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11. januar 2005
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Heads roll in rathergate
By now you've probably read that the long-awayed report on Rathergate has resulted in four CBS News employees being fired.
It was notable that neither Dan Rather himself, who later apologised, nor news president Andrew Heyward, who in vain tried to make his subordinates doublecheck the story, has to go.
The report fails to fully acknowledge the fact that the infamous memos were indeed forgeries.
CBS also refuses to say that political bias played a part in the errant report being aired, but were quick to attribute political motives to their own critics.
Insert usual blog triumphalism here.
11:26:02 AM 
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The EU and Norway
Why I am not looking forward to a new debate about whether Norway should join the European Union.
I am originally pretty positive to the EU of open markets, but deeply skeptical to the current trends of intergration. Norway, surely, can afford to stay outside this experiment, and we need a new divisive EU debate like another hole in the head.
Norway said no to the EU in referendums in 1972 and 1994 (I voted yes in the latter). If the issue is forced again in the near future, I think I will vote no. We have one constitution already, and that is fine with me.
8:41:31 AM
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Jihad in Europe: Terrorism with a global perspective
There has been some press discussion in Norway lately about of a report written by Petter Nesser at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment: JIHAD IN EUROPE - A survey of the motivations for Sunni Islamist terrorism in post-millennium Europe (PDF). Some of the important issues in this report drowned as it was used by the Progress Party's Carl I. Hagen to justify immigration restrictions, and such debates rarely help illuminate anything in Norway.
That is unfortunate, because the report is sobering reading, outlining the reality that Salafi-Jihad extremism is on the rise in Europe, and that our enemy is adapting, learning and is here to stay for a long war. The main thesis of the paper, as I read it, is that extremist Jihad now has a truly global character. The Jihiadis are not concerned merely with regional concerns like the Middle East conflicts.
So how did Islamic radicalism rooted in Islamic societies come to the western democracies?
First, remember the world view according to the Jihadists. The book Milestones (Maalim fi al-Tariq) by Sayyid Qutb is considered something of a Islamist Manifesto, and it outlines an argument not only for regional jihad, but for a global war against non-believers:
In fact, Qutb states several times throughout the book that the jihad is not confined to the Arab lands, but that it is global in scope and methods. Qutb starts out by saying that the whole world is in a state of jahiliyya (ignorance), and that "true Muslims" are in a state of weakness and under permanent attack from the kuffar (the infidels). In a world of jahiliyya, armed jihad is necessary to reinstate hakimiyya (the Rule of Allah). To succeed, a "vanguard" of "true Muslims" has to build itself up mentally and physically (militarily), to be able to launch an all out war on the kuffar. Because Muslims are in a state of weakness, the build up requires the "vanguard" to excommunicate the infidel society, emigrate and establish a true Islamic community based on the undistorted principles of Islam. From this new community or base, the kuffar shall be attacked with all necessary means. Emigration is not an option, but a religious duty.
 Harsh persecution of Islamists in their home countries in MENA (Middle East, North Africa) made some of them emigrate to Europe to enjoy greater political freedom.
A religious argument for this can be found in Islam's early sacred history, where the prophet Mohammad escaped (hijra) from persecution in Mecca to Medina (622, in fact the starting year for the Muslim calendar), later to return to take Mecca by force. This, argues Salafi ideologues like Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, implies it is a religious duty for every Muslim persecuted in his homeland to escape to more friendly territory, and from there continue the armed jihad.
The extremists, however, are not required to act like Islamist puritans in Europe.
One challenge facing the "vanguard" living among the infidels, elaborated by Qutb, is how to interact with the kuffar. An important ideological concept in this respect is taqiyya. Salafis adopted taqiyya from Shia-Islamist doctrine. Taqiyya is translated as "fear, caution, prudence, dissimulation of one’s religion". To the Shias it meant that they were allowed to follow Sunni practices in societies dominated by Sunni-Muslims, in order to protect themselves from persecution. Radical Salafis in the West practice taqiyya. It allows them to display considerable pragmatism to pursue what they believe is in God’s interests. According to the principle of taqiyya, the "Vanguards" are permitted to cooperate on an ad hoc basis with basically anyone as long as it serves their cause in the long run. It also means that the Salafi radicals can "blend into" western societies, using western clothes and even drink alcohol in order not to attract unwanted attention to their activities. One example is how the September 11, 2001 suicide-pilots were observed drinking and partying a few days before the attacks.
Indeed, the author provides examples of extremists that blended in with the host country's population at large, and did not at all leave the impression they were religious puritans.
That is, however, only one aspect of the threat. Europe's existing Arab Muslim population has proven an ample source for new recruits to the global jihad. What brought all this explosive ideology together can be summarised in one word: Afghanistan.
The importance of the jihad in Afghanistan can however not be overstated. The "Afghan jihad" and the establishment of al-Qaida were particularly important catalysts of transnational radical Islamism. The "Afghan experience" produced a relatively small number of "hard core" Salafi militants having fought side by side in jihads worldwide. These "holy warriors" and "global mujahidin" became top and intermediate leaders of, as well as religious guides for radical Islamist movements around the world. Personal relations and friendships between such "veteran mujahidin" further facilitated cooperation between movements with compatible ideologies. Several of the "jihad veterans" found sanctuary in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom, where they encouraged young Muslims to join the "global jihad", and collected religious taxes (zakat), which they channeled to "terrorist projects" both inside and outside Europe. The Salafi-Jihadi movements in Europe look to these experienced mujahidin as religious leaders or "shaykhs".
Thus, al-Qaeda becoming a reality in the world, ready to take war to the infidels, was in many ways a child of the cold war, in much the same way as we can say that the cold war was a child of World War II.
These terrorist leaders were willing and able to exploit discontent among young Arabs in European "diaspora" and teach them Salafi extremism. Thus, the most significant threat today comes from Muslims who are born in Europe, being second or third generation immigrants, often having university education here, and who are radicalised through expo sure to extremist Islam. This happens in well-known extremist mosques like Finsbury Park in London, but also in underground mosques.
Mohammed Bouyeri, who brutally murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Holland in November, fits this picture well. He was born in Holland, spoke Dutch like anyone else, being the child of two Maroccan immigrants. He also had university education. Originally a good student, far from being personally deprived, he was nevertheless recruited into a murderous movement through the Al-Tawhid mosque, which also was connected to some of the 9/11-01 hijackers.
The Arab diaspora in Europe unfortunately provides a breeding ground for terrorism. The Salafists' perspective is very long-term, and their objectives are global.
Nesser provides an interesting in-depth analysis of four different failed Islamist terror plots in Europe. In particular the Algerian GSPC's attempted attack on the Russian embassy in Paris underscores that Jihadists are not fighting primarily for any local causes. Their objectives are geopolitically global. Thus an extremist may feel inclined to cause mass casualties to anyone considered the enemy (and the enemy is practically everybody), no matter how irrelevant that target may appear to his own country of origin, or indeed any personal grievances he may have.
5:55:02 AM
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Not to scare you senseless, but...
 Scientists have long been monitoring possible volcanic or other geological activity that could cause giant tsunamis in the future, and one of the scariest examples is the volcanic island La Palma, part of the Canary Islands off Africa. A major volcanic eruption, and this island is very much a live one, could cause a massive landslide that would create the mother of all tsunamis.
Previous research by Dr Simon Day, of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College London predicted that a future eruption of Cumbre Vieja was likely to cause the western flank of the mountain to slide into the sea.
The energy released by the collapse would be equal to the electricity consumption of the entire U.S. in six months.
With Dr Steven Ward, from the University of California, Dr Day has produced a new model that predicts more accurately how big the tsunami will be and where it will strike.
Immediately after the landslide, a dome of water almost 900 metres (3,000 ft) high and tens of kilometres wide will form, only to collapse and rebound.
Its first target was expected to be the West Saharan coast of Morocco, where the wave would measure a devastating 330ft from crest to trough.
Propelled by a series of crests and troughs, the tsunami would travel a distance of almost 155 miles in just 10 minutes, the model predicts.
Racing at the speed of a jet aircraft, it would reach Florida and the Caribbean in eight or nine hours.
A wall of water 164ft high -- higher than Nelson's column in London's Trafalgar Square -- would smash into the coasts of Florida and the Caribbean islands, the forecast predicts.
The northern coast of Brazil would be hit by a wave more than 130ft high.
The wave would travel four or five miles inland, flattening everything in its path.
Meanwhile, a weaker, but still hugely destructive, wave was likely to travel along the western coast of the Iberian Peninsular and France and hit Britain's Atlantic coastline.
Dr Day said: "The collapse will occur during some future eruption after days or weeks of precursory deformation and earthquakes.
Eh, now that we're at it, how about making that proposed Indian ocean tsunami warning system truly global? After all, lightning is unlikely to hit the same spot twice in a row.
In fact, one not-so-fine day around 7300 years ago, this part of the world, the west-coast of Norway, was hit by a monster wave that undoubtedly caused serious destruction to the stone age communities at the time. This is called the Storegga tsunami or Storeagga slide (PDF). The wave was caused by a massive avalanche - land masses the size of Denmark falling from the Norwegian continental shelf into the Atlantic depths. The result was more of a "rapid tide" than a classic tsunami, models suggest, but the end result was equally destructive: the ocean didn't stop rising before it stood at least 20 meters, in the fjords probably 40-50 meters, above the normal level. Very little archeological evidence tells us how many people were affected in Northern Europe, but along the coastlines of Norway, Denmark and Scotland, at least, thousands may have perished.
Storegga will not slide out before it is built up again, and that requires another ice age. There are, however, quite a few sub-sea geological formations in the world that could slide, as well as volcanoes, earthquake zones and of course meteorites, meaning tsunamis are a real threat to everyone living in coastal areas. They may not hit that often, but when they do hit, they cause massive destruction, as we have been so brutally reminded about in the past weeks.
12:40:44 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.02.2005; 02:16:58.
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