Terror Label Solves No Problem

In the wake of recent spectacular murders in Texas— one at the hands of an Army doctor shooting innocents at Fort Hood and another at the hands of a failed entrepreneur auguring his small fixed wing aircraft into an Austin federal building— homeland security practitioners have risen to the attackers’ bait by rushing to call both terrorists. Both attackers sought to make more of their attacks than grudge-bearing strikes of unrespected failures against a target that barely acknowledged their existence. One slid into the ravings of jihad long after his unspectacular prospects became evident. Major Hasan, M.D., saw that his military career was going nowhere, his competence was insufficient to open the door to private sector opportunities, and the likely trajectory of his employment would be into harm’s way no matter what he could concoct in the way of excuses, tropes, and gambits. The other, Joe Stack, a self-styled high tech consultant with a history of failed attempts to cash in on the blandishments of sole proprietorship and Silicon Valley entrepreneurial opportunities, lost two families and multiple jobs. Yet he found a history of dodging taxes was catching up with him while the marketability of his skills was not matching his self-definition of captain of industry. Consequently, in addition to blaming all around him for his serial failures, and despite knowing better after previously running up federal back taxes in excess of $100,000, Stack decided to blame the Internal Revenue Service for his recent failure to file a tax return. He claimed the attending financial distress led him to aim his kamikaze flight into Austin’s IRS building as some sort of freedom fighter’s valiant act of defiance. In reality, he more likely wanted to end a life bereft of accomplishment or prospect.

When do homeland security practitioners become unintentional accessories after the fact? They do so whenever they magnify tragic loss by buying into attacker claims that the blood of innocents was spilled in the service of some higher cause.

“Terrorism!” shout the earnest practitioners. Why, Hasan must clearly be a radicalized Islamist who would otherwise be harmlessly practicing medicine guided by Marcus Welby and ER reruns. Alas, once his mind slid into a jihadi marinade, the physician who struggled to even rank among the mediocre all of a sudden became a mastermind, even if he ended up being the only member of his own terror cell. Similarly, Stack must have become a radicalized tax protestor. Perhaps he idolized Timothy McVeigh or succumbed to anti-government propaganda, ultimately turning from average loser into steely-eyed suicide pilot.

Suppose an alternative analysis, however. What if both these people were simply unhinged incompetents who saw no way out of the holes they dug for themselves? Would they not then do what most of us do best when facing such challenges without a viable support system? Dig themselves in deeper. Then, when in too deep, what is the last act of self-elevation available as they lash out? That’s right: go out claiming a connection with something greater than their wretched selves. Why? Because such a connection makes them something more. Otherwise, they face an end that replicates their beginning and middle: wading through the mainstream of life without even making a ripple. Affix to them the terrorist label, though, and you help transform them. Now instead of being a nothing-but, they become a something-more. Where are their networks, their cells, or even their disciples? We cannot find what does not exist.

Terrorism and terrorist labels can be irresistible for homeland security practitioners to brandish. Label one attacker a radicalized Islamist and you mobilize federal resources and subsidies to take on the problem and diffuse accountability for failing to prevent his carnage. Label the other attacker a domestic terrorist and you again lay claim to federal resources and deflect attention from those elements of our society which no one cares to invest in or mobilize to take a hand in our own defense: average fellow citizens. Instead, the terrorism label confines the problem to the purview of experts and continues to keep the rest of us at arm’s length. To name is to control.

There is a better way: a No Dark Corners approach. No Dark Corners would launch failure analysis in both cases without rushing to affix labels. Establish timelines of individual actions and identify signals of lethality that may have been missed. Probe further to see whether those signals were really missed or actually detected but not acted upon because of institutional or societal self-hobbling that we must face in order to undo.

Unless we start looking at such attacks more analytically through a defender’s prism, we doom ourselves to watch in repeated horror as such events replay themselves at another time and place while we pretend that affixing a label or pointing the accusing finger of blame somehow advances our security.

-- Nick Catrantzos

Secret of getting serious on security

As Americans we reflexively take deep dives into details. It is part penchant and part pride that make us act as if examining every minute detail, exposing it to some level of public scrutiny, tracing its antecedents and speculating on why's and wherefores constitutes Part One of solving the problem. Then Part Two becomes an engineering challenge of making minute corrections for every perceived flaw, in the confident hope that this pain-giving form of painstaking will surely order events in such a way as to foreclose future failures. Sadly, results of this approach are as elusive in homeland security as in disaster relief.

Cases in Point:
• Mirandizing instead of interrogating the Christmas underwear bomber, effectively seconding the objective of defense through collection of perishable intelligence to a legalistic and armchair warrior's concern over public relations proprieties
• Trying 9/11 attackers by planning to give them a Manhattan platform from which to conduct a propaganda attack that Guantanamo does not offer.

That this penchant pervades our culture is evident beyond the security realm. Witness the story of a botched relief effort in Haiti chronicled in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (See Haiti Aid Efforts Go Awry in the 'Convoy to Nowhere' by Christopher Rhoads at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704878904575031673153590414.html). Planned to the nth degree, with competent altruists volunteering to drive relief supplies where needed, the effort failed. Why? Could it be that our natural biases rob us of a view of the larger picture? All the relief was about concentrating supplies in one place, transporting them to another, and then breaking them into smaller concentrations to be distributed from yet another central point. What did this create? Multiple, cascading points of failure. What if we started dispersing supplies through air drops instead of concentrating and planning complicated truck deliveries that end up blocked or diverted?

The allure of concentrating too intently is almost as irresistible as that of its cousin, focusing over much on detail. After all, isn't it easier to secure anything -- including food and medicine -- if you keep it all in one place, transport it altogether, and then distribute it from a single, fortified location. The answer is a thoughtful "yes, but." Yes, but putting all the eggs in one basked invariably makes an unmistakable target of that basket. Dispersing the assets, instead, exemplifies the Security 101 rule of distributing one's risk. In the long run, such dispersal makes it harder for misfortune or bureaucratic error to undermine your relief effort and for rogues to target your supplies. Direct, wide dispersal would also remove middle men (the province that thugs and crooks like to reserve for themselves) from standing in the way between needed supplies and needy beneficiaries. The right priority should help reveal the right tactic.

Similarly, for security, a little more alacrity in putting defensive objectives ahead of political navel-gazing might be the shorter path to excellence.

-- Nick Catrantzos