Intelligence: Islamic Terrorism Is The Result

Ever since World War II there have been a growing number of advocates for CI (Cultural Intelligence, also known as "cultural topography") within the U.S. military. This sort of thing involves the study, analysis and understanding of the cultural traditions, habits and beliefs of opponents, allies, and even the U.S. This is all part of an effort to seek better insight into what all concerned are capable of and who is likely to do what next.

 

In the United States the cultural intelligence found a home in the U.S. Army Special Forces, an organization that grew out of the World War II OSS (Office of Strategic Services). The CIA also evolved out of the OSS. Despite the success of the OSS that organization created a lot of enemies within the U.S. and was deactivated soon after the World War II ended in 1945. It did not take long for the OSS to be missed and thus the CIA and Special Forces were created by 1950.

  

Until the arrival of cheap and powerful computers, huge amounts of data available from all over the world and analysis software to mine (not just data mining) all this is was difficult to get people (especially military and government bureaucrats) to appreciate how important and useful CI actually was. During World War II the OSS used CI successfully a lot as have many others have throughout history. Same with the Special Forces during Vietnam and in subsequent conflicts. Gradually the senior military and intelligence officials began to accept the importance and usefulness of CI. After the 1990s the data mining and other analysis of large quantities of data from different cultures made it difficult to dismiss CI as irrelevant and not useful.

  

Case in point is the use in CI in determining the causes of the current outbreak of Islamic terrorism and possible solutions. That effort has encountered problems because CI frankly discusses firmly held myths. Take for example the fact that most Moslem victims of war and terrorism are killed by other Moslems and despite over half a century of animosity towards Israel by a larger, and because of oil income, quite wealthy Arab coalition, Israel not only still exists but thrives compared to its Arab opponents. By every measure the much reviled Jews have done better than the Arabs. To explain away this Israeli success it is accepted fact (by most Arab leaders, journalists and so on) that all this was only possible because of vast conspiracy engineered by the United States and the West in general. This is considered absurd in the West but is still widely accepted in the Arab world.

 

Unfortunately this key cultural difference is rarely mentioned in Western media. Yet any Western diplomat or businessman working in the Arab world quickly becomes aware of this different attitude and adjusts their own behavior to survive (or at least get the job done).

  

Until recently Arabs openly discussing these truths faced arrest or violence (often fatal) from those opposed to freely talking about a lot of forbidden subjects. But after decades of living the lies more and more Arabs, including many leaders and senior business, government and religious officials are mentioning the unmentionable. This discussion often includes pointing out those Arab states that seem to be doing better; like Dubai and some other states like the UAE/United Arab Emirates are the ones that take a more “Western” approach to things. Naturally the successful Arab states are much less corrupt, better run and, well, more like Israel (but without lots of Jews).

 

In the past reference, especially by Israelis or Westerners, to cultural differences to explain Arab problems was immediately jumped on by political demagogues and media pundits worldwide as a racist remark. But it was never that and now that is more obvious because as Arab leaders have been openly discussing the same problem. Those discussions are often ignored by the demagogues and pundits, especially in the West. More's the pity because there is a cultural crisis in the Arab world in particular and the Moslem world in general and it is very serious, very real and very explainable. The result of this crisis is a lack of economic, educational and political performance. By whatever measure you wish to use; Nobel prizes, patents awarded, books published or translated, GDP growth, the Arabs have fallen behind the rest of the world. Part of the problem is the Arab tendency to blame outsiders, and to avoid taking responsibility. Tolerating tyranny and resistance to change doesn't help either. Those attitudes are shifting, and for most of the last decade the war in Iraq became the center of this cultural battle.

 

Arabs, even Arab leaders, know they need some changes that actually work. They have tried so many different ideas that don’t work, as well as repeating ancient customs (dictatorship and rampant corruption and exploitation of your own people) that don’t work no matter how often you keep at it, that radical (for the Arab world) ideas are becoming acceptable. But it isn’t easy. The corruption and general lack of a “civic society” seem to alien to most Arabs that it appears impossible for such alien ideas to work. CI has made it more obvious to Arab, and Western, leaders why this is so and that a lot of effort will be required to enact real, lasting and effective reform. Such change is strong medicine for the current Arab leadership, and many would rather just talk about it and go no further. And that is the problem in the Arab world. Islamic terrorism is the result.

Damascus bombing 'smells of Mossad,' US analyst says

An image grab from video, released by the Syrian opposition Shaam News Network on July 20, 2012 and dated July 19, 2012, shows an explosion alleged to be in Zabadani, outside Damascus. AFP photo

A former U.S. intelligence analyst said Israeli spy network Mossad could be linked to a fatal bombing that killed top security officials in Damascus on July 18.

An unidentified former analyst said "the entire attack smelled of Mossad," according to Kasım Cindemir of daily Habertürk.

Members of the Syrian opposition reportedly claimed Israel played an important part in the attack, with some saying they received satellite images from Mossad showing the building where Syria's National Security Council meeting took place.

Free Syrian Army officials had said the attack was not a suicide bombing and they had placed the explosives in the meeting room "days ago." Louay al-Mokdad of the opposition force reportedly said they had placed 10 kilograms of C-4 explosives in the meeting room beforehand and that they intended to hit the meeting on its originally planned date of July 20. Al-Mokdad said the meeting was brought forward one day and that President Bashar al-Assad did not take part in it as they had anticipated.

Syrian Information Minister Umran al-Zuabi blamed foreign intelligence agencies for the bombing, saying "Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel" were the forces behind the attack.

Beijing’s Raptor Knockoff China shows off second new stealth jet development in two years

American intelligence agencies recently obtained new information on China’s second new stealth fighter-bomber revealed on the Internet in the past two years, according to U.S. officials.

The new jet, dubbed the F-60, is a fifth-generation warplane; a prototype was disclosed in photographs posted on two Chinese military affairs websites beginning June 21.

Officials familiar with intelligence reports said the shape and design of the F-60 appears similar to the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 Raptor, the U.S. military’s most advanced stealth fighter, although it is smaller in size.

The similarities are raising concerns in counterintelligence circles that China obtained design details for its new jet from the F-22 through espionage or cyber-spying, as occurred with the Chinese compromise of F-35 data by suspected intelligence hackers several years ago.

A Defense Intelligence Agency spokeswoman declined to comment on the new Chinese stealth jet.

According to the U.S. officials, intelligence analysts recently conducted detailed analyses of photos that show the first prototype of the new jet being transported on the back of a flatbed truck along the Beijing-Shenyang highway under escort by vehicles and officials of the Ministry of State Security, China’s political police and intelligence service.

Chinese Internet photo showing what U.S. intelligence agencies believe is a new Chinese stealth fighter enroute to a stress testing facility.

The new jet was shown at a rest stop during its transport during what Chinese websites said was transfer to a stress testing facility.

The twin-engine jet was shown without its tail stabilizers or cockpit canopy, leading some analysts to conclude it was an L-15 trainer aircraft.

However, analysis of the photos revealed that the new jet is larger in size and has different wing shapes and engine intakes than the trainer, and therefore is likely the new F-60.

The photos and commentary were posted on Tiexue (www.tiexue.net), a military website in Beijing that reports on People’s Liberation Army developments; and Feiyang Junshi, (www.fyjs.cn), another military website based in Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province.

No mention was made of the F-60 in recent unclassified Pentagon annual reports to Congress on China’s military.

The 2011 report stated that development of the J-20 stealth jet and long-range conventional missiles “could improve the PLA’s ability to strike regional air bases, logistical facilities, and other ground-based infrastructure.”

The F-60 jet is under development by the Shenyang Aircraft Corp., which analysts say lost out several years ago to the manufacturer of China’s first stealth fighter, the J-20, which is being built by the Chengdu Aircraft Design Institute.

The J-20 was first shown in a test flight during the visit to China in January 2011 by then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in what was widely viewed as anti-U.S. political posturing by China’s communist government and military.

Gates had canceled production of the Air Force’s F-22 months earlier claiming that large numbers of F-22s were not needed because China would not field a comparable jet until 2020.

It now appears that China will have two new fifth-generation stealth fighters capable of challenging the U.S. Air Force in Asia years before the U.S. intelligence estimate of 2020.

The Pentagon considers stealth jet fighters key “anti-access, area denial” forces that China is developing as part of a strategy of forcing the U.S. military to operate further from Chinese shores.

The arms have prompted a new Pentagon doctrine called the Air Sea Battle Concept that calls for new U.S. forces and upgraded alliances in Asia to better assist U.S. forces in coming to the aid of democratic friends and allies in any future conflicts in the region.

Other high-tech forces being built by China for use against the United States include anti-ship ballistic missiles; anti-satellite missiles and lasers; large numbers of submarines; cyber warfare capabilities; and anti-missile defenses.

Some U.S. intelligence analysts are viewing the disclosure of the F-60 as an official leak by the Chinese military. Evidence for that view was one photo of the jet that shows an Audi A6 parked next to the truck transporting it. The parked Audi appears designed to provide foreign or domestic observers with a vehicle of known dimensions that will allow analysts to make calculations on the size and shape of the new jet.

China in the past has revealed new military developments on the Internet through similar official leaks. For example, China’s new Yuan-class attack submarine was built entirely in secret until photos of the submarine appeared on the Internet in 2004.

Larry Wortzel, a former Army intelligence officer, said it would be difficult to determine if the Chinese obtained secrets on the F-22 for the new jet.

“We know the F-35 had a major cyber penetration,” Wortzel told the Free Beacon. “But even without a penetration, there have been enough opportunities to see F-22s to assist a manufacturer in trying to copy the external design. Xian and Shenyang were working parallel programs for stealth fighter aircraft.”

Richard Fisher, a specialist on China’s military program, said in addition to the rest stop photos, later pictures showed the new jet at a People’s Liberation Army Air Force test center near the city of Xian.

A mock up of China's second advanced stealth jet fighter the F-60.

“The F-60 has been reported by Chinese sources as a possible ‘private’ program that it hopes it can sell to the PLA later,” Fisher said in an interview.

“This has happened numerous times before, as in the case of the Hongdu K-8 trainer. What we see on the truck could also be a full-scale model headed for a wind tunnel, electronic or stress testing facility. We do not know yet if a flying prototype has been built.”

However, Fisher said image analysis shows the new jet to be a possible smaller fifth-generation fighter that could be promoted by Shenyang as a lower cost fighter than the Chengdu J-20.

“It is just slightly longer than the F-35, has twin engines but clearly uses stealth shaping as would a fifth-gen fighter,” Fisher said. “It may also employ internal weapon carriage and most likely has a modern [active electronically scanned array] radar. If this is a real program, it will also be developed into a carrier capable version. The size and twin-engine configuration is correct for usage on China’s carriers.”

China is currently conducting sea trials for its first aircraft carrier, the Soviet-era Varyag, and U.S. intelligence officials have said two additional carriers are under construction at a shipyard near Shanghai.

“The bottom line here is that as Washington can’t figure out whether it can afford just one fifth-gen fighter program, China may be pursuing up to three or more,” Fisher said.

The Chinese fighter buildup comes as the Navy is having second thoughts about purchasing large numbers of the naval version of the F-35, which was designated the mainstay future U.S. fighter jet after Gates killed off the F-22.

“When fighter programs start this kind of dive before production and deployment, the ending is usually bad,” Fisher said. “If the Shenyang fighter program is real, this only serves to compound the disaster of having ended F-22 production, which has to rank as one of the most shortsighted and dangerous acts of U.S. unilateral disarmament since the end of the Cold War.”

If the Navy cuts its plans to buy large numbers of F-35Cs and rely more on jets from the Air Force, there are concerns that the Air Force with about 120 F-22 will not be able to do the job, Fisher said.

The second new Chinese stealth fighter development further undermines the decision made by Gates in 2009 to limit production of the F-22 to 187 aircraft and to instead produce several thousand F-35s.

Gates said on July 16, 2009 that by 2020 the United States would have 1,100 fifth generation F-35s and F-22s, but that China was projected to have none, and that the gap of U.S. to Chinese advanced fighters would widen by 2025 with 1,700 advanced U.S. jets to Beijing’s “handful” of jets capable of penetrating strongly defended airspace and the ability to fly long distances.

Fisher said in response to Gates’ 2009 assessment: “With delays being compounded by further cutbacks and production reductions, it does not seem possible that the United States will have 1,700 fifth-generation fighters in 2025 while the Chinese may only have a handful.”

“The Chinese may have two hundred to several hundred by 2035, which in their neighborhood will go far to deter the United States,” he said.

To meet the Chinese jet fighter imbalance, “it is imperative that we revive production of an improved version of the F-22,” Fisher said. “Otherwise we condemn ourselves to either a slow retreat from Asia or a ‘Pearl Harbor’ that will be delivered by China.”

The Pentagon’s 2011 report on China’s military said, “In January 2011, initial images of China’s fifth generation J-20 stealth fighter were posted on the Internet.”

“Although the appearance of this prototype underscores the level of PRC investment in advanced defense systems, the Defense Department does not expect the J-20 to achieve an effective operational capability prior to 2018,” the report said. “China faces several hurdles as it moves toward J-20 production, including the mastery of high-performance jet engine production.”

The report also said “the J-20 will eventually give the PLA Air Force a platform capable of long range, penetrating strikes into complex air defense environments.”