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Evidence, weak states, and identifying terrorists after 9/11: Africans in the Crosshairs of America’s War on Terror

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2020

Extract

We also have to work sort of the dark side, if you will. We're going to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussions, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies if we're going to be successful.

Type
Forum: Guantánamo Diary and African Studies
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of African Studies Association

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References

Notes

2. Alan Cowell, “Charges Dropped against British Terrorism Suspect,” New York Times, October 1, 2014. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/europe/moazzam-begg-freed-britain-drops-terrorism-charge.html.

3. Tim Golden, “In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates’ Deaths,” New York Times, May 20, 2005. See also Taxi to the Dark Side, 2007.

4. Thomas Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004. Available at https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf.

5. See Laurence H. Silberman and Charles S. Robb, Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2005. Available at https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/wmd_report.pdf.

9. For example, see Anne Spechard, Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the psycho-social motivations of militant Jihadi terrorists, mass hostage takers, suicide bombers, and martyrs (McLean, VA: Advances Press, 2012); Guilain Denoeux, “Radicalization Revisited: Jihad 4.0 and CVE Programming.” United States Agency of International Development, 2016. Available at https://sprw.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/radicalization-revisited_jihad-4-0-and-cve-programming_sept-2016.pdf.

11. For example, see Human Rights Watch, “By Day we Fear the Army, by Night the Jihadists: Abuses by armed Islamists and security forces in Burkina Faso” (2018). Available at https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/burkinafaso0518_web2.pdf; Human Rights Watch, “World Report 2019.” Available at https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/mali.

12. For an excellent discussion of these tradeoffs, see Michiael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political ethics in the age of terror (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

13. Specifically, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) used to justify mass collection of metadata on Americans’ phone records. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/3162?q=%7b%22search%22:%5b%22Uniting+and+Strengthening+America+by+Providing+Appropriate+Tools+Required+to+Intercept+and+Obstruct+Terrorism%22%5d%7d&r=9.