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The redacted DHS Challenges in Consolidating Terrorist Watch List Information is damning enough in its conclusion that failed DHS oversight and poor interagency cooperation have failed to produce a single consolidated watch list, but a leaked FOUO copy makes it clear than more essential basics are not being covered. The redactions are as much example as specific blunder. Redaction examples in bold face:

A number of additional challenges, such as [such as identifying links between violent criminals and terrorism], privacy, [and duplicative federal activities related to watch list programs], could be pursued in the context of a centrally coordinated approach to watch list management.

Although TIPOFF data was being shared, the extent of sharing was inconsistent among other watch list systems. [Very little terrorist information was shared with state and local law enforcement.] Where information was shared, it was not supported by common architectures because individual agencies developed and implemented interfaces with other federal agency watch list systems on an ad hoc basis.

It is worth reading both versions split screen to see what was considered appropriate for exclusion. If we cannot shoot straight in this seemingly straightforward area, how can we presume to detect and preempt the genuinely dangerous?

Contrast our DHS-DoD-DoJ performance to the unified masterpiece of propaganda, public relations, and enlistment of Abu Maysara al Iraqi, or father of Maysara the Iraqi, a person or persons unknown to US authorities. Abu Maysara continuously evades US efforts to silence him/them while delivering the jihadist message, acting as a spokesman for Abu Musab Zarqawi, while building a cult following for Zarqawi. For Arabs, it is Abu Maysara that controls the propaganda war with the US by issuing frequent reports so that the jihadist message "does not become lost in the media blackout that America imposes in order to deceive its people and its allies."

Abu Maysara is the apogee of terrorist/jihadist use of the internet, going beyond clandestine target research, communication, planning, and fund raising to attaining "direct control over shaping their own image and that of their foes" outside the control of established (enemy) news feeds. Peter Bardazzi echoes my comments in Beheadings as ascendant psywar that jihadists are using items such as the beheading videos to show jihadist dominance and opposition humiliation while drawing adherents, specifically noting that "the videos were changing popular sentiment about the war in Iraq the same way the images of fighting during the Vietnam War affected public opinion."

From a Virtual Shadow, Messages of Terror
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post
October 2, 2004

DHS Challenges in Consolidating Terrorist Watch List Information
Leaked FOUO and Federal redacted
Office of Information Technology
OIG-04-31 August 2004

Effort to Create Terror Watch List Is Falling Behind, Report Finds
By ROBERT BLOCK and GARY FIELDS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 1, 2004

Gordon Housworth

It is most interesting to see who the G-24 are and how its member rank on Transparency International's 2003 Corruption Perceptions Index.

The G-24 or the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development was established in 1971 with the objective "to concert the position of developing countries on monetary and development finance issues." G-77 member state are welcome to attend G-24 meetings as observers while the People's Republic of China "enjoys the status of "Special Invitee" and addresses the plenary sessions of the G-24." G-24 member states are drawn from three regions: Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia.

G-24 member countries are as follows:

• Region I (Africa): Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Region II (Latin America and the Caribbean): Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.
• Region III (Asia and developing countries of Europe): India, Iran, Lebanon, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Syrian Arab Republic.

It is instructive to track the G-24 member states on Transparency International's 2003 Corruption Perceptions Index.

TI's 2003 Corruption Perceptions Index measures perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people, academics and risk analysts, and ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). On 133 countries rated, the cleanest, Finland was 1, and the worst was Bangladesh at 133. "Seven out of ten countries score less than 5 out of a clean score of 10, while five out of ten developing countries score less than 3 out of 10… Nine out of ten developing countries urgently need practical support to fight corruption."

As the Corruption Perceptions Index has been, like the Economist's Big Mac index, a reliable comparative measure, it is interesting to see how the G-24 faired, or failed as the case may be. Note that certain countries tie, such as Columbia and Peru at 59.

By CPI rank, then country:

43 Trinidad and Tobago; 48 South Africa; 54 Brazil; 59 Colombia, Peru; 64 Mexico; 66 Sri Lanka, Syria, China (not a G-24 member, but as it is granted Observer status); 70 Egypt, Ghana; 78 Iran, Lebanon; 83 India; 88 Algeria; 92 Argentina, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Philippines; 100 Guatemala, Venezuela; 118 Cote d’Ivoire, 132 Nigeria.

Unrated by TI as there were only two reports, but this author would mark them towards the bottom, with the DRC below Nigeria, especially as the DRC is a major blood diamond exporter through al Qaeda channels:

Gabon; Democratic Republic of Congo

Gordon Housworth

A colleague asked in response to China reverses a half-century on diplomatic non-intervention, what is the statute of limitations before the court and what jurisdiction would the Hague court have over alleged human rights abuses within China?

I'll expand the reply to include the US. The 1998 Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) has a long reach as Article 29, Non-applicability of statute of limitations, states that "crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court shall not be subject to any statute of limitations." There is no wiggle room.

The US is attempting to sign bilateral agreements, using Article 98, Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIAs), with countries where US forces are serving to ensure that American personnel won’t be subject to ICC prosecution. Some accuse the US of using the Article 98 as a trapdoor out of the Rome Statute whereas the US insists that the article permits it to engage in agreements over the conditions of surrendering, more precisely the consent of the sending state -- the US in this instance -- is required before an individual is transferred to the court.

Pierre-Richard Prosper, US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, said: "We believe that the court is a noble idea but it’s just flawed in it’s implementation. Therefore, we respect the rights of states to be a party to the court, we just ask that they respect our right NOT to be a party to the court and we decide to take this (inaudible) divorce and detach ourselves from the process so it’s not a source of tension or conflict between the United States and the Court and the United States and its allies who are parties to the court."

The Rome Statute has been ratified by 97 states while 16 have ratified the Agreement on Privileges and Immunities (APIC) which extends "certain privileges and immunities" to officials and staff of the court. I do see the need to protect the court from reprisals, especially as members, staff, and investigators travel and transport evidence, but it is fodder for the conspiracy theorists that the ICC is protected while US and other officials are not.

COMPILATION OF CORE DOCUMENTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Gordon Housworth

As China's Public Security Ministry assembles its specially trained People's Armed Police for a peace-keeping contingent in Haiti under UN auspices, we are on the eve of a Chinese renaissance that moves Beijing from a revolutionary agent attacking the global status quo to a cooperative world statesman that achieves a larger role in global affairs and which strengthens its regional rise in Asia. It must come with some relish to the Chinese that they embark on their initiative in the Caribbean just off the US coast.

I submit that this sea change should be viewed within the context of the notes 'Peaceful Rise' overcoming 'China Threat', Testing and strategic encirclement versus force on force, bluffing and risk-taking, and The fall of Peaceful Rise, or has it?. Remember that China's regional and global diplomatic initiative, "peaceful rise" (heping jueqi), since changed to "peaceful development" (heping fazhan), is a masterful endeavor that will free the PRC from the US defined "China threat" as it transforms Beijing to a patient, nuanced global diplomatic partner. The hallmarks of peaceful rise-peaceful development are:

• Diplomatic drive for regional acceptance of PRC's expanding sphere of influence
• Enshrining China as Asia's predominant economic force
• Leveraging economic cooperation into political influence over Southeast Asia
• Offsetting and eventually diminishing US influence
• Regional and international acceptance of China as the Asian superpower with hegemony over the region

While this riot police unit is small, only 125 staff, it is the "first Chinese police officers to serve as full-blown U.N. peacekeepers and as an integrated unit, with their own commander, logistics and support."

China will drop its historic postwar diplomatic stance of non-interference in other countries. I find the comment of Tan Jun, head of peacekeeping at the Public Security Ministry, that "I believe China will make even greater contributions in the future" to be masterly understatement. I also found Tan's comment that China's decision to send a force to Haiti had nothing to do with China's national diplomacy to be a diplomatic nicety.  Yes, China's formal reply came in response to a public UN appeal on Haiti's behalf, but such is the nature of public-private negotiation at the UN. It is a matter of record that China has consistently given financial aid and attention to all states that maintain a relationship with Taiwan and not China. Such specific attention meshes closely with Beijing's global policy agenda in the case of Haiti.

I should imagine that these troops were handpicked for operational skill, English and French language facility, and their ability to adapt and not embarrass China or Hu Jintao as he assumes the troika of chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), president of China, and military commander-in-chief. I would expect members of this troop to rise to command their own units.

I submit that China will expand its UN peacekeeping role as rapidly as world demands permit, and that they will best the US by agreeing to be bound by The Hague international criminal court.  Without direct confrontation they will reflect a more attractive international face that the US has shown in recent years.

China Readies Riot Force For Peacekeeping in Haiti
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 30, 2004; Page A21

Gordon Housworth

Iraq, Chechnya, Afghanistan you may assume, a victim of terrorism. No, it was Shenandoah County, Virginia, and the victim was a teenage Latina, age 17, a federal witness against a Salvadorian street gang, Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

While US police departments have identified Latin gangs as a top crime problem, they have not identified them as a potential terrorist problem. Readers of my private list can attest that I called the threat of Muslim terrorism years before the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. I now make another forecast that the maras, Central American and Mexican gang members named after a species of aggressive swarming ants, are the Chechens on America's doorstep, only a step or so away from wreaking the same havoc within the US that the Chechens visit seemingly at will with equal ferocity within Russia and CIS.

Traditionally a function of immigration and labor-migration patterns, gangs "have been a fixture of urban life in the United States for more than 150 years, making their presence known in inner-city ghettos and poor immigrant neighborhoods ever since the Irish settled the Five Points district of New York."

If you live in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, you are already aware of the effects of some 70,000 to 100,000 gang members that saw neighborhoods "plundered by violent turf wars waged by volatile young men armed with machetes and homemade pipe guns" and has "spread like a scourge across Central America, Mexico and the United States, setting off a catastrophic crime wave that has turned dirt-poor neighborhoods into combat zones [eliciting] an equally virulent crackdown that has left thousands of gang members dead, in jail or [fleeing north to the US], moving with and preying on the waves of illegal migrants who travel to the United States."

These gangs are now well ensconced in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington DC, driving crime in those areas and now going rural as hillbangers where law enforcement is weak. Metropolitan Los Angeles "remains the world capital of street gangs, with an estimated 700 different cliques and more than 110,000 gang members," accounting for half of all homicides. The FBI believes MS-13 to be "active in 31 states in the United States, from Alaska to Oklahoma, the Carolinas to Colorado, [with] thousands of members in Honduras and El Salvador," engaged in drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, and other criminal activities.

This is large scale, ruthlessly enforced, organized criminal enterprise that predates Hispanic immigrants in industries such as food-processing. Honduras and El Salvador call the maras "as big a threat to national security as terrorism is to the United States." I submit that only a subtle shift, either internally driven or externally paid, is required to move them directly into terrorism.

Shuttling Between Nations, Latino Gangs Confound the Law
By Ginger Thompson
New York Times
September 26, 2004

Hillbangers
By Matthew Brzezinski
New York Times
August 15, 2004

Gordon Housworth

While the focus on Albert Mehrabian in Beheadings as ascendant psywar against the periphery of the coalition supply chain was for his Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) Emotion Model, Mehrabian is best misremembered for the actions of amateurs who took from context his very narrow study addressing the situation "in which a listener is analyzing a speaker's general attitude towards that listener (positive, negative, or neutral)… the parties had no prior acquaintance [and] no context for their discussion."

A comment in this 1967 research noted, "The combined effect of simultaneous verbal, vocal and facial attitude communications is a weighted sum of their independent effects — with the coefficients of .07, .38, and .55, respectively." (Albert Mehrabian and Susan R. Ferris, "Inference of attitudes from nonverbal communication in two channels." Journal of Consulting Psychology 31 (1967): 248-252. )

That was twisted out of context into the generalized urban legend implication that in "face-to-face conversation, 38% of communication is inflection and tone of voice, 55% is facial expression, and only 7% is based on what you actually say." Yes, there is influence from non-verbal cues that combine into a visual, verbal, and vocal whole, but not at these lopsided percentages. (If those numbers were true, how could a phone call or a low bandwidth teleconference make any progress?)

On the contrary, I have opined, since the days of CompuServe forums long before the Web, that if you give me six months of online forum traffic to watch how an individual presents positions/opinions, develops their assumptions and conditions, engages dissent, defends his or her logic, refrains or engages in "flaming," and how he or she concludes a discussion, I can make a valid judgment of that person, sight unseen. I am actually stripped of the distractions that would lead me astray and left with the person's thinking.

And as people are generally far less restrained in 'remote print' discussions than in face-to-face encounters, good behavior in online conditions is a good indication of their personality and performance overall. This condition applies doubly to forum moderators for as Lord Acton observed "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Years ago as a moderator, I was pestered by a twit with whom I ended a tedious exchange with the comment that I'd engage him in a duel of wits but I do not fight unarmed men. A snappy riposte, yes, but one which I still regret as it was unfair given our unequal circumstances.

Every referral I have made in this online manner has worked whereas some done in the traditional manner have not. I am still working with colleagues that I "met" online a decade ago and have yet to meet in person, yet am even more certain in making a referral if the occasion arose.

Kill that 7% urban legend whenever you hear it as it is used as the false premise for far too many "training" efforts.

Gordon Housworth

I submit that this is intended to go beyond mere communication and into the best of asymmetrical psywar ops by a small group designed to cow, even if indirectly, the actions of a larger force by aiming at its more vulnerable elements.  It is designed to demonstrate absolute dominance on the part of the jihadists while instilling submissiveness on the part of the Iraqi and coalition personnel, and for that I turn to Albert Mehrabian.

Mehrabian developed the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD) Emotion Model to describe emotions through a general three-dimensional framework for describing emotions that included Pleasure-Displeasure, Arousal-Nonarousal, and Dominance-Submissiveness plus eight major categories of emotion (exuberant, bored, relaxed, anxious, dependent, disdainful, docile, hostile).

Mehrabian had long done research in nonverbal communication in an attempt to address the "complexity and diversity of nonverbal cues, referents or meanings (e.g., inferences of emotions and attitudes of another based on the other's nonverbal acts) rather than symbols or discrete behaviors (e.g., movements, postures, voice quality)" of communication. Mehrabian discovered that his "coding rules (i.e., relations among symbols, on one hand, and referents, on the other) in nonverbal communication" mapped to the Evaluation, Activity, and Potency factors of the semantic differential model of Osgood et al. Thus Pleasure-Displeasure was the positive emotional correlate of Evaluation, Arousal-Nonarousal the positive emotional correlate of stimulus Activity, and Dominance-Submissiveness the negative emotional correlate of stimulus Potency. Non-verbal aligned with verbal.

Gordon Housworth

Such manipulation has, of course, a far greater span and has worn many masks, e.g., the work of Livy were considered masterpieces of Roman state propaganda. In our era, the codification of "that which ought to be spread" got underway in earnest with Roman Catholic "pontifical administration charged with the spread of Catholicism and with the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs in non-Catholic countries." Propaganda fide for short, was not originally intended to refer to misleading information. It entered secular space about WW I, turning pejorative between the wars.

Scientific propaganda rose in the US with Walter Lippman, journalist, and Edward Bernays, psychologist, who proceeded to create intense anti-German sentiment in favor of joining the British in WW I. Everyone, from public relations to Goebbels, took notice. Whereas English used a single term propaganda, the Russian Bolsheviks distinguished propaganda ("dissemination of revolutionary ideas, teachings of Marxism, and basic economical knowledge, theoretical and factual") from agitation ("forming public opinion and stirring up political unrest").

Social psychology offers the means to create logical fallacies that are persuasive, yet false. "Information dissemination strategies only become propaganda strategies when coupled with propagandistic messages. Identifying these propaganda messages is a necessary prerequisite to studying the methods by which those messages are spread." Readers will recognize this stout list globally, nationally, and locally:

• Appeal to fear
• Appeal to authority
• Bandwagon
• Obtain disapproval
• Glittering generalities
• Rationalization
• Intentional vagueness
• Transfer
• Oversimplification
• Common man/"plain folks" approach
• Testimonial/damaging quotation
• Stereotyping or Labeling
• Scapegoating
• Virtue words
• Slogans

My concern that a US electorate could withstand such tools was palpable in Imperial Rome became Italy; de Tocqueville's America becomes what?, a landscape that appears to struggle under:

• Arbitrary electoral outcomes carried by "slogans, misinformation, "fire alarms," "October surprises," random personal associations, and "gotchas.""
• Democracies as oligarchies with a populist face in which competing elites hold sway.
• Popular use of shortcuts, or "low-information rationality," to reach judgments about political candidates.

An interesting recognition of, and use of, oppo research in deflecting Tim Russert's Meet the Press, noted that "Russert frustrates the candidates by knowing their positions on issues better than they do" and then lays out five rules that I must say are more practiced by Fox news anchors:

1. Prepare for a Hostile Interrogation
2. Anticipate Russert's Research
3. Put Russert on the Defensive
4. If That Doesn't Work, Concede the Point. Then Make Yours
5. Interrupt Him. Interrupt Again. And Again

Expect a sophisticated, partisan no-holds-barred contest more among equals in 2008.

Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy
By MATT BAI
NY Times
July 25, 2004

Gordon Housworth

A satisfied customer is not the same thing as a loyal customer. Walker Information, a 65-year-old firm that tracks customer loyalty, has tried to draw the distinction and today is releasing the results of a survey that determines which IT companies engender the most loyalty. The results... show a correlation between customer loyalty and financial performance [where] brands that scored high in customer loyalty had higher operating-profit margins, aggregated over three years, compared with negative profit margins for what the company calls the "loyalty laggards." Walker evaluated more than 50 brands in five categories: software, services, networking, servers and workstations, and storage systems.

Walker arrives at its rankings through detailed interviews that charted buyers' feelings on everything from product quality to customer service and post-sales support. Of all the IT buyers interviewed for the report, only 44 percent said they feel loyal to a majority of their suppliers, 30 percent feel "trapped" by at least some of their vendors, and almost 25 percent are actively looking to swap their IT providers for somebody different.

I wonder how this low loyalty to IT vendors, to the point of buyers feeling "trapped" by their current relationship with certain suppliers, transfers beyond the IT sector into the wider corporate supply chain.

It has been my experience that while many industrial firms have made a strategic IT commitment to the likes of Microsoft or Cisco in volume purchases that significantly lower the per seat product cost, they exhibit a very different -- lower and more transient -- loyalty to the suppliers in their product supply chains.

Based upon our work in the automotive sector, we can say that OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) -- or vehicle manufacturers -- in this relentlessly cost sensitive sector have less than rigid loyalty to suppliers and certainly feel "hostage" to certain suppliers, especially those suppliers who dominate the market in a specific part/subsystem or even a high percentage of overall industry production to all OEMs. OEMs are reacting by reallocating their part production awards to other than the industry leader, irrespective of that supplier's ability to provide a technically and financially acceptable component.

This does not mean that OEMs will award business to firms with substandard performance, quality, and robustness, but rather that they will select among a group of suppliers capable of providing a peer level of performance in order to reduce the dominance of particular suppliers in critical market subsystems. I hasten to add that "critical" may be based upon internal OEM criteria not available to the supplier who would otherwise presume that they have the business based upon being the incumbent supplier offering a competitive cost and functional bid for a subsequent model year.

Were I an automotive supplier, I would launch an immediate, sustained competitive tracking of all my competitors' current and forecast business with all OEMs, my competitors' percentage of business with each OEM, and of the buyers' opinions at each OEM of my firm in order to see which supplier was most likely to be given new business -- either at my expense if I am leader, or to gain a larger share if I am a new entrant or minority provider.

Also, I would be sensitive to my quarterly/annual profit announcements which, on one hand, are necessary to attract equity funding, but, on the other hand, draw the quiet rage of OEM personnel who feel that certain suppliers are making more money pro rata than they are. There is always a latent, "I am larger, I am the buyer, and due more deference" attitude on the part of the OEMs, but it is never more virulent than at the times of high profit announcements by suppliers or a supplier's refusal to lower prices. This reaction is especially apparent when the OEMs are under severe market pressure.

a company is setting a low bar for itself if it is measured only by customer satisfaction. "If you ask people if they're satisfied [with their provider], most would say, 'Yeah, sure, I'm satisfied.' But if you ask them would they buy again, increase their purchases [from that provider] or recommend them, that's a different story."

Any automotive supplier that is unaware that his major OEM customers are watching his firm's ability to prejudice or restrain an OEM's flexibility and profitability, or is not showing due deference to the OEM, or in some way placating the OEM with accelerated R&D, service, et al, is naive and can suffer in future bidding.

If this tenuous level of loyalty extends beyond the automotive industry into other equally cost sensitive markets able to make vendor selections from among a group of similarly able suppliers, it could be a contributor to OEM-supplier strife, outsourcing (to low cost but not low risk locations), or other supply chain dysfunctions.

Who do you love?
September 20, 2004: 1:34 PM EDT
By Paul R. La Monica
CNN/Money

IBM Tops IT Loyalty Survey
Lisa DiCarlo, 09.20.04, 12:01 AM ET
Forbes

Loyalty study zeroes in on tech stalwarts
By Matt Hines
CNET News.com
September 19, 2004, 12:01 AM PT

Gordon Housworth