The Political Conundrum!

Announcing $35M in new funding last Friday Twitter was one of the few bright spots in a collapsing economy. The micro-blogging service has been attracting increasing attention within the mainstream, as the political classes adopt the service – most notably, congressman Pete Hokestra (R-Mich.)who produced a stream of tweets detailing his location as he traveled from Andrew’s Air Force base to Baghdad and back. Besides the disbelieving head shaking this particular series of political tweets attracted, it does highlight the amorphous nature of Twitter -- it isn’t clear what it really is.

Certainly, the revenue model remains unclear, as does its true utility or even what the unintended consequences of using the service may be. In a National Security sense Twitter emerged as a powerful networked communications platform during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, when a stream of tweets marked #Mumbai (# being the global tagging system Twitter employs) gave a seemingly real-time commentary on events as they unfolded in Mumbai. Similarly, Twitter has been used to communicate the message and activity surrounding the riots in Greece using the #Griot tag. These are examples of the network effect working with a rapid communications platform and developing a powerful narrative from many different observation points. The style is anarchic but increasingly compelling.

Therefore, one argument regarding the long-term use of Twitter, in the National Security space at least, is that Twitter in conjunction with other tools, continues the trend of making ordinary citizens active producers of potentially actionable intelligence. This equally applies to Microsoft Photosynth and the meshing of user created digital platforms is a future trend, which doesn’t seem too far away. One of Twitter’s more recent high profile moments was the picture of the USAirways plane in the Hudson taken by an ordinary citizen who happened to be on a ferry, which went to the scene. This picture quickly and succinctly explained the situation to any emergency service in the area. This same principal can clearly be globally extended in terms of data and geographic reach. In fact it is the increasing penetration of mobile devices, which would seem to offer a bright future for the Twitter platform.

An area, which the Twitter platform excels in are the tools that can be used to manipulate the information within Twitter. This is where the open feel of the service suggests it somehow has more potential than the well designed social networking platforms such as Facebook. Information is messy and Twitter fits around this principle.

In order to examine Twitter we established a Twitter feed at www.twitter/In_Terrain. The idea behind this was to use the RSS feed Twitter tool TwitterFeed to push content of interest (such as the CT Blog) to a Twitter account and then examine ways in which this could be consumed. The results so far have been impressive. Twitterrific available for Apple products displays the security information feed in a very useful way. Tweetr for windows does a similar thing for Microsoft based systems and TwitterBerry covers Blackberry users. If users join Twitter they can chose to ‘follow’ the In_Terrain feed and receive the same information and potentially reply to specific tweets they find interesting – thus creating the ‘conversation’ Twitter, desires. Similarly, if other security and intelligence focused twitter feeds become apparent the In_Terrain twitter feed can ‘follow’ those conversations – thus beginning the network effect.

Clearly, this is still experimental and there are other avenues to explore with regard to GPS Twitter applications. The aim with the In_Terrain Twitter account is to generate tweets from mainstream information sources as well as the 'lower frequencies'. Starting a National Security focused tweet seems like an interesting idea right now – so I welcome CTBlog readers to ‘join the conversation’ – and please make suggestions for improvements or content additions. Maybe it will even become useful.

I forgot to mention a couple of other useful Twitter aps. TweetBeep - which acts in a similar fashion to Google alerts and HelloTwitFace - a Twitter client for Windows Mobile.

It has recently been brought to my attention that several blogs and websites in Canada have been chatty about the CBC story on Scott and his Documentary, At War. I forwarded the sites to Scott so he could read them. Last night while he was at Ft. Bragg, NC doing screenings for members of that base he took some time to talk about the chatter from our cousins up north and about the feedback he has received from the half-dozen screenings he and David have done across the country.

Of course with the President’s trip to Canada today and this announcement, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/19/obama-future-afghan-troop-levels-uncertain/ it makes this interview even more relevant.

Some of the “chatter” that Scott and I are talking about in this Podcast Interview are at

http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/curse-upon-canadian-broadcasting.html

http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/afstan-more-reasons-to-curse-mother.html

http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=8niu5kqvnkt42u3mgfsu4jr2o1&topic=83794.15

To Listen to the Podcast/Interview, click below.

Scott Interview #3

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The knotty problem of what to do with the terrorist suspects being held in Guantanamo and whether or not they might engage in terrorist activities if they are released has prompted new looks at rehabilitation programs and recidivism rates.

In this context, a research paper by a former State Department intelligence analyst, Dennis Pluchinsky, is worth noting: 'Global Jihadist Recidivism: A Red Flag', published in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.

For several years, some Muslim countries, notably Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, have been conducting deradicalization programs for young men who have been arrested for their involvement in terrorist activities. But most of the western experts I have heard say it is still too early to tell how effective the relatively new programs will be in the long term. The very expensive Saudi program, which includes finding jobs and even wives for young men caught up in Islamic radical militantism is too costly for most countries to imitate. And doubts arose about the effectiveness of the Saudi program after recent disclosures that at least two men had re-emerged as terrorists and the Saudis rearrested nine of its “rehabilitated” men, as reported in the New York Times.

For more details also see the Feb. 12 Counterterrorism Blog item by Evan Kohlmann on his NEFA foundation report “The Eleven: Saudi Guantanamo Veterans Returning to the Fight.”

The Washington Post Monday carried a front-page article describing four cases that illustrate the difficulties in deciding what to do about some of the Guantanamo prisoners who may be too dangerous to release and/or no country is willing to take them.

The article by Peter Finn notes that “Obama administration officials acknowledge that closing the prison is not risk-free and that some detainees may return to terrorism. But the president has concluded that Guantanamo has sapped America's moral stature abroad and mired the country in endless litigation, forestalling justice for the alleged terrorists. Of the 779 people taken to Guantanamo, only three have been convicted, and two of those have since been released.”

The Washington Times National Security Section today front-paged a long story by Rowan Scarborough headlined “Rehabilitation never tried at Guantanamo.” It noted that this contrasted to a program that the U.S. Army ran at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A Pentagon spokesman was quoted as saying that the U.S. does not have a rehabilitation program at Guantanamo because “it was constructed to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield.”

Earlier this week, a truce between the Pakistani provisional government and the leader of a militant group was designed to restore peace to the once-idyllic Swat valley. Today’s breaking news of a Pakistani journalist found dead after he was abducted and brutally murdered in Swat could be viewed as a setback to a fragile peace agreement. The latest tragic incident also raises concerns about the use of dialogue with a tenacious Taliban.

On Al-Jazeera English Sunday night’s program, I stated that any agreement with the Taliban is risky business. Historical record has proven the Talibs, as they are called, are unable to keep their end of the bargain. Then why does Pakistan take a chance on militant leaders? The answer is simple. Pakistan can only fight one war at a time. This was the rationale offered to me by a senior Pakistani military commander. In a recent phone conversation, I was told that the Pakistan Army is under pressure to fight extremists in the tribal areas, guard against a possible Indian threat, and battle hard-core jihadists in the Swat valley. The commander, who wished to remain anonymous to protect his identity, said, “We do not have the manpower or the equipment to keep fighting like this. If America expects to win in Pakistan, then we need more assistance.”

Coalition forces killed a senior insurgent commander during an airstrike in the western province of Herat. Ghulam Yahya Akbari and upwards of 15 of his leaders and fighters were killed in a "precision strike" that targeted his headquarters

Roughly 7,200 American troops, 4,000 troops from the Royal Thai Armed Forces and a smattering from Singapore, Japan and Indonesia participate in Cobra Gold, which ended Tuesday. The event has taken place since 1982 and continues a Thai-U.S. military friendship forged in the 1960s.

North Korea stepped up its war rhetoric Thursday, saying its troops are "fully ready" for war with South Korea, just hours before a visit to Seoul by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Kyrgyzstan's parliament voted Thursday to close a key U.S. air base in the country - a move that could hamper President Barack Obama's efforts to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Tonight we have another great show full of patriotic people. Our first guest is a civilian nurse who works at a military hospital and has cared for many of our wounded troops.

Then, we’re bringing back Eve Chase to close the loop on last week’s aborted show.

During the 8pm hour we’ll be talking with Aaron Gaudet, Director/Editor/Director of Photography of the film “The Way We Get By”. Check out the trailer at http://www.thewaywegetbymovie.com/

We’ll also have SFC Angela McKinzie on as our Tribute to Freedom Soldier this week. I can’t think of a better place to be this week!

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