Backchannel wars

Two posts up on Saturday. Regarding the earlier post -- I hope you'll be sure to read both links that Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye provided in his post on the 2/2 complaint brought by the US against China. So, are the complaint and the circumstances that provoked it just a bump in the globalization road, or another sign of the rising tide of nationalism around the globe?

In December, I think it was, Caesar asked Pundita for an update on where things stand today. My posts since then have been about issues that are describing the early part of this century. The task is to fit all the pieces into a clear picture takes deep thought.

I received a letter from a reader who plowed through Thomas Fingar's 2001 testimony (see Saturday's second post) and who does not see how he got things so terribly wrong, in that he did mention the threat by al Qaeda and the "terrorist threat" in general.

I would ask the reader to zero in on Fingar's statements about "state-sponsored terrorism." The State Department, and maybe also the CIA, are still having a hard time catching up with the modern era of warfare. That al Qaeda uses terrorist tactics does not make them a terrorist organization. They are a mercenary army for hire by governments that want to wage backchannel wars.

But if you go in that direction of analysis, you quickly bump up against China -- China's relationship with Sudan, China's relationship with Pakistan, China's relationship with North Korea, with Libya, and so on. And you bump up against big US trading partners and US allies that do business with governments that wage backchannel wars. So there are reasons why State favored blindness in 2001.

Now, one might argue that today's backchannel operations practiced by countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran are an imitation of the CIA-MI6 covert wars and 'black' operations during the Cold War. America and Britain didn't invent covert war but yes, to be human is to play Monkey See, Monkey Do. Today, many countries can wage highly effective covert wars, which they can deny to the sky when called out. It does not help the matter, if US intelligence bureaus refuse to name a phenomenon for what it is.

I have some free time today, which I will spend plunged in thought, in the effort to pull together the big pix for Caesar. If I post tomorrow, it will be at 8:00 AM; otherwise, look for a post on Thursday at 8:00 AM.

Regards to all,
Pundita