Sunday Talk Show Lineup May 19, 2013

“Meet the Press” on NBC
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

• White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer

• Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman, House Ways and Means Committee
• Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), chairman, House Democratic Caucus
• Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld


“This Week” on ABC
• White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer
• Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
• Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.)
• Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)


“Face the Nation” on CBS
• White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer
• Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas)
• Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)
• Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt


“State of the Union” on CNN
• White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
• Democratic strategist Donna Brazile
• Republican strategist Ana Navarro


“Fox News Sunday” on Fox
• White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer
• Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman, House Budget Committee
• Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
• Former Bush adviser Karl Rove

GOP Sources Altered Benghazi E-Mails To Suggest A Cover-Up, Reporter Confirms

GOP Sources Altered Benghazi E-Mails To Suggest A Cover-Up, Reporter Confirms

Steven Clawson--Cool Interview and Music 05/15 by WhispernThunder | Blog Talk Radio

Part 2 of the Native America Music and Musicians 05/15 by WhispernThunder | Blog Talk Radio

Redlines and the Problems of Intervention in Syria is republished with permission of Stratfor.

By George Friedman
Founder and Chairman

The civil war in Syria, one of the few lasting legacies of the Arab Spring, has been under way for more than two years. There has been substantial outside intervention in the war. The Iranians in particular, and the Russians to a lesser extent, have supported the Alawites under Bashar al Assad. The Saudis and some of the Gulf States have supported the Sunni insurgents in various ways. The Americans, Europeans and Israelis, however, have for the most part avoided involvement.
Last week the possibility of intervention increased. The Americans and Europeans have had no appetite for intervention after their experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. At the same time, they have not wanted to be in a position where intervention was simply ruled out. Therefore, they identified a redline that, if crossed, would force them to reconsider intervention: the use of chemical weapons.
There were two reasons for this particular boundary. The first was that the United States and European states have a systemic aversion to the possession and usage of weapons of mass destruction in other countries. They see this ultimately as a threat to them, particularly if such weapons are in the hands of non-state users. But there was a more particular reason in Syria. No one thought that al Assad was reckless enough to use chemical weapons because they felt that his entire strategy depended on avoiding U.S. and European intervention, and that therefore he would never cross the redline. This was comforting to the Americans and Europeans because it allowed them to appear decisive while avoiding the risk of having to do anything.
However, in recent weeks, first the United Kingdom and France and then Israel and the United States asserted that the al Assad regime had used chemical weapons. No one could point to an incidence of massive deaths in Syria, and the evidence of usage was vague enough that no one was required to act immediately.
In Iraq, it turned out there was not a nuclear program or the clandestine chemical and biological weapons programs that intelligence had indicated. Had there been, the U.S. invasion might have had more international support, but it is doubtful it would have had a better outcome. The United States would have still forced the Sunnis into a desperate position, the Iranians would have still supported Shiite militias and the Kurds would have still tried to use the chaos to build an autonomous Kurdish region. The conflict would have still been fought and its final outcome would not have looked very different from how it does now.
What the United States learned in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is that it is relatively easy for a conventional force to destroy a government. It is much harder  -- if not impossible -- to use the same force to impose a new type of government. The government that follows might be in some moral sense better than what preceded it -- it is difficult to imagine a more vile regime than Saddam Hussein's -- but the regime that replaces it will first be called chaos, followed by another regime that survives to the extent that it holds the United States at arm's length. Therefore, redline or not, few want to get involved in another intervention pivoting on weapons of mass destruction.

Interventionist Arguments and Illusions

However, there are those who want to intervene for moral reasons. In Syria, there is the same moral issue that there was in Iraq. The existing regime is corrupt and vicious. It should not be forgotten that the al Assad regime conducted a massacre in the city of Hama in 1982 in which tens of thousands of Sunnis were killed for opposing the regime. The regime carried out constant violations of human rights and endless brutality. There was nothing new in this, and the world was able to act fairly indifferent to the events, since it was still possible to create media blackouts in those days. Syria's patron, the Soviet Union, protected it, and challenging the Syrian regime would be a challenge to the Soviet Union. It was a fight that few wanted to wage because the risks were seen as too high.
The situation is different today.

Sunday Talk Show Lineup May 12, 2013

“Meet the Press” on NBC
• Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman, Senate Intelligence Committee

• Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, co-chairman, State Department Accountability Review Board on Benghazi
• Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.)




“This Week” on ABC
• Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
• Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.)
• Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Retired Gen. James Cartwright
• Democratic strategist Donna Brazile
• Former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)
• Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.)
• Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.)
• Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.)

“Face the Nation” on CBS
• Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates
• Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.)
• Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)
• Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, co-chairman, State Department Accountability Review Board on Benghazi

“State of the Union” on CNN
• Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
• Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)
• Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii)
• Republican strategist Alex Castellanos
• Democratic consultant Mo Elleithee

“Fox News Sunday” on Fox
• Rep.-elect Mark Sanford (R-S.C.)
• Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman, House Intelligence Committee
• Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member, House Armed Services Committee
• Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)

"Anarchy and Hegemony" is republished with permission of Stratfor.

By Robert D. Kaplan
Chief Geopolitical Analyst

Everyone loves equality: equality of races, of ethnic groups, of sexual orientations, and so on. The problem is, however, that in geopolitics equality usually does not work very well. For centuries Europe had a rough equality between major states that is often referred to as the balance-of-power system. And that led to frequent wars. East Asia, by contrast, from the 14th to the early 19th centuries, had its relations ordered by a tribute system in which China was roughly dominant. The result, according to political scientist David C. Kang of the University of Southern California, was a generally more peaceful climate in Asia than in Europe.
The fact is that domination of one sort or another, tyrannical or not, has a better chance of preventing the outbreak of war than a system in which no one is really in charge; where no one is the top dog, so to speak. That is why Columbia University's Kenneth Waltz, arguably America's pre-eminent realist, says that the opposite of "anarchy" is not stability, but "hierarchy."
Hierarchy eviscerates equality; hierarchy implies that some are frankly "more equal" than others, and it is this formal inequality -- where someone, or some state or group, has more authority and power than others -- that prevents chaos. For it is inequality itself that often creates the conditions for peace.
Government is the most common form of hierarchy. It is a government that monopolizes the use of violence in a given geographical space, thereby preventing anarchy. To quote Thomas Hobbes, the 17th century English philosopher, only where it is possible to punish the wicked can right and wrong have any practical meaning, and that requires "some coercive power."
The best sort of inequality is hegemony. Whereas primacy, as Kang explains, is about preponderance purely through military or economic power, hegemony "involves legitimation and consensus." That is to say, hegemony is some form of agreed-upon inequality, where the dominant power is expected by others to lead. When a hegemon does not lead, it is acting irresponsibly.
Of course, hegemony has a bad reputation in media discourse. But that is only because journalists are confused about the terminology, even as they sanctimoniously judge previous historical eras by the strict standards of their own. In fact, for most of human history, periods of relative peace have been the product of hegemony of one sort or another. And for many periods, the reigning hegemonic or imperial power was the most liberal, according to the standards of the age. Rome, Venice and Britain were usually more liberal than the forces arranged against them. The empire of the Austrian Hapsburgs in Central and Eastern Europe often protected the rights of minorities and prevented ethnic wars to a much greater degree than did the modern states that succeeded it. The Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the Middle East frequently did likewise. There are exceptions, of course, like Hapsburg Spain, with its combination of inquisition and conquest. But the point is that hegemony does not require tyrannical or absolutist rule.
Stability is not the natural order of things. In fact, history shows that stability such as it exists is usually a function of imperial rule, which, in turn, is a common form of hierarchy. To wit, there are few things messier in geopolitics than the demise of an empire. The collapse of the Hapsburgs, of the Ottoman Turks, of the Soviet Empire and the British Empire in Asia and Africa led to chronic wars and upheavals. Some uncomprehending commentators remind us that all empires end badly. Of course they do, but that is only after they have provided decades and centuries of relative peace.
Obviously, not all empires are morally equivalent.

Sunday Talk Show Lineup April 28, 2013

“Meet the Press” on NBC

• Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)

• Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.)

• Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)
• Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
• Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas)
• Former George W. Bush adviser Karen Hughes
• Republican strategist Mike Murphy 


“This Week” on ABC

• Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman, House Intelligence Committee
• Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), ranking member, House Intelligence Committee
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
• Democratic strategist Donna Brazile
• Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 2012 Republican presidential candidate
• Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D)

“Face the Nation” on CBS
 • Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), vice chairman, Senate Intelligence Committee
• Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

“State of the Union” on CNN
• Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
• Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)
• Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member, House Homeland Security Committee
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), chairwoman, Democratic National Committee
• Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.)
• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
• Former Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns
• Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

“Fox News Sunday” on Fox
• Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
• Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chairman, House Homeland Security Committee
• Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren

"Why the Boston Bombers Succeeded" is republished with permission of Stratfor.

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

When seeking to place an attack like the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing into context, it is helpful to classify the actors responsible, if possible. Such a classification can help us understand how an attack fits into the analytical narrative of what is happening and what is likely to come. These classifications will consider factors such as ideology, state sponsorship and perhaps most important, the kind of operative involved.
In a case where we are dealing with an apparent jihadist operative, before we can classify him or her we must first have a clear taxonomy of the jihadist movement. At Stratfor, we generally consider the jihadist movement to be divided into three basic elements: the al Qaeda core organization, the regional jihadist franchises, such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and grassroots operatives who are radicalized, inspired and perhaps equipped by the other two tiers but who are not members of either.
Within the three-tier jihadist movement there exist two distinct types of operatives. One of these is the professional terrorist operative, a person who is a member of the al Qaeda core or of one of the regional franchises. These individuals swear loyalty to the leader and then follow orders from the organization's hierarchy. Second, there are amateur operatives who never join a group and whose actions are not guided by the specific orders of a hierarchical group. They follow a bottom-up or grassroots organizational model rather than a hierarchical or top-down approach.
There is a great deal of variety among professional terrorists, especially if we break them down according to the functions they perform within an organization, roles including that of planners, finance and logistics specialists, couriers, surveillance operatives, bombmakers, et cetera. There is also a great deal of variety within the ranks of grassroots operatives, although it is broken down more by their interaction with formal groups rather than their function. At one end of the grassroots spectrum are the lone wolf operatives, or phantom cells. These are individuals or small groups that become radicalized by jihadist ideology but that do not have any contact with the organization. In theory, the lone wolf/phantom cell model is very secure from an operational security standpoint, but as we've discussed, it takes a very disciplined and driven individual to be a true lone wolf or phantom cell leader, and consequently, we see very few of them.
At the other end of the grassroots spectrum are individuals who have had close interaction with a jihadist group but who never actually joined the organization. Many of them have even attended militant training camps, but they didn't become part of the hierarchical group to the point of swearing an oath of allegiance to the group's leaders and taking orders from the organization. They are not funded and directed by the group.
Indeed, al Qaeda trained tens of thousands of men in its training camps in Afghanistan, Sudan and Pakistan but very few of the men they trained actually ended up joining al Qaeda. Most of the men the group instructed received basic military training in things like using small arms, hand-to-hand combat and basic fire and maneuver. Only the very best from those basic combat training courses were selected to receive advanced training in terrorist tradecraft techniques, such as bombmaking, surveillance, clandestine communications and document forgery. But even of the students who received advanced training in terrorist tradecraft, only a few were ever invited to join the al Qaeda core, which remained a relatively small vanguard organization.
Many of the men who received basic training traveled to fight jihad in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya or returned home to join insurgent or militant groups. Others would eventually end up joining al Qaeda franchise groups in places like Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Algeria. Still others received some basic training but then returned home and never really put their new skills into practice.
Most grassroots jihadists fall along a continuum that stretches between the lone wolf and someone who received advanced terrorist training but never joined al Qaeda or another formal militant group.
Whether the two men suspected of carrying out the April 15 Boston Marathon attack knowingly followed al Qaeda's blueprint for simple attacks by grassroots actors, their actions were fairly consistent with what we have come to expect from such operatives. Certainly based upon what we have seen of this case so far, the Tsarnaev brothers did not appear to possess sophisticated terrorist tradecraft.

"Boston Bombing Suspects: Grassroots Militants from Chechnya is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Summary

 

Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Timothy Alben (C) of the Massachusetts State Police and Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis (Center R) in Watertown, Mass., on April 19

The identities of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing -- Chechen brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 -- appear tentatively to confirm several of Stratfor's suspicions. From this profile, the simple nature of the attack, their efforts to rob a convenience store and their lack of an escape plan, we can at least say at this point in time that they were what we refer to as grassroots militants. Despite being amateurs, such militants clearly still pose a significant threat.

Analysis

Just after 10 p.m. on April 18, the Tsarnaev brothers were identified after having robbed a convenience store in Cambridge, Mass., just three miles from Boston, hours earlier. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, who responded to the robbery, was shot and killed and found in his car by fellow responding officers. The two suspects later hijacked an SUV at gunpoint, releasing the driver unharmed. Authorities later caught up to the suspects, and a car chase ensued.

Read more on decentralized, grassroots militancy

Just after midnight, the car chase ended with a gunfight in Watertown, Mass. The suspects reportedly threw explosive devices at police, though it is not yet confirmed what types of explosives allegedly were used. During the firefight, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wounded, taken into custody and later reported dead. Some press reports suggest he may have been wearing some sort of suicide belt or vest. Dzhokhar escaped by driving the stolen SUV through the police barricade and remains at large. According to media reports, a third accomplice was detained earlier this morning by authorities and is being questioned.
According to The New York Times, the two men are from Chechnya. Their family also reportedly lived briefly in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, before moving to the United States in 2002. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's profile on VKontakte, a Russian social media website, said he attended school at the School No. 1 of Makhachkala, spoke English, Russian and Chechen and listed his worldview as Islam. A school administrator from the School No. 1 said the two suspects and their family had previously lived in Kyrgyzstan before moving to Dagestan.

VIDEO: History of the North Caucasus' Instability 

 

Given that they are grassroots actors, there is likely only a small chance that the authorities will discover a formal link between the suspects and a state sponsor or a professional terrorist group such as al Qaeda or one of its franchise groups. Any link will likely be ideological rather than operational, although it is possible that the two have attended some type of basic militant training abroad. Given what we have learned about the suspects and the nature of the improvised explosive devices they constructed, it is very likely that the authorities will find that the brothers had read and studied al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire Magazine.
This case also highlights our analysis that the jihadist threat now predominantly stems from grassroots operatives who live in the West rather than teams of highly trained operatives sent to the United States from overseas, like the team that executed the 9/11 attacks. This demonstrates how the jihadist threat has diminished in severity but broadened in scope in recent years -- a trend we expect to continue.
There will always be plenty of soft targets in a free society, and it is incredibly easy to kill people, even for untrained operatives. In this case, the brothers conducted an attack that was within their capabilities rather than attempting something more grandiose that would require outside assistance -- and which could therefore have put them in jeopardy of running into a government informant as they sought help. It is thus important for citizens to practice good situational awareness and to serve as grassroots defenders against the grassroots threat.

The Acute Jihadist Threat in Europe

By Scott Stewart, Vice President of Analysis, and Sidney Brown
On March 26, the Belgian federal police's counterterrorism force, or Special Units, conducted a felony car stop on Hakim Benladghem, a 39-year-old French citizen of Algerian extraction. When Benladghem reacted aggressively, he was shot and killed by the police attempting to arrest him. The Special Units chose to take Benladghem down in a car stop rather than arrest him at his home because it had intelligence indicating that he was heavily armed. The authorities also knew from their French counterparts that Benladghem had been trained as a paratrooper in the French Foreign Legion.
Additional intelligence showed that Benladghem had traveled extensively and that, through his travels and email and cellphone communications, he appeared to be connected to the international jihadist movement. Rather than risk a confrontation at Benladghem's apartment, where he had access to an arsenal of weapons as well as a ballistic vest and helmet, the police decided to arrest him while he was away from home and more vulnerable. The Belgian authorities did not want to risk a prolonged, bloody siege like the one that occurred in April 2012 in Toulouse, France, when French police attempted to arrest shooter Mohammed Merah.
The intelligence regarding Benladghem's arsenal was confirmed when a search of his apartment revealed several weapons, including an assault rifle, a submachine gun and a tactical shotgun. He also possessed a large collection of tactical equipment, including a ballistic vest, a Kevlar helmet, a ballistic shield and two gas masks. With such equipment and training, Benladghem would have been well-equipped to not only handle an assault on his apartment but also to conduct an armed assault -- intelligence indicating that he was preparing to conduct such an attack March 27 is reportedly what led the police to try to arrest him. Authorities are still closely guarding the identities of Benladghem's targets, but given France's involvement in the case, it is likely they were transnational in nature; there are a number of such targets in Brussels, which houses NATO and EU headquarters.
Belgian authorities are now undoubtedly working with their European and other allies to investigate Benladghem's contacts in order to determine the scope of the network he was a part of and what threat his associates still pose. This potential threat is a reminder of the challenges that radicalized European Muslims present for European authorities.