September 19, 2006
Kamloops Daily News


While young jihadists around the world dream about flying
airplanes into tall buildings, many other targets remain
neglected (so far).

As bad as the attacks of September 11 were, the potential
for chemical attacks is even more frightening. Not an
attack by chemical weapons but instead, the sabotage of
chemical plants found everywhere.

These chemical targets become obvious as you drive through
most cities. Rows of warehouses, depots and storage tanks
line industrial areas. They are full of toxic and flammable
chemicals. Chemicals could become lethal weapons that would
rival the shock and awe of the U.S. military's bombing of
Baghdad.

And if chemical warfare doesn't capture a young jihadists'
fantasy, there are always infectious diseases. Genetic
manipulation of microbes opens the door to all kinds of
deadly opportunities.

In case you thought that the manufacture of diseases is in
the realm of science fiction, consider the Australian lab
that released a virus that was supposed to control birth in
mice. Instead, it unexpectedly caused the rodent's immune
system to completely fail and a mass extermination took
place. Imagine what such a virus might do that was altered
to infect humans.

But it takes educated minds to turn our chemistry and
biology against us. Contrary to what our military advisors
tell us, the enemy is not in some far-away land. They are
smart and they live among us.

Psychiatrist Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer,
recently completed an analysis of the typical social
factors, motives, and backgrounds of convicted jihadists.
His database revealed that the average terrorist is
middle-class, sane, well-informed, and educated.

Our prime minister and our generals would have us believe
that the biggest threat to our security is the poor,
uneducated, uninformed peasant who is living on the fringe
of survival in the hills and bombed-out villages of
Afghanistan.

However, that is not a unanimous view. One military
consultant draws a more realistic picture. He likens
terrorist groups to Silicon Valley start-up ventures:
"value-driven, networked, global in scope, and targeted to a
niche."

While we send our soldiers away to fight poppy-growers and
tribal war-lords, terrorists have fermented locally in small
autonomous cells. Here, they use our advanced technologies
for their own cunning. Their weapons are the tools modern
society; the internet, satellite communications,
international commerce and globalization.

Fortunately, all movements have a beginning, middle, and
end. Jihadism is not much different than the anarchist
movement of the 1880s. They also dreamt of global
destruction. Anarchists killed the president of France, the
empress of Austria, the king of Italy, various Russian
officials, and almost 100 years before September 11 - - U.S.
president William McKinley.

After McKinley's assassination, the new U.S. president
Theodore Roosevelt declared war on anarchism. He said that
anarchism is "the incarnation of evil" and a "foe of
liberty."

Presidents who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat
it. President Bush's rant against terrorism has a similar
ring. State-sponsored armies have forgotten that superior
firepower will not guarantee success. Intelligence can
trump firepower.

Terrorists need not invent new technologies. Their most
spectacular act so far was carried out with box cutters.
Terrorists will chose easy targets and pick the low-hanging
fruit first.

The struggle is about ideas, language, and persuasion. In
fact, the metaphor of war is not particularly useful.
Graham Dillon, a crime investigator for the accounting firm
KPMG, says "Public relations are everything in terrorism.
Why? Look at what the terrorists are trying to achieve:
political or ideological change. And if people don't buy
into the doctrine, the terrorists can't succeed."

Like anarchism, jihadism will eventually fade. "The young,
idealistic people are trying to build a better world for
justice and fairness," says Sageman. "But young people are
often in a hurry and that's where the violence comes in."

Meanwhile, there are things that can be done while we wait
for the bloom on jihadism to fade. They include the use of
intelligent technology. "One key is to shut down funding,"
says Dillon. That can only be done through clever data
mining of the millions of transactions that go though banks
daily, not by smart bombs.

Contrary to what our generals tell us, the real battle is in
the hearts and minds of otherwise ordinary citizens who have
succumbed to the belief that radical jihadism will bring
about a better world.


David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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