Monthly Archives: November 2004

Profiling radical Islamic fascists

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Marc Sageman was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987?89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist in Philadelphia. His book, Understanding Terror Networks, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press earlier this year.
After the attacks on New York and Washington of September 11, 2002, Dr. Sageman noticed the lack of systematic data on the perpetrators, so he began to apply the principles of evidence-based medicine to terrorism research. He gathered terrorist biographies from various sources, relying most heavily on the records of various criminal trials. After matrixing approximately 400 biographies, Dr. Sageman began a social-network analysis of this group.
This Foreign Policy Research Institute article provides a summary of Dr. Sageman’s findings and conclusions. Inasmuch as the entire article is fascinating, I had a difficult time deciding which excerpts to pass along, but here are a few.
First, Dr. Sageman notes that the key period of development for the current radical Islamic fascists was the time in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when their leadership gathered in Khartoum, Sudan to hatch their dream of indepedent “Salafi” states:

The Khartoum period is critical, because what these violent Salafists basically want to do is to create a Salafi state in a core Arab country. Salafi (from Salaf, ?ancient ones? or ?predecessors? in Arabic) is an emulation, an imitation of the mythical Muslim community that existed at the time of Mohammed and his companion, which Salafists believe was the only fair and just society that ever existed. A very small subset of Salafis, the disciples of Qutb, believe they cannot create this state peacefully through the ballot-box but have to use violence. The utopia they strive for is similar to most utopias in European thought of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, such as the communist classless society.

Moreover, Dr. Sageman points out that the background of the radical Islamic fascist leadership is similar to that of the “best and the brightest” of the societies from which they have emerged:

Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing – the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they?re just plain evil.
Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority?90 percent?came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that?s usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.
Al Qaeda?s members are not the Palestinian fourteen-year- olds we see on the news, but join the jihad at the average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect; and a few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.

Mr. Sageman notes that there really is not one profile for a radical Islamic fascist:

So what?s in common? There?s really no profile, just similar trajectories to joining the jihad and that most of these men were upwardly and geographically mobile. Because they were the best and brightest, they were sent abroad to study. They came from moderately religious, caring, middle-class families. They?re skilled in computer technology. They spoke three, four, five, six languages. Most Americans don?t know Arabic; these men know two or three Western languages: German, French, English.
When they became homesick, they did what anyone would and tried to congregate with people like themselves, whom they would find at mosques. So they drifted towards the mosque, not because they were religious, but because they were seeking friends. They moved in together in apartments, in order to share the rent and also to eat together – they were mostly halal, those who observed the Muslim dietary laws, similar in some respects to the kosher laws of Judaism. Some argue that such laws help to bind a group together since observing them is something very difficult and more easily done in a group. A micro-culture develops that strengthens and absorbs the participants as a unit. This is a halal theory of terrorism, if you like.
These cliques, often in the vicinity of mosques that had a militant script advocating violence to overthrow the corrupt regimes, transformed alienated young Muslims into terrorists. It?s all really group dynamics. You cannot understand the 9/11 type of terrorism from individual characteristics. The suicide bombers in Spain are another perfect example. Seven terrorists sharing an apartment and one saying ?Tonight we?re all going to go, guys.? You can?t betray your friends, and so you go along. Individually, they probably would not have done it.

In fact, the lack of these social networks is one of the reasons why Dr. Sageman believes that another 9/11-type attack has not occurred in the United States:

Indeed, there are not that many terrorists in America. There have never been any sleeper cells. All the terrorists are fairly obvious. The FBI cases we see in the press tend to unravel. The Detroit group has been exonerated, and the prosecutor is now being prosecuted for malfeasance on the planted evidence. He allegedly knew exculpatory facts that he did not present to the defense. The only sleeper America has ever had in a century was Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel, who was arrested in the late 1950s and exchanged for Gary Powers, the U2 pilot. Eastern European countries did send sleepers to this country, men fully trained who ?go to sleep??lead normal lives?and then are activated to become fully operational. But they all became Americans.
In order to really sustain your motivation to do terrorism, you need the reinforcement of group dynamics. You need reinforcement from your family, your friends. This social movement was dependent on volunteers, and there are huge gaps worldwide on those volunteers. One of the gaps is the United States. This is one of two reasons we have not had a major terrorist operation in the United States since 9/11. The other is that we are far more vigilant. We have actually made coming to the U.S. far more difficult for potential terrorists since 2001.

But Dr. Sageman warns that the radical Islamic fascists have adapted and changed the way in which they will plan future attacks:

We hear that Al Qaeda plans its attacks for years and years. It may have before 9-11, but not anymore. Operatives in caves simply cannot communicate with people in the field. The network has been fairly well broken by our intelligence services. The network is now self-organized from the bottom up, and is very decentralized. With local initiative and flexibility, it?s very robust. True, two-thirds to three- quarters of the old leaders have been taken out, but that doesn?t mean that we?re home free. The network grows organically, like the Internet. We couldn?t have identified the Madrid culprits, because we wouldn?t have known of them until the first bomb exploded.
So in 2004, Al Qaeda has new leadership. In a way today?s operatives are far more aggressive and senseless than the earlier leaders. The whole network is held together by the vision of creating the Salafi state. A fuzzy, idea-based network really requires an idea-based solution. The war of ideas is very important and this is one we haven?t really started to engage yet.

Read the entire article.

“Alexander the Turkey”

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My younger son, who is a serious film buff, went to see Oliver Stone’s Alexander the Great yesterday. He passes along that it is an unmitigated disaster, and predicts that it will be out of the theaters in less than a month, a prediction that is supported by the woeful early financial performance of the $210 million film (there were few people in the audience of the showing that he attended). The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter agrees in this hilarious review, and passes along this gem on the performance of Angelina Jolie as Alexander’s mother, Olympias:

Then there’s Angelina Jolie as Mom. Really, words fail me here. But let’s try: Give this young woman the hands-down award for best impression of Bela Lugosi while hampered by a 38-inch bust line. Though everyone else in the picture speaks in some variation of a British accent, poor Jolie has been given the Transylvanian throat-sucker’s throaty, sibilant vowels, as well as a wardrobe of snakes. She represents the spirit of kitsch that fills the movie, and with all her crazed posturing and slinking, it’s more of a silent movie performance than one from the sound era. Theda Bara, call your agent.

The blogosphere’s foremost film critic — Professor Ribstein — passes along his thoughts in this post. And even Victor Davis Hanson chimes in with this review, in which he concludes:

There is also irony here. If we remember the embarrassing Troy, we are beginning to see, that all for all the protestations of artistic excellence and craftsmanship, Hollywood has become mostly a place of mediocrity, talentless actors and writers who spout off about politics in lieu of having any real accomplishment in their own field. I?ve heard so many inane things mouthed by Stone that I would like someone at last to address this question?why would supposedly smart insiders turn over $160 million to someone of such meager talent to make such an embarrassing film? Alexander the Great is third-rate Cecil B. Demille in drag.

For Seinfeld fans

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The Chronicle’s Ken Hoffman will like this — The Jerry Seinfeld Dictionary of Terms and Phrases. An example:

Must-Lie Situation – when a person feels that they cannot tell the truth to someone else for fear of offending them (ex #1 calling one’s baby “Breathtaking”, ex #2 not being able to tell someone that their hairdo is pre-1960’s or just plain hideous)

The politics of statutes at UT

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This NY Times article reports on the squabble that has arisen over the University of Texas at Austin’s decision to honor famed Houston trial lawyer Joe Jamail with his second statute on the UT campus:

Of the more than a dozen statues peppering the University of Texas campus here, one glorifies the first native-born governor, two pay tribute to deceased American presidents, and others honor Confederate leaders.
Another statue is poised to join the cast on Friday, honoring a graduate who is a successful trial lawyer.
The subject, Joe Jamail, a Houston alumnus who has donated $21.7 million to the university and its athletic programs, already has one bronze likeness at the law school and his name is on several campus sites. The newest statue of Mr. Jamail, who won billions of dollars for Pennzoil in a landmark suit in the 1980’s, is scheduled to be unveiled inside the football stadium before the annual game against archrival Texas A&M.
But not everyone looks forward to another likeness. The statue, . . makes Mr. Jamail the only person with two on the 350-acre campus, university officials say, and that distinction has rankled some faculty members.
“One is enough, with due respect to whoever,” said a journalism professor, Gene Burd.

The 78 year old Jamail is most famous (notorious?) for persuading a Houston state court jury in 1985 to award a record $11 billion in damages against Texaco for tortiously interfering with Pennzoil’s attempted acquisition of Getty Oil. The subsequent judgment prompted Texaco to file a chapter 11 case, which eventually resulted in a settlement of Pennzoil’s claim for $3 billion in 1987. Already a wealthy plaintiff’s lawyer, Mr. Jamail took the case on a contingency fee, so his piece of the settlement made him one of the wealthiest attorneys in the world.
Over the past 20 years, Mr. Jamail has become a philanthropist, and UT has been the main beneficiary of his philanthropy. Sites at the university named for Mr. Jamail include the swim center, the football field, the law school pavilion that contains the first statute of him, and the law school’s legal research center. The newest statue of Mr. Jamail planned for a corner of the football stadium will be placed near a new statue of the former national champion football coach and UT legend Darrell Royal. By the way, Mr. Jamail paid for the statute of Coach Royal.
To this day, the Pennzoil-Texaco case is most remembered in Houston legal circles for the catastrophic trial decision that Texaco’s general counsel made. Texaco’s main defense was that it was justified in competing with Pennzoil for Getty Oil and, thus, could not have tortiously interfered with Pennzoil’s takeover attempt. However, in support of an alternative defense, Texaco’s trial counsel recommended that Texaco put on expert testimony that would contradict Pennzoil’s evidence of alleged damages. Texaco’s general counsel decided that putting on countervailing damages testimony would be a signal to the jury that Texaco did not confidence in its primary defense, so he directed Texaco’s trial counsel not to put on any expert damages testimony.
Consequently, when the jury found in favor of Pennzoil on the liability issue, the only damages evidence in the trial record was Pennzoil’s. Thus, the $11 billion jury verdict ensued, and the trial record contained inadequate evidence upon which an appellate court could base a decision to reduce the damages.
As they say in defense circles, “Ouch!”

Oh great! Cell phone viruses?

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Your cell phone may be the victim of the next wave of viruses.

Krispy Kreme = Boston Market

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This Floyd Norris’ NY Times column does a nice job of explaining the developing debacle of Krispy Kreme, the share price of which peaked at $49.74 in the summer of 2003, but which has fallen as low as $9.35 recently. An earlier post on the company’s developing troubles may be reviewed here.
What happened? Easy. Most Krispy Kreme franchises don’t make money:

Krispy Kreme’s company-owned stores report an operating profit, but not one large enough to cover corporate overhead. The real profits have come from the company’s dealings with its franchise vendors. The franchises pay royalties of 4.5 percent to 6 percent of sales, plus 1 percent for advertising and public relations. And they must buy all their supplies from the parent – paying hefty markups that provide 20 percent profit margins for Krispy Kreme.
All that would be fine if the franchises were doing well. But many are not, and some are turning to Krispy Kreme as the lender of last resort. Some of these borrow from the parent and others sell their franchises back to it. One lucky operator had a deal that forced Krispy Kreme to buy at a price set in more optimistic times. In other cases, the parent bought for reasons the S.E.C. may be looking into, since its insiders held stakes in franchises the company purchased.
Until recently, it had been hard to tell how the franchises were doing. But the combination of additional investments in franchises and new accounting rules – imposed as a result of the Enron scandal – has forced the company to disclose more. In the quarter ended in October, the joint ventures lost $2.1 million after coming close to breaking even a year earlier.

The lesson of Krispy Kreme is simple, and it is the same one that the Boston Market bankruptcy of the 1990’s should have taught us. If the people who actually sell the product are not doing well, then neither is the enterprise.
Put Krispy Kreme on your bankruptcy watch list for 2005.

United finally seeks to reject CBA’s

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Two years into its aimless chapter 11 case, UAL Corp. finally requested that the Bankruptcy Court allow it to reject its existing labor contracts with six unions if the company cannot reach consensual agreements on modifications to the contracts by January, 2005.
Better late than never, but geez United, let’s get on with it.
In its motion, United disclosed that it needs an additional $725 million in annual savings from its 62,000 workers in order to maintain sufficient liquidity to avoid a default under its interim bankruptcy financing even though United employees provided wage cuts valued at $2.5 billion a year earlier in the case. United now needs to generate additional savings because the airline business has been hammered even further by a compbination of low ticket prices, competition from discount airlines, high fuel prices, and unfunded pension obligations.
Moreover, UAL used the filing to remind the Court that it must also reduce its pension liabilities in order to secure exit financing to fund a plan of reorganization in its chapter 11 case. Consequently, unless consensual modifications of those liabilities are obtained, United will request that the Court approve United’s termination of its four pension plans, which would foist a substantial portion of the unfuned pension liabilities onto the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which is not exactly in great shape itself.
United’s proposals are meeting with angry opposition in its chapter 11 case from the various unions and the PBGC. As a result, it appears that United will probably be required to endure a prolonged court battle on its motion to reject the labor contracts. Under the Bankruptcy Code, United has to prove that the rejections are necessary to permit the company to reorganize, that they are fair, and that the company bargained in good faith with the unions.
Legacy airlines are doomed to failure in the current airline industry absent change that will allow them to compete with the discount airlines. Nevetheless, the glacial progress in United’s chapter 11 case reflects the difficulties involved in changing a legacy airline’s culture. Although perhaps not best for United and its various parties-in-interest, the best thing that could happen to the airline industry as a whole would be for the Bankruptcy Judge in United’s case to issue an order requiring United’s parties-in-interest to show cause why United should not be liquidated. Only that type of industry shattering event is likely to shake the intractable view of airline unions that the past largesse of the legacy airlines is sustainable in the future.
Meanwhile, in this Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed, three authors involved in airline industry/bankruptcy issues provide the following proposal for dealing with unfunded pension obligations of the various legacy airlines:

We believe that the airlines, airline unions and the administration should work together to propose to the Congress a new alternative to the “lose-lose-lose” Chapter 11 approach. This would present an airline and unions with the following new choice: First, management and a union would need to agree collectively to freeze an existing defined-benefit pension plan. Importantly for the PBGC, its liability as guarantor of the plan would be capped as of the freeze date and would decrease over time. Second, the unfunded liability of the frozen plan then would be amortized over a specified time period that would be longer than what current law allows. Here’s where compromise is needed — the PBGC will want a shorter period for the unfunded pension liability to be paid; the airlines will want longer. One thing is clear: The existing pension funding law, particularly the so-called deficit-reduction contribution provisions, so accelerate the funding of significantly underfunded pension plans as to make the freeze option unrealistic absent a longer time period to satisfy the unfunded liabilities. Finally, management and labor would negotiate and agree upon a new, replacement defined-contribution pension plan.

Rathergate is rather fine for CBS

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This NY Times article reports that CBS executives are smiling these days, and Dan Rather’s recent resignation as CBS anchorman does not really have much to do with it.
This is further confirmation that the mainstream television networks are really just entertainment venues, and that their news divisions have turned into just another entertainment show that they feel compelled to run for public relations purposes. Thus, so long as the news divisions are marginally profitable or do not lose much money, the networks don’t really care much about the quality of the product.
My sense is that this is not the way that Edward R. Murrow thought that television network news was going to develop.
Meanwhile, this editorial provides The Economist’s view of Mr. Rather’s resignation, including the following observation:

Mr Rather’s retirement epitomises two broader shifts of power. First, the old media are losing power to the new. And, second, the liberal media establishment is losing power to a more diverse cacophony of new voices.

Spreading Holiday Cheer through Amazon

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If you, like me, purchase a boatload of holiday gifts through Amazon.com, then you can help support this blog by clicking the “Holiday Shopping @ Amazon” link on the right side scroll bar. At no additional cost to the purchaser, Amazon’s Associates program pays a small commission to this blog for any items purchased while accessing Amazon through that link. A number of other fine blogs are also in the program, (Virginia Postrel and Marginal Revolution to name just two), so I encourage you to use Amazon by clicking such a link and help support your favorite blogs during this Holiday Season. Thanks!

Bill Moyers is retiring

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Bill Moyers will retire next month from full-time broadcasting at the age of 70. This Rocky Mount Telegram article explores the life and work of Mr. Moyers, who has been one of the most thoughtful journalists regarding public affairs during his long career in journalism. Raised in Marshall, Texas, Mr. Moyers met Lyndon Johnson during his 1954 Senate campaign and then served as deputy director of the Peace Corps under President Kennedy and as President Johnson’s chief advocate for the Great Society and the War Against Poverty from 1963-67.
Although I have not always agreed with Mr. Moyers’ views, I have always appreciated the thoughtful manner in which he has presented them. During these times of increasingly polarized views, such an advocate of reasoned debate will be missed.