Introduction: The Nation Under Siege (Creation of the Department of Homeland Security)



(World Trade Center. Photo courtesy of Wally Gobetz, Wikemedia Commons)


 

            The notion that the United States is invincible from a foreign-terrorist attack was proven wrong after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, which later referred to as the 9/11. The successful terrorist operations carried out in New York and Washington DC by the members of al-Qaeda (AQ) have revealed to the world that even a powerful country like the United States is not secured from a suicidal terrorist group.

            The results of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon building not only claimed the lives of 5,350 Americans and foreign expatriates, but they also resulted in the injuries of 6,500 people. These figures do not include the lives of 44 passengers and the flight crew of United Airlines Flight 93 killed when they crashed in the outskirt of Shanksville, Pennsylvania while bravely wrestling control of the plane from the terrorists.

            The terrorists' operations on 9/11 have revealed the softer sides of the security and intelligence apparatus of the United States government. The much-heralded invincibility of the US Intelligence Community (IC), considered as the best in the world, was later on regarded by the public as an incompetent organization. The IC members' ineptitude raised serious concern about the capability to provide the policymakers with accurate and timely intelligence on future terrorist operations in the United States.

            There are several factors that can be considered why the IC failed to preempt the AQ plot. One of these was the lack of a strategic plan to counter the emerging threats of global terrorism coming from the ranks of the Islamist terrorists after the Cold War. The IC members, particularly the FBI and the CIA, have failed to adjust to the changing geopolitical landscape of the world after the collapse of the Berlin wall—which consequently united the two German countries—and of the break-up of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) into independent States.

            The political change has shifted the global alliances that even former Warsaw Pact members (i.e., communist states) became part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This transformation had left the United States with no traditional military enemies to engage with. The threat to United States' national security via conventional warfare or through missile strikes from the distant European shores has lessened.

            The lowering of guards created false security, which apparently affected the collection of intelligence data because of the pressure to disband the CIA in the aftermath of the downfall of communism in Europe. The Democratic Party leaders called for the abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and to transfer its foreign intelligence activities to the US Department of State as well as the CIA’s paramilitary operations to the Pentagon.

            The demise of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact countries—considered as the “A” list nations in terms of threat to national security—has caused the United States’ foreign policy on security to shift to the “B” list nations (e.g., Iraq and North Korea)  and to the “C” list nations (e.g., Bosnia, Somalia). Accordingly, the immediate attention given to the “B” list nations is to preempt these countries to fill the void left by the “A” nations and to counter the proliferations of weapons of mass destruction. Security experts claimed that, because the focus of the IC resources in the past decade was shifted to the “B” list nations, the IC had never seen the emerging threats coming from the Islamic radical groups, particularly the MAK—the forerunner of AQ network, after the Soviet-Afghan war.

            There were estimated 40,000 displaced had-core mujahideens, who came from various Muslim countries around the world to fight in Afghanistan.  With no more war to win and no more battle to fight, these seasoned fighters went back to their respective countries and became leaders of terrorist groups in their localities. For example, the late Abdurajik Abubakar Janjalani, who founded the notorious Abu Sayaff Group in the Philippines, was a veteran of the Soviet-Afghan war. Others had surreptitiously relocated to the West and secretly formed cell groups in Germany, France, and Spain. These developments were not seen by the IC as a gathering threats to the security of United States until the 9/11 attacks happened.

            Before the 9/11, there were 14 organizations that comprised IC—six from the civilian sector and eight from the military sector. Its mandate came from the Executive Order 12333 (United States Intelligence Activities), which provides, among others, to “collect information concerning, and the conduct of activities to protect against, intelligence activities directed against the United States, international terrorist and international narcotics activities, and other hostile activities directed against the United States by foreign powers, organizations, persons, and their agents.”

            The US Intelligence Community members were as follows:

             Civilian Sector

            1. Central Intelligence Agency

            2. Federal Bureau of Investigation
            3. US State Department
            4. Treasury Department
            5. Energy Department
            6. Coast Guard

            Military Sector

            1. Defense Intelligence Agency

            2. National Security Agency
            3. National Reconnaissance Office
            4. National Imagery and Mapping Agency
            5. Army Intelligence
            6. Navy Intelligence
            7. Air Force Intelligence
            8. Marine Intelligence

The Resurgence of the Black Bear that is USSR

(Statues of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minster Mikhail Gorbachev
at the Reagan Presidential Library)

     The West left the Black Bear for dead twenty-three years ago, wounded and battered on the side of the road.  Her ferocious growl faded into a whimper and her vicious claws no longer feared by those around her.  For some time, she laid on the ground abandoned, her body broken and her spirit crushed. 

     The once mighty Black Bear that ruled her dominion with an iron fist had become an ordinary onlooker from the backwoods while nursing a bruised ego. 

     The disintegration of the Black Bear in 1991 has resulted to the formation of the Russian Federation (composed of 83 federal subjects, 22 of them are republics with the recent addition of Crimea) and the creation of independent countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. 

     Eight new countries in Central Asia emerged, such as Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.  Six were in Eastern Europe, and they are Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

     The fall of the Black Bear ended control of its eight satellite-countries, and these are East Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Romania.

     Six years ago, the Black Bear came out from her long recuperation, fully recovered and eager to regain control of her old empire, and with Vladimir Putin riding on her shoulders. 

     She tested the ground by attacking Georgia in 2008, and the West, particularly United States, shrugged the invasion nonchalantly. 

     Last month she took Crimea by force, and all she got was a slap on the hand and a light warning to stop her bullying behaviors.  The United States responded by blacklisting Bank Rossiya and several Russian politicians and entrepreneurs.  It was a sanction directed not against Russia’s economy, but on Putin’s close political allies and wealthy friends.

     The Black Bear observed the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries’ reaction to the invasion of Crimea region.  The light response she received was an indicator that her old-time nemeses don’t have the political and military will to stop her rampaging acts.  And that bolster her spirit even more to pursue her plan to revive her glory years, knowing she can get away with her exploits without dire consequences to her actions.

     One Western official commented, “"We are in new territory . . .  realistically there is little the West can do to prevent Putin invading Ukraine or other non-NATO former Soviet states except for applying diplomatic and economic pressure.  The priority now is to deter any aggression against NATO."

     The Black Bear is now poised to get Kiev, and if the West still sits idly on its bottom, her conquering exploits wouldn’t stop in Ukraine, but it would go as far as Lithuania to the East and Kyrgyzstan to the West until she fulfills her grand design of restoring the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. 

     Georgia is the first on the list.  Ukraine is second and halfway through completion phase.  Which former USSR country is next on the Black Bear’s list?