Homeland Security. Michael Chertoff

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СКАЧАТЬ looking ahead, there is a real danger that Hezbollah could paralyze or even dismember Lebanon.

      The good news is that Hezbollah's alliance with hostile foreign powers like Iran and Syria has cost it the support of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens who especially resent Syria's history of encroachments on Lebanon's sovereignty. While Hezbollah may not have carried out attacks in the United States itself, it has developed a presence in the Western Hemisphere, specifically in South America. In 1992, it bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing twenty-nine people. Two years later, it murdered eighty-five people by bombing a Jewish community center in that city. These acts disturbingly underscore Hezbollah's reach into the hemisphere, notably in the tri-border areas at the margins of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Hezbollah's patron, Iran, is also forging warmer relations with Venezuela. These developments, only a relatively short distance from U.S. borders, highlight the fact that Hezbollah is not just a Middle Eastern concern.

      In our immediate backyard other terrorist groups with different ideologies also pose a threat. Among the oldest is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). Starting in the 1960s as a Marxist guerrilla group that took up arms against the government, it eventually became a criminal enterprise as well. Today, it engages in a host of activities, from narcotics trafficking and extortion to kidnapping and hostage taking for ransom and political leverage, in order to fuel its ideological efforts and its protracted war against Colombia's duly elected government. Organized along military lines, FARC replicates in the areas it controls the influence that Hezbollah has in parts of Lebanon or that Al Qaeda once had in Afghanistan. Like Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, it is listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization. And FARC demonstrates what happens when terrorism and organized crime converge, each enabling the other.

      FARC has clear ties to President Hugo Chavez's Venezuelan government and has been hosted by Chavez in that country. When Colombian forces killed a key FARC leader in early 2008, they found computer files that suggested even closer ties with Venezuela than previously known. This connection between a terrorist group and a nation-state notably parallels the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran. And as with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, FARC has generated significant opposition among the people whose allegiance it seeks. Millions of Colombians rallied against it in early 2008, demanding that it release the hundreds of hostages it has been holding for years.

      Finally, while Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and FARC represent threats from ideologically motivated organizations, U.S. security will be increasingly threatened as well by sophisticated transnational groups that operate purely as criminal enterprises. The same forces of globalization that have helped spread dangerous ideologies have empowered criminal organizations to become far more adept at trafficking in narcotics and human beings, and also in other kinds of activities that threaten the stability of societies and their governments.

      Perhaps the most lethal of such groups is Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13, formed in the early 1980s by immigrants in Los Angeles, some of whom were former guerrilla fighters in El Salvador. It began as a street gang, selling illegal narcotics, committing violent crimes, and fighting turf wars with other criminal entities. In January 2008, an FBI threat assessment noted that MS-13 is in at least forty-two of our fifty states, with 6,000 to 10,000 members nationwide. Over time, MS-13 has spread not only across our cities but back into Central America, engaging in human trafficking, assassinations for hire, assaults on law enforcement officials, and other violent activities that threaten the stability of countries in that region.

      In 1997, in Honduras, MS-13 kidnapped and murdered the son of President Ricardo Maduro. In 2002, in the Honduran city of Tegucigalpa, MS-13 members boarded a bus, executed twenty-eight people (including seven small children), and left a handwritten message taunting the government. Two years later, the president of Guatemala, Oscar Berger, received a message tied to the body of a dismembered man, warning of more killings to come.

      MS-13 is not now an ideological group, but it continues to bring death and disorder to our neighbors to the south. That will be even more disturbing should a day come when this criminal network gains the power to dominate a small state in our own hemisphere.

       The Generational Challenge

      From Al Qaeda to MS-13, over the next decade we will face a full spectrum of man-made threats that call for an array of preventive measures. These threats will derive from organizations that are networked, widely distributed, difficult to deter, and aided in their ability to commit acts of violence by globalization and technological advances in travel, communications, and weaponry.

      How will we prevent such threats from being carried out against our country? In brief, we need to keep pursuing a broad-gauged strategy. First, we need to keep using our military and intelligence assets abroad to stop dangerous people from reaching us at home. Second, we need to secure those hinges of the global architecture that are being exploited by global terrorism and crime, and where these illegal global networks are also at their most vulnerable. This means intercepting the illegal networks' communications, stopping their flow of finance, and interfering with their ability to travel.

      Third, wherever we face ideological threats, we must contend with them. We must give voice to those around the world who oppose them. From Iraq to Lebanon to the Western Hemisphere, wherever people stand for freedom against tyranny and terror, we must stand with them. And we must urge communities of moderation to have the courage of their convictions and take a similar stand. To do anything less is to cede the battlefield of ideas to extremists, enabling them to recruit the next generation of terrorists without a fight. Fourth, we need to encourage the free flow of people and ideas to and from our nation. That means outreach to encourage travel to the United States

      Fifth, we must continue to send people and resources abroad to help meet humanitarian needs. When we help African nations fight malaria or HIV/AIDS, we are not only combating misery with compassion, but demonstrating our values through positive action. Hezbollah gained significant traction by providing social services to local communities. When we have provided aid overseas, as in post-tsunami Asia, we have seen our image strengthened. Engagement with health, education, and social welfare around the globe can be an important tool in strengthening global security.

      Finally, enhancing our trade and security support for our international partners is critical in fostering the strength they need to resist dangerous global ideologies and criminal networks. Whether through free-trade agreements like the one with Colombia or capacity-building plans like the Merida Initiative aimed at reinforcing Mexico's campaign against narcotraffickers, we must seize every opportunity to inoculate our neighbors against international terrorists and crime organizations.

      Unquestionably, the threats we face constitute a generational challenge to our nation—a challenge we can surely meet and overcome through patient and sustained resolve, a common-sense strategy, and a comprehensive set of intelligent policies and tools.

      2

      The Ideological Roots

      of Terror

      SINCE the September 11 attacks, the United States has continued to confront the threat posed by its terrorist foes. In the summer of 2006, for example, a major plot to hijack transatlantic airliners was disrupted in London. It served as a stark reminder of how our enemies continue to target this nation and its allies.

      In response to this threat, the United States and its friends must maintain their vigilance against terrorism. But they must also combat the ideas that drive the terrorists. As Jonathan Evans, director general of the British Security Service, has said, “Although the most visible manifestations of this problem are the attacks and attempted attacks we have suffered in recent years, the root of the problem is ideological.”¹ Al Qaeda and like-minded organizations are inspired by a malignant ideology, one that is characterized СКАЧАТЬ