Point/CounterpointDebate newsworthy and other 'hot-button' topics here. If it can be debated, this is the forum for it. Can't be thin skinned - people will disagree with you. No flaming or personal attacks.
Although Yemen and the Horn of Africa region are known as fertile grounds for terrorist groups, the US government has failed to respond sufficiently to the threat, according to a Harvard University report released yesterday.
The shortcomings include a severe shortage of diplomats and intelligence agents with expertise in the region, the report said.
''It's a situation that is volatile and capable of spinning rapidly out of control unless we get on top of it," said Robert I. Rotberg, director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. ''It's a mystery zone."
Rotberg said that the United States does not have enough people knowledgeable about local communities and customs to keep track of terror structures in the region. As an example, he said, ''at most, at any one time, there are two people in all those six or seven embassies in the region who can speak the local languages."
The Harvard program assembled three dozen former and current US diplomats, CIA officers, military leaders, and analysts for three days in November to examine the terrorist threat in the area, which is two-thirds the size of the continental United States and has porous borders. The group, which included intelligence officials working in the region, found that terrorist cells linked to Al Qaeda ''were few, but dangerous" and that instability in the region could provide opportunities for the groups to recruit, organize, and expand.
In particular, the report called for the United States to play a greater role in assisting the central government in Somalia, which is in exile in neighboring Kenya because of security concerns; fully resolving the long-running war between Ethiopia and Eritrea; keeping a closer watch on the spread of Wahhabism, a strict form of Islam; and strengthening US diplomatic representation in Sudan.
''There were fewer [terror] cells than I would have guessed" in the region, Rotberg said by telephone from Cambridge. ''But there's also less expertise than I would have expected" from the Americans. ''No one really knows what is going on in many of the areas."
John Prendergast, special adviser to the president of the International Crisis Group and a participant at the meeting, said there was a strong disconnect between Washington's knowledge of the threat and actions on the ground.
''The threat emanating from particularly Somalia appears to be well understood by those conducting the war on terrorism, but the tools being applied to combat the threat are dangerously inadequate," Prendergast said. ''The core infrastructure for terrorist elements in Somalia traveling along the Indian Ocean corridor is largely undisturbed."
The United States has been concerned about terrorism in the region for more than a decade. In 1993, two US military helicopters, part of a peacekeeping mission, were shot down in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, resulting in the deaths of 19 US soldiers and hundreds of Somalis. Five years later, the bombings of embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed hundreds and were linked to Al Qaeda.
Groups linked to Al Qaeda also were responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, in 2000, as well as the bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Malindi, Kenya, in 2002.
The Bush administration has stressed its commitment to confronting terrorist groups in the region. The US military has responded by increasing its presence to about 1,400 troops in the area, including a base in Djibouti, and it is widely assumed that the CIA and special forces are operating in several countries.
''This region has an established track record for very serious terrorist activity," Prendergast said. ''Underestimating or misdiagnosing the nature of the threat could have deadly consequences."
''This region has an established track record for very serious terrorist activity," Prendergast said. ''Underestimating or misdiagnosing the nature of the threat could have deadly consequences."
I can't help being surprised when articles like this are apparently ignored here. This is very serious; it's very dangerous and it's an area we have for some time been aware of as an enemy to us. Still, this is sliding down out of sight without comment.
Unfortunately, while that doesn't matter here, it does matter that our government also seems disinterested.
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I can't help being surprised when articles like this are apparently ignored here. This is very serious; it's very dangerous and it's an area we have for some time been aware of as an enemy to us. Still, this is sliding down out of sight without comment.
Unfortunately, while that doesn't matter here, it does matter that our government also seems disinterested.
It does matter ... this disinterest can be deadly to us.
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Point/Counterpoint
03-14-2005, 17:22
Harvard study cites terror deficiencies 
