misconduct and unacceptable murder?  Whose fault is it if Black men have many children with different women and have no responsibility for those children financially or familiarly?  Whose fault is it that young Black men do not finish high school, wear their pants sagging around their knees, underwear visible, caps on their heads backwards, sporting tattoos yet protesting their inability to secure jobs?  The list of questions of this sort is long.  Who is at fault for what ails huge swathes of the Black community in cities and towns from coast to coast and all points in between?

The White cynics bristle at the notion that the Black “experience” in America – slavery – has any relevance in today’s society.  The federal government has spent approximately 22 trillion dollars since 1964 (give or take a billion or two either way) and the states have spent untold trillions more on every sort of law, legislation, protection, initiative, program and social device aimed specifically at improving the prospects for Black Americans.  The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 were just the very beginning and were actually landmark legislative measures that codified that the most basic of American rights be available to Blacks without regard to color.  There were the vast urban renewal and “Great Society” projects and programs of the late 60’s; there were government assistance programs of every sort as well intended attempts to socially engineer change and all that backfired in hindsight.   That much of Black America remains mired in the same muck they have been in since prior to all the federal government’s attempts to help lift them out is certainly not for lack of effort.  The cynic asks what the hell is wrong with these people?  Don’t they get it? 

For Americans beholden to the politics of the Left and Right, their reactions were also unabashedly familiar and predictable almost to the point of idiocy.  The Liberal Left blames the Conservative Right for all the racial inequities while the Right blames liberal progressive politics and policies for all that ails Blacks in America, especially in an inner city urban center such as Baltimore that has been governed by African Americans for almost the totality of the last 40 years.  The pragmatists among us see the nuances and gradations in the middle ground between the polar opposite Left/Right rift but have no meaningful answers or suggestions; they admit to their frustration for finding themselves at a loss.

One of the absolutes that all can agree on is that race relations remain a seemingly intractable reality of America in 2015, the seventh year, of the Presidency of our first African American Chief Executive, Barak Obama.  Oddly (or not) it feels as if race relations, the “Black and White” issue has become even more pronounced during President Obama’s administration.  It many ways it has.  His ascendancy from relative freshman senatorial obscurity to the White House seemed to bring out the worst in people on either side of the divide.  While much of Black America may have viewed his election and reelection as the harbinger of a “post racial America”, his Presidency only served to unleash some of the most sordid, vitriolic racial animus and prejudice among those already possessed of that mindset. 

And then there are the Police; the Law Enforcement Community (LEC) writ large suddenly emerging before the previously blind eyes of White America as the dirty not-so-little secret that Black America has known since the days of Jim Crow; that the LEC systematical practices severe racism, stands for racial segregation, and can run roughshod over the civil rights of Black Americans with impunity.  And, from that equation it becomes a heated debate with no winners about what came first, the chicken or the egg; high crime rates in Black communities or racist Cops doing what they please.  Are the police more active in the neighborhoods that are predominantly Black because Black’s commit more crime or are Black’s indiscriminately and disproportionally interacting with overzealous Police Officers who “do not value” Black lives? 

There are absolutists and apologists on both sides of that particular debate and a wealth of academic, empiric, scholarly, and antidotal data to support either side. However there is a puzzling paucity of actual numbers to support either argument or, most of the statistics bandied about range from grossly inaccurate to dangerously skewed. The inherent malleability of statistics and other research related data casts shadows of doubts on all such information and essentially renders it useless in the debate and in the process of finding common ground.  Common ground is what everyone claims to be seeking now; a “national dialogue” is being called for by ivory tower and TV talking head; “Professional Blacks” just as the law and order crowd insists the crux of the issue and all its obvious problems are simple matters of right and wrong; of abiding by the laws of the land and blatant criminality.  Yeah, a “dialogue” would definitely help bridge that gap.  (Between who is such a “dialogue” supposed to take place?) 

The fools among us would deny the existence of any problem; it is a matter of disproportional numbers of Blacks being criminals, responsible for high crime rates when compared to other demographics, and the Police comprising that “Thin Blue Line” of defense between order and chaos all too eager to mete out street justice to young Black boys and men, employ racial profiling, and arrest Blacks for similar crimes far more often than they do White boys and men.  Maybe the fools have a point but not in this exact ideological dichotomy.  There are distinct flaws in perception on both sides and it is easier to find affiliation with one side or the other because it does not require any examination of one’s existing core beliefs in such matters.  At least the fools admit to the near impossibility of having an honest, open debate because any critique of the Black community from White people is just one degree or another of racism and any criticism leveled against the Police by Black America is just so much tired blaming for their own inability to take personal responsibility and goes no further than to obscure the reality on the ground in places like Baltimore.

The moderates and pragmatists, as few and far between they might be, are left dumbfounded by the realities of urban America and the Black communities therein.  They look back over the years beginning in 1954 with the landmark “Brown v. The Board of Education” Supreme Court ruling that mandated schools to be integrated; it specifically forbade segregation in schools for basic kindergarten through high school.  This resulted, in some places and often violently, to the “busing” of White students into predominately Black schools and Black students into majority White schools. Then there have been Affirmative Action initiatives at every level of society; in virtually every aspect and institution from the realm of higher education to employment, housing, and other socioeconomic access.  There have been quota systems, preferential hiring practices, the alteration of requirements for certain jobs because there have been arguments that many standardized tests necessary for hiring into some jobs are intrinsically biased, they are tests and standards written and set by White people for White people. 

The fact of the matter is that there will never be appreciable, sustainable changes in the segment of Black urban America that is most disenfranchised unless it comes from within that community.  The White poor, the counterparts to the Black urban dwellers are largely dispersed in rural and semirural communities, suffer from the very same ills as do their Black counterparts facing problems such as drug addiction, violence, lack of proper health care, unwed mothers, and all the rest of that sad and sorry list of blights that the federal government has sought to address over the years.  One significant difference between the White and Black poor is that the Blacks tend to be concentrated in pockets of urban America where the population density obscures the true identity of that community.  Living in these often rough, tough neighborhoods are a majority of hard working, law abiding citizen with the same aspirations and goals as their White counterparts.  They parent well, emphasize the importance of education and teach their children the countless other life lessons that can only be provided by a parent.

Unfortunately, in poor communities regardless of color or race, there is a preponderance of young single mothers often essentially abandoned by the child’s biological father.  This perpetuates the reliance on public assistance that can become a repetitive cycle of children having children, of boys and men failing to take any responsibility financially or otherwise.  Children born into such circumstances are already severely disadvantaged. 

But this is not about poor people; this is about that segment of the inner city Black population that appears to align with a value system dramatically different from their White counterparts.  It is obvious in their music, style of dress, attitudes and actions.  They seem to take measures to further alienate themselves from the very same entry points into the working class they claim they seek.  They exhibit an incongruous tendency towards outward symbols and overt trappings of financial means and will opt to live in squalor so as to afford a fancy car, jewelry, and stylish cloths.  The ghettos are loaded with young men loitering donning $150 “Air Jordan’s”, carrying smart phones and iPods, wearing the clothing that represents “urban chic” today.  Ask any Cop Firemen or EMT who has worked in a ghetto neighborhood and they will recount countless stories of going into squalid apartments, housing underfed children, with virtually empty cupboards and refrigerator but a big 42” hi-def TV dominating the chaos of the living room.  This is so commonplace that it barely registers in the minds of those who enter these dwellings responding to emergencies of every variety. First responders are often left asking, where does the money for such luxuries come from?  Sometimes from the hard working women in their lives who often hold menial jobs,, receive public assistance or a combination of the two.  Sometimes criminal activity provides a “living” or, at least, an income stream.  But it is that odd need to display and portray oneself as having money that further exacerbates already strained household incomes.

Some reading these observations and statements will recoil and call foul; they’ll see racism embedded in each sentence and therein exists the core of the issues posing as a formidable obstacle.  In order to have any discussion, let alone a debate or dialogue of substance, we have to agree on language, on terminology.  A phrase recently inserted into the public discourse about race relations is “White privilege”.  It is interesting to note that that phrase is acceptable while any mention of Black disgruntlement or Black self-exclusion are taken as derogatory terms imbued with dirty racist overtones.  But let us at least be honest.  The gulf between Black America and White America in our inner cities and elsewhere is as profound, but not as overt, as it had been as recently as the 1970’s when the first full efforts of affirmative action became evident across all societal institutions. 

Today there is a Black middle class and no societal or professional boundaries present as glass ceilings.  The problems remain in that smallest fraction of inner city dwellers and the self-perpetuating cycle of poverty and all its malignant manifestations.  Black America must look within and find their way guided by their own direction.  There is no more the federal government, or government at any level, can do for them.

http://finance.yahoo.com/video/sheriff-clarke-mayor-threw-baltimore-004852853.html

Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2015 © All Rights Reserved

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: WHAT HE STOOD AND DIED FOR

A MAN AND A MISSION THAT

HAS NEVER GROWN OLD

TAGS: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR, CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLES 1960’S,

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, VOTER’S RIGHTS ACT,

INSTITUTIONAL SEGREGATION, DISCRIMINATION, JIM CROW,

DIXIE HIGHWAY, MLK TAKEN FAR TOO SOON

(Monday January 19, 2015 Memphis, TN)  It is easy to lose sight of just how young Martin Luther King Jr was when an assassin's bullet took his life here on April 4, 1968.  Reverend Doctor King was only 39 years old yet despite his young age he became a unifying force for a cause; a cause he’d made his life’s work and ultimately cost him his life.  He sought racial justice in a country that 100 years after the Civil War still permitted if not codified segregation, discrimination, bias and animus towards Black Americans – Negros as they were referred to as in Dr. King’s day – in the face of some of the staunchest resistance to change.  Parts of our country were not only practicing the harsh rules of Jim Crow but were simply treating Blacks largely the same as they did when slavery was still legal.  The Deep South saw violent clashes between those with vested interests in the status quo; between a Black populace that was isolated and made to feel inferior to the White majority.  The worst of segregation and the reality of “two classes of people separate and unequal” in even the most basic human and civil rights would die a slow death across the Deep South and some border states. The mass migrations up the “Dixie Highway” to the large northern industrial centers like Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, and a host of other cities in the north and west proved to Black Americans there were formidable obstacles to be faced even outside of Dixie.

Reverend King’s legacy stands for itself.  He, with the help of President Lyndon B. Johnson, brought the Voter’s Rights Act and other Civil Rights legislation to fruition.  Johnson, a product of the Senate before being tapped to serve as President John Kennedy’s Vice President, knew how to bluster, cajole, manipulate, twist arms and intimidate others in the Senate to adopt his point of view and Johnson sincerely sought to end discrimination and sought to have Black Americans assimilate into the “main stream” of all our institutions and communities.  He was a true believer despite the erroneous history often spouted by the un - and mis- informed.  

Here we stand now, all these years later with an African American President more than halfway through his second term.  No one on either side of the racial battles of the 1960’s and 1970’s ever even imagined they would see a Black man as US President in their lifetimes.  But they have; perhaps a majority of Americans; certainly the broad coalition that voted President Obama into Office twice, did so with the belief that his ascendency would somehow be a milestone, a turning point, a marker in the history of our country delineating our past and this new “Post Racial America”.  They could not have been more wildly mistaken.  If anything there has been a resurgence of racism in parts of the country in part sparked by the revelations that young Black and Latino men fear the Police and view them as an “occupying force” of “brutal thugs”.  Several incidents of White Police Officers shooting unarmed young Black men last year served to incite demonstrations and protests, some that turned violent, as well as a “declared” open season on Cops.  There have been Cops ambushed and assassinated, some surviving, others succumbing to their wounds.  These events have only added impetus to “the cause” no matter which side you may be aligned with.  It seems there is no middle ground in this arena of debate, no ambivalence or shades of gray.  Everything about what has been going on in cities all across America is presented as a stark, unambiguous, day or night, up or down, black or white divide.  Given the absence of any acceptable, neutral arbiter such as Dr. King was when the KKK was burning crosses and lynching innocent Black men on trumped up charges, it seems this divide will grow wider and deeper. 

Dr. King was the champion of “nonviolent civic action” as the only acceptable means towards achieving an end in the struggle he saw before him.  There was, however, nothing actually “passive” in his philosophy; it was characterized by strength, a strength so pure and deep that a believer could endure pain, ridicule, beatings, false arrests, death threats and all manner of atrocities perpetrated by those opposed to his cause employed, in an unflinching demonstration of stony resolve. 

While the use of nonviolent resistance further enraged his foes, after a time they had to look upon the Reverend King and his followers with a begrudging nod towards respect (?)…or something very close to it.  By the time James Earl Ray’s bullet took his life, Dr. King left behind him a strong ideological following that made Americans everywhere regardless of station in life, profession, race, color or creed take notice and begin to look inside themselves.  The madness of legalized segregation and all its overt and subtle manifestations could no longer survive unchallenged. 

This is not to imply an overnight transformation across the country.  The struggle for equality would continue for decades and, in many facets of American society, culture, education, housing, employment and access, continues to this very day.  Mr. Obama might be our President yet many predominately African American ghettos remain as blights, not so much on our communities, but rather on our conscience.  We should be able to do better for those most in need and this is not a rallying cry from a bleeding heart liberal for more public assistance, more welfare, more of anything of the kind.  It is simply a statement of need.  African Americans in some neighborhoods have literally no chance of obtaining a living wage job.  Many lack in even basic K through 12 educations with some of the “failing” schools failing far more than their students; they are failing all of society.

Those of us born in the years up until the late 1950’s likely can remember some of the signs and symbols of segregation and racism from our youth: the “Coloreds” section at the end of the lunch counter at Woolworths, the “Sunset” neighborhoods and communities that would not tolerate the presence of an African American in their midst after sunset.  In relative terms those days and times were not all that long ago.  Much progress has been made yet there is always room for more progress, more inclusion and standards need not be lowered to accommodate such inclusiveness.   

Prejudice no matter who it is directed at or aimed to is a soul sickness.  Prejudice is not innate, it is learned.  Children do not come into the world prewired, already circuited with inherent prejudice.  Yes, humans have the capacity for prejudice just as they do for all the other traits and characteristics we see manifest in others.  Prejudice, just like bias, intolerance and racism is taught, it is something a child learns not in nature but in nurture.  Like human cellular sponges our children draw from and acquire attitudes and behaviors from their parents and siblings, from the environments they are reared in.  Often without realizing, parents and older siblings, cousins, neighbors and friends introduce into a young mind ideas and words, concepts and beliefs that those tender pliable minds take in and hard-wire into their neural circuitry.  Sadly, this results in too many children “inheriting” the biases and prejudices of the elders around them.

One of human nature’s more troubling traits is our need to divide and conquer; to divide our world between “us” and “them”.  Since our earliest days living in hunter-gatherer settlements and likely farther back into antiquity, we naturally seek alliances with those we are obviously most closely related to and that need extends further out to those we see familiarity in.  That is the very basis of, as theorized by evolutionary biologists, are capacity for empathy; for our ability to sacrifice for the greater good even when that larger good is not immediate family.  Empathy, perhaps more than any other single trait, separates us from our closest relatives on the genetic tree.   

Biologically, there is no difference between human beings of different colors, ethnicities, races or creeds.  Genetically, on the submicroscopic scale of DNA, one would be hard pressed to identify any evidence that categorically proves a difference of any kind between people with Black skin, Brown Skin, Red Skin, Yellow Skin or White Skin.  Modern science has made this abundantly clear.  Our “differences” are of our own design, of a manufactured construct that is just a few eons removed from the tribal and familial warfare that determined if our species would survive or die.  We all occupy a very small intricately interconnected planet; the “pale blue dot” as viewed by Neil Armstrong from the Lunar surface in 1969.  

As global citizens we should all and always be cognizant of our proximity, our shared humanity, and our “sameness”.  As Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr said just a year prior to his premature death, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals”.  As Abraham Lincoln commented, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”, we all must try to put the pettiness and animosity aside.  We are all passengers on the same boat and we will, no doubt, either sink to doom or swim to redemption together.

Copyright The Brooding Cynyx 2015 © All Rights Reserved

TERRORIST BACKLASH IN EUROPEAN UNION

UNKNOWN NUMBER OF “HOMEGROWN” TERRORISTS

TRAINED IN SYRIA AND IRAQ WITH ISIS OR AQAP

NYPD IN CLOSE TOUCH WITH INTERPOL & OTHER ALLIES

The Kouachi brother assassinate a French Police Officer outside the offices

of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last week

TAGS: TERRORIST ATTACKS IN FRANCE, TERRORIST TRAINING IN

IRAQ, SYRIA AND YEMEN, SMALL CELLS, LOOSE NETWORKS HALLMARKS OF

NEW GENERATION OF EXTREMISTS, EUROPEAN UNION MEMBERS

VULNERABLE, NYPD INTEL BUREAU ON HIGH ALERT

(Tuesday January 13, 2015, NY, NY)  The carnage in France at the Paris office of a satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, was not about an offensive cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a derogatory manner.  Yes, the perpetrators may have made that absurd claim just as they have launched attacks at other publications and journalists they deemed to be “Enemies of Islam”.  The brief siege and bloodshed at a Kosher market as well as the murder of four Police Officers in three separate incidents, one of whom ironically was a Muslim, were more about creating terror for terrors sake then any cartoon.

We first tasted the bitter pill of Islamic extremists here on February 26, 1993 when a small terror cell based in Brooklyn managed to park a truck loaded with an explosive device on the fourth subterranean level of the World Trade Center Plaza.  The global reach of terrorism reached our shores and has been here ever since although they have not managed to perpetrate another mass casualty, mass fatality events since the attack on September 11, 2001.  Very quickly we were forced to adapt to the new reality and could no longer believe the broad oceans kept us immune from jihadists and other radicals. 

 al QAEDA 1.0

The al Qaeda terrorist organization the world was introduced to on September 11, 2001 has essentially been significantly degraded and largely eradicated.  In the wake of 9-11-01 we dispatched CIA operatives and Special Forces into their safe haven granted by the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan and quickly had those who remained trapped in the rugged Hindu Kush border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  As that campaign of asymmetrical warfare and conventional United States military weaponry and tactics, particularly unrivaled air superiority, the intelligence community was beginning to piece together all of the many “dots” they had failed to connect prior to 9-11-01.  Quickly the important role the exiled Saudi son of a multimillionaire, Osama bin Laden emerged as did his motivation  for previous attacks on United States embassies in Africa and the US Navy ship the USS Cole as it sat docked in the Port of Oman.

Bin Laden had been issuing missives and fatwas from his safe haven scattered throughout Afghanistan for many years.  he had literally “declared war” on the United States several times in recorded television interviews but he and his threats were not taken seriously in the CIA or NSC.  Obviously, that was to our detriment and revelations and analysis conducted throughout the last 13 years clearly illustrates that the intelligence community and the Cheney/Bush Administration have blood, American blood, on their hands.

But the trail begins farther back to the Administration of President George H.W. Bush and Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.  The Saudi’s fearing the Iraqi army would easily plow through Kuwait and advance into Saudi Arabia seeking help.  Osama bin Laden flew to Saudi Arabia and because of his family’s close ties with the House of Saud, was granted a private meeting with top tier Saudi officials.  Fresh off what he perceived as a huge military victory for his mujahedin forces who had routed the mighty Soviet Union’s military after almost 10 years of bitter combat and retreated in defeat and disgrace, bin Laden offered the services of his “troops” to defend the homeland, the sacred land that is home to the all-important cities of Mecca and Medina.  Osama could not bear the thought of having an infidel army – the United States military – occupying Saudi land while they fought to repel the possible Iraqi invasion.  The Saudi refusal of bin Laden’s offer enraged him and he ultimately returned to Afghanistan after being declared persona non grata in Yemen. 

The US military rapidly expelled all Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  They also left behind several remote military bases and this was an affront that bin Laden could not endure.  The thought of Americans on sacred soil with all their sinful ways was the catalytic spark that ignited the embassy attacks and the USS Cole incident and would ultimately culminate with the attack on 9-11-01. 

Over the intervening years the original al Qaeda network has been downgraded to a “brand” with small cells functioning as “franchises”.  Any group that commits an act of terror on the West can claim their affiliation with al Qaeda or the upstart bastardized off-shoot mutation al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  Groups such as these are decentralized, often living in member’s home countries after having traveled to and received training in Iraq or Syria; Afghanistan and Yemen are seeing a resurgence of al Qaeda 1.0 as well.  There is also the huge specter of “lone wolf” operatives, “copy-cat” opportunists, and small cells very loosely connected if connected at all. 

BASTARD STEPCHILDREN: AQAP AND ISIS

The emergence of the ultra-violent terrorist organization known as ISIS or ISIL was born in Syria as a force determined to oust the despotic leader of that country Bashar al-Assad.  They have developed into a significant military presence equipped largely with the huge caches of weaponry the United States left behind in Iraq as well as other USA supplied munitions intended for the nascent Iraqi Defense Force and local police.  Iraq is by anyone’s standards a “failed state” and ISIS rapidly capitalized on the deterioration of that country gaining substantial territorial assets largely through the unchecked use of barbarism and savagery that has earned them the reputation that strikes fear in the hearts of those unfortunate enough to have been in their path.  Despite the US bombing campaign on some of their strongholds in northern Iraq and southern Syria, they continue to fight with Syrian troops still loyal to President al-Assad while simultaneously holding on to the broad swathes of territory they have seized in the oil-rich northern provinces in Iraq.  They have effectively obliterated the historical border between Iraq and Syria.  We have seen their brutality as they have beheaded captured hostages, raped, pillaged and destroyed the small communities of   Ankawa, Iraq, the predominantly Christian suburb in the province of Erbil.  In many cases the members of these ancient sects were given the ultimatum to convert to Islam or be killed.

While AQAP and ISIS share little to nothing ideologically, they both have designs to lash out on the western world and the United States. Both organizations actively recruit in European countries and the USA.  Those called to jihad travel to Iraq and Syria for terrorist training and afterwards are sent back to their homelands to ply their newly acquired and honed skills in everything from assembling suicide bombs and other IED’s, and small-scale assaults such as was seen last week in France.  AQAP and ISIS have proven to be particularly adept at cyber warfare and the use of the Internet and social media to attract followers as well as to orchestrate operations between small cells unknown to each other.  These are classic hallmarks of the modern day version of asymmetrical warfare.  They have also been able to penetrate some of our government’s databases in well executed hacking operations.  In many ways it is astounding that there are individuals within AQAP and ISIS with sufficient cyber knowledge and acuity who’ve been able to pull off such hacks.  Once again it seems as if the US intelligence community, military, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Cyber Warfare Command are playing catch up with these terrorist groups.

THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS

That there exists an unknown number of individuals, some loosely affiliated with larger groups or terrorist networks reside in many European countries became bloodily evident with the attacks in France.  Some analysts have made the point that the weapons used in those attacks are “military grade” and virtually impossible to purchase in countries in the European Union (EU).  For many this indicated the presence of terrorists with connections to the war zones and the illegal market of underground arms sales.  This reality poses a special threat to a country such as France with a significant Muslim population.  The lax security in travelling between EU countries also allows motivated individuals to travel unimpeded; provided they are not on any country’s “watch list”, throughout the EU and to Iraq, Syria, Yemen or any other location where terrorists conduct training. 

There is no way to even guess at the number of individuals who have gone abroad for terrorist training and returned to their home countries to conduct mass casualty, mass fatality events.  Speaking with analysts and experts in the US intelligence community including the elite NYPD Intelligence Bureau, the CIA, FBI, and a source in the ATF, the overarching concern is that there are so many important questions being asked that are basically unanswerable or draw incomplete conclusions about the numbers of people in the US, be they part of a gauzy network, lone wolves or copy-cats,that are somewhere “out there” waiting for a signal or simply an internal urge to strike.  The prospect of this unknown quantity in our midst has local authorities, especially the NYPD on a high alert status.  Some Intel operations that had been temporarily halted have been reactivated.

Last Thursday NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism commented that the threat of a terrorist attack in NYC “…has never gone away”.  He continued, “The new wrinkle is that groups like ISIS, while they have a less sophisticated external planning operations node, have a much more sophisticated and slick propaganda arm that is extolling people to do this without having contact with the mother ship.” 

ANYTIME, ANYWHERE

While a City such as New York will always be a highly desirable “target rich environment” for terrorists of every stripe, this new generation of terrorists are, at least for the time being, comfortable to pull off smaller scaled operations; these operations in some ways are as effective a method to achieving their means as a large scale attack: they induce fear among local populations and gain significant publicity the world over.  This aides them not only in striking a fatal blow to a target by also serves as an effective recruitment tool and another venue through which they spread their propaganda to as large an audience as possible.  This is the harsh fact of our times; American interests abroad are targets just as is our homeland and we have already witnessed a few isolated attacks perpetrated here by individuals claiming to be associated or at least with an affinity for groups such as AQAP and ISIS.

Our best defense is a mixture of offense, as in pro-active policing and intelligence gathering as well as maintaining the highest levels of security at prominent and notable sites not only here in NYC but all across the country.


 

French, European, and International related links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/world/europe/new-charlie-hebdo-cover-creates-new-questions-for-us-news-media.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/13/europe-muslims_n_6461782.html?1421177633

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30777841

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/01/13/charlie-hebdo-fallout-specters-of-fascist-past-haunt-europes-new-nationalism/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/world/europe/amedy-coulibaly-video-islamic-state.html?action=click&contentCollection=US%20Open&region=Article&module=Promotron

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/world/europe/new-charlie-hebdo-has-muhammad-cartoon.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/the-trouble-with-france-the-largest-muslim-community-in-europe-seethes-on-the-periphery

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2015/01/12/isis_and_al_qaida_are_enemies_how_can_they_both_have_been_involved_in_the.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/misreading-the-label-the-war-against-radical-islam/5424467

New York City related links:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/01/12/NYPD-others-on-high-alert-after-terrorist-threat/1931421073093/

http://nypost.com/2015/01/13/bill-bratton-discusses-terrorist-threats-on-today/

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-alerted-isis-threat-cops-civilians-article-1.2073649

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/01/12/nypd-fbi-issue-alerts-after-isis-puts-out-video-calling-for-attacks-on-law/

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/pr/plots_targeting_nyc.shtml

http://jpupdates.com/2015/01/13/bill-bratton-sends-nypd-representatives-paris-assist-crisis/

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