INTERROGATING OSAMA

It is obviously important that OBL (Osama bin Laden) not be simply hunted down and shot to death. He should be captured and interrogated until all the information he has about his terrorist network has been extracted from him – then he should be summarily executed. No trials, no being "brought to justice."

What, then, would the most efficient and effective form of interrogation be? In 1995, the Philippine State Police captured an OBL agent. They knew he was planning some terrorist act but didn’t know what. So they tortured him – the old-fashioned way, right out of the movies, (more…)

GLACIERS IN THE GOBI

In the deepest heart of the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, just south of the Flaming Cliffs where Roy Chapman Andrews discovered dinosaur eggs in the 1920s, there is a naked spine of mountains called the Gurvan Saihan. In the Gurvan Saihan there is a valley called Yol Alyn, the Vulture’s Mouth. And in the Vulture’s Mouth, there is a glacier.

It is not a big glacier, the ice buildup of a stream that refuses to melt even in the heat of the Gobi summer. But it is a glacier nonetheless, thick enough for my son Jackson and I to walk (more…)

GULBUDDIN AND THE CIA

As many recent commentaries have noted, there was no unified command of Afghan “Mujahaddin” freedom fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of their country in the 1980s. There were about half a dozen major groups and a host of smaller ones.

The legendary commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassinated by OBL (Osama Bin Laden) agents just before The Atrocity, belonged to the “Jamiat” group led by Burhanuddin Rabbani. Qari Baba, the famous commander in Ghazni who looked like a cross between Buddha and Genghiz Khan, was part of the Harakat group. Ramatullah Safi was the most outstanding commander of the Gailani group. (more…)

THE MYTH OF MECCA

The most sacred spot on earth to all members of the Islamic religion is the Holy City of Mecca, revered as the birthplace of Mohammed.

It is one of the five basic requirements incumbent upon all Moslems that they make (if their health will allow it) a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lives (the other four: Recognize that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is Allah’s prophet, observe the month of Ramadan, ritually pray five times a day, and give alms to the poor).

The founding events of Islam are Mohammed’s activities in Mecca and Medina, (more…)

PLAYING POKER WITH KOREA

Poker Beats Chess

One of the meta-reasons America won the Cold War is that Russians play chess, while Americans play poker.

Chess demands great skill and intelligence, particularly at developing complex long-range strategies and anticipating your opponent’s moves.  But it bears little resemblance to life in the real world.  It is completely static and open.  Nothing is hidden.

Poker is very different.  You have to guess what your opponent has and the extent to which he is bluffing.  In business, in politics, in life in general, the folks who know how to play poker will almost always fare better than (more…)

How to End Civilization as We Know It

Note: The original version of this article appeared in the March 2003 issue of Strategic Investment, an Agora Publication.

When the sand conditions are right, a Land Cruiser can get up enough speed to plane over the dunes of the Sahara at 60 miles an hour.

When the light is right, the white sand reflects the intense blue of the cloudless sky, and the dunes shimmer with an ethereal cerulean glow. You drive across an endless island of sand, surrounded on all sides by lakes of hallucinatory water.

As Ah-Klee, your Toureg nomad driver, skillfully weaves through the dunes, he (more…)

Not Goodbye

Strategic Investment, April 2003
 
How long have you been a subscriber to Strategic Investment?  However long it has been, this column has been there for you every month.  The first Behind The Lines column appeared in early 1987.  I had just returned from a sojourn in the jungles of Surinam with the guerrillas of the Surinamese Liberation Army fighting the Marxist dictatorship of Desi Bouterse.  The column reported on what I saw and experienced.
 
In 1987, even though Ronald Reagan had been in the White House for over six years, the struggle for freedom against Soviet imperialism was (more…)

Blowing Up The Bombers

One of the most critical imperatives for Israel right now is to stop the suicide bombing.  One of  the best ways would be to blow up the bombs — and preferably the bomber along with it —  prematurely.  The ideal would be to blow up the bomber so only he (or the occasional she) dies and no innocent Israelis.

Here are two different versions of how to accomplish this.

The bomb is set off by an electrical blasting cap.  The suicide belt contains, in addition to the explosives, a battery.  Two wires come out of the battery;  two wires come (more…)

THE SECRET RUSSIAN GAS IDENTIFIED

Across the world, today’s newspapers carried front-page headlines similar to that of the Washington Times:  "Russia Remains Silent on Deadly Knockout Gas."  The mystery of the Knockout Gas’s identity has been solved.

Last Wednesday, October 23, some 50 Moslem terrorists from the Russian province of Chechnya stormed a theatre in Moscow, and took as hostages about 800 people (mostly Russians) who were watching a play.  The terrorists demanded that Russian troops depart Chechnya, or else they would murder the hostages in cold blood.

His patience running out and afraid the Moslem terrorists would carry out their threat, Russian president Vladimir (more…)

Something’s in the Air for 2003

STRATEGIC INVESTMENT, January 2003

One hundred and sixty years ago, in 1843, the Commissioner of the US Patent Office, Henry Ellsworth, reported to Congress:  “The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.”  (This is the source of the spurious quote attributed in 1899 to Ellsworth’s successor, Charles Duell, who never said “Everything that can be invented has been invented”).

Human improvement did not come to an end in 1843, nor will it in 2003.  In fact, I think 2003 is going to (more…)

Bulletin on SARS

It is important to understand that that the actual death rate for SARS is far higher than the currently reported rate. The death rate publicly given in press reports is a percentage of the reported cases, now running at a little over 2%. The figure to focus on however is the death rate as a percentage of the recovered cases. This figure is much higher, over 10%.

The reason for the discrepancy is that the disease is doubling now about every two weeks, so many people who have contracted it have not yet had time to die from it. The (more…)

Dr. Jack’s Reading Recommendations for April, 2003

This month we’re going to focus upon books on Islam.  The first thing to do in this regard, however, is to go into the To The Point  Archives and read the Myth of Mecca article.  It explains how the religion of Islam was invented as a religious rationale to justify Arab imperialism.  At the end of that article, you’ll see a list of sources, all of which I strongly recommend as works of serious professional scholarship:

 • Al-Rawandi, I.M. Origins of Islam:  A Critical Look at the Sources.  Prometheus, 2000
 • Crone, P.M.  Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam.  Oxford, 1987.** (more…)