Links of Interest

Be sure to check out our collection of useful links to blogs and websites from around the globe, ranging from US foreign policy, national security and politics to law, development, econo- and enviro-bloggers, and tech and media.

 

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The Importance of Training Camps

Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed a trend of people pointing to terrorist plots hatched in, for example, Europe as evidence that “safe havens” for terrorist groups do not matter. In his monograph Jihad in Saudi Arabia, Thomas Hegghammer comes to a different conclusion:

“The arguably most important lesson from the history [...]

Radicalizing al-Awlaki

The Jamestown Foundation has some interesting information on Anwar al-Awlaki, who probably played a role in radicalizing Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan and would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab:

“In November 2001, an American Muslim cleric told the Washington Post that he had no sympathy for the perpetrators of 9/11, that Muslims and [...]

I’d Rather be Famous than Righteous or Holy

Ben Smith is impressed with the Obama administration’s relatively low-key approach to counterterrorism:

One of the most striking differences between the Obama and Bush administration is the handling of domestic terror arrests. The Bush White House trumpeted every arrest and disrupted plot — in some cases, ones that were nowhere close to fruition — as a major win in the War on Terror and a reminder of the need to be vigilant. 

The Obama administration, by contrast, keeps them relatively quiet. There hasn’t been a statement from the White House, or any comment save a Justice Department press release, on the arrest of seven men on charges that they helped raise money and provide training for attacks in Israel, and trained to participate in attacks in Israel and Kosovo.

The decision not to talk about terrorism is just that — a choice, with the goal of ending the "politics of fear" that Obama denounced during the campaign.

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