conference

Last year's conference was a revelation to us. It was then that we realised the views we hold about Iraq, Afghanistan, civil rights and the war on terror were mainstream. Blairwatch isn't an extreme organisation but one that is loudly proclaiming what many are whispering.

What did I learn this year? To be frank very little in the short term. The sessions were too similar, had too many speakers, too little time for questions, far too focused on Arab suicide bombers, full of interminable digressions on how do we refer to terrorists, especially those with origins in the Middle East and Asia.

The use of language is very important but I have two points about this frustrating aspect of the conference:

1. Is the use of language so important that it overshadows a conference like this?

2. What's more important, finding a description of the bad guys or discussing how to stop them?

I didn't see much that was new. In fact I heard a lot that was old and discredited. For example, poverty isn't a major factor in turning an individual into a terrorist (as explained last year by the excellent Louise Richardson author of the essential book "What Terrorists Want") but some speakers repeated this. Many prescriptions to reduce violent extremism were too vague and trite to form any useful contribution, such as “democracy, human rights, and education”.

A lack of a global perspective meant that most speakers were purely speaking from their own perspectives and national experience. Not always a bad thing, certainly there were a couple of examples of working methods to counter extremism, such as the Indonesian use of scholars and internet forums. However most stuck to what they knew from their own experience and the conference suffered from that.

It was too comfortable. I don't think anyone heard anything that was especially challenging or something that got us to think beyond our comfort zones.

Technophobia. The organisers and many of the participants just didn't understand new technology and new media. I can't remember attending a conference where so many people have asked me 'What is a blog?" for many years. The concept of the rise of citizen journalism only rose above a couple of people's radar and certainly was no part of anyone's presentations or thinking. The idea that citizen journalists could help counter extremism seemed to be new, indeed many seemed to be wondering what on Earth I was talking about.

In many arenas, al Jazeera has won the battle over the slurs on its reputation and I wondered if people knew al Jazeera now has an English language channel (populated by ex BBC, Sky and CNN staff). The organisers seemed to be proud that their New Exciting Idea to have a forum for journalists and editors from CNN, FOX, BBC, al Jazeera etc to get together and discuss journalistic ethics.

This session was illustrated by several news organisations coverage of events in Iraq that showed the futility of such a conference.

The media reporting is often NOT decided by an editor but by the political policy of the MEDIA OWNER. Therefore it doesn't matter an iota what an editor thinks in this reality.

The role of Op-Ed pieces in the media wasn't raised and these can often be the very worst of media reporting.

The forthcoming conference is not going to deal with the underlying causes of the rot in mainstream media values. I asked if the media can throw away it's ethics and become a mouthpiece for government policy over something as important as Iraq, how can they claim to have any ethics or values whatsoever? What are they misrepresenting today? Tomorrow?

Needless to say not one of my points was properly addressed. Thankfully several delegates and speakers told me of their approval of my lines of comment, albeit privately.

The East West Institute is about to launch an internet platform to counter extremism. To be honest, I'm concerned about this. I don't think they 'get' the internet and how it can be used and they could easily stay in their comfort zones, within their think tank concepts and circles and defer from doing something innovative and radically disruptive. That said there is an aspect to EWI that does encourage thinking out the box and this project might just fly.

The conference was inspirational and thought provoking. Not so much from the platform, but from the wide opportunities for lively discussion in the halls and foyers, and the discussions were lively and fascinating. This was not just coincidence, but something EWI deliberately built into the programme.

EWI is also a very open organisation, one that encourages critcism and comment and welcomes challenges to their perspectives and thinking. Importantly they seem devoid of the intellectual arrogance and superiority that can so often be found in Brussels institutions.

There were some good contributions from the platform, but many speakers had too little time.

I certainly have a lot to think about, not least on countering extremism. Could Blairwatch - or Son of Blairwatch be in a better position to use the internet to examine counter-extremism, conflict resolution than a think tank? Or is it just too big a project for us?

It sounds arrogant and possibly unrealistic, especially as we have no resources, but we do have things on our side; we know the medium, we have plenty of contacts and although we might not be focusing on policy statements and the like, could we play a role in bringing and connecting the experiences of individuals and those that are under the radar of large NGO's?

Further comment on the Conference is on the Demos Blog - Wow! Two whole bloggers out of 750 people at the event! What does that say about the conference that was supposedly looking at the future?

Finally, I would like to make a suggestion. Next year we, with our colleagues could host an interesting and challenging session on the role of weblogs and new media in the struggle against extremism.

How about it?

I'm going to do a full report on the conference over the weekend but thought I'd run through some highlights here.

First of all I need to explain some of my frustrations.

1. Semantics. It is important to get the use of words, especially those used to describe violent extremists. However almost every session has included digressions on this - sometimes at great length, and these digressions are often contradictionary. The use of words is important, but is it so important that this conference has to discuss, for example, how to address 'moderate muslims' or 'jihadist', and not the topic of the session on how to counter extremism?

2. The sessions are too similar and too broad. Here is a list of some of the 90 minuite sessions:

a. How good have we been at protecting people, economies and infrastructure from terrorism? Where is the threat going? How do we counter it?

b. How good have we been at countering extremism? How is the threat changing?

See what I mean? how about another couple:

a. Building a new global architecture to counter violent religious extremism and radicalisation.

b. Building a new global architecture to counter terrorism and organised crime.

c. Measures to channel support away from extremist groups.

I attended the session on violent religious extemism and radicalisation. The Russian ambassador gave a speech and recommended firm astion - but didn't explicitly recommend bombing Chechenya to hell and back. A stand-in speaker made the most telling point - that 80% of countering extremism is local. Any strategy, especially one developed by global strategic policymakers needs to remember this.

The second session I went to was the previously mentioned 'Talking to terrorists?' with our little neo-con on the platform.

Claudia Rosett has the air of Wendy Craig in a hefty dose of Prozac and gave us the benefit of her wisdom. As a neo-con, she naturally said we shouldn't talk to terrorists, in fact there were quite a few states neither we or anyone else should be talking to. Naturally she didn't go into who decides which states are pariah's, or which landmass should be sent to Coventry. Bless.

Richard Dalton, a former UK ambassador to Iran and Libya gave a fascinating insight into the arts of negociating with terrorists and advice on when and when not to. He followed this up with a detailed description of the process he used to bring Libya away from pariah status and back into the international community.

Caludia jumped in as soon as he finished with her version of how Gadaffi came in from the cold; "But he's just seen pictures of Saddam being dragged out of a hole and saw himself being in the same position".

Dalton looked around in shock, remembered where he was and concentrated on staring at the ceiling with a pained expression, seeing his long hard work being so glibly cast aside.

Finally I attended a session on the role of the media. This was imaginitively led. Yonah alexander concentrated on media preperations for a future large scale terrorist attack - a concept I had some concerns about as I would rather see chaotic reporting than pre-planned reporting. I was tempted to ask if he thought we should wheel out all those 'Protect and Survive' films.

Bill Silcock from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism gave an interesting talk on journalism and the pressures on stations for ratings etc.

I raised the question of US pre-war Iraq reporting that allowed a propaganda war to go virtually unquestioned and the role of a narrowing band of media owners in countering independent journalism for their own agendas. Finally I mentioned citizen journalism and how that could be a valuble resource in countering extremism.

Bill explained that his students were making and using media in a very different way and that citizen journalism was a major force.

Nevertheless, I have has the feeling that for many of the speakers and participants, they simply don't get bloggers and citizen journalism yet. They are just not aware that we exist, how many of us there are and our potential to support their causes. Perhaps it's a generational thing but we're below everyone's radar here and that is bad for the conference and for the causes they, and we advocate.

The East West Institute is organising a get together for journalists from BBC, SKY, CNN , Al Jazeera and FOX to get together. Shouldn't be too hard as many of them have worked together before - most of al Jazeera came from CNN, BBC and Sky. What would be interesting is to get the people who own these stations together.

The conference has been very good. My comments are meant as constructive criticism of a worthwhile and fascinating conference. I've had a lot of good chats with some fascinating people and we'll have some interesting features coming soon on Blairwatch. It's also important to understand that networking/ free discussion is a big part of the programme and although this doesn't appear in the halls, it allows for excellent interchanges in the corridors and foyers.

I am just about to set off and thought I would give you all a preview.

Last year they invited Claudia Rosett of the 'Foundation for the Defence of Democracies' who gave a frankly batshit off topic rant on how the UN was a major supporter or terrorism and should be disbanded.

Ah, these funky neo-cons. I did say in my write up that the Neo-Cons were part of the problem and not the solution so why are we giving space for their bizarre world view?

EWI didn't reply, but they did airbrush her out of the conference report and I thought they were suitably embarrassed.

But no! She's back - to the surprise of quite a few delegates and EWI staff. Even better, she's on a panel entitled 'Talking to Terrorists?'. Oh boy this is going to be good.

Want to see how nuts she is? Read her blog or an article or two or three,and make your own minds up

Meanwhile here's some background on the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and on their founding (source American Conservative)

In early 2001, a tightly knit group of billionaire philanthropists conceived of a plan to win American sympathy for Israel’s response to the Palestinian intifada. They believed that the Palestinian cause was finding too much support within crucial segments of the American public, particularly within the media and on college campuses, so they set up an organization, Emet: An Educational Initiative, Inc., to offer Israel the kind of PR that the Israeli government seemed unable to provide itself.

At first, Emet floundered, without an executive director or a well-defined mission. But that changed after Sept. 11, and Emet changed too, into what is now the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. The name is different, but the goal of influencing America’s opinion-forming classes remains. More

Alternatively, perhaps they just invited her as a caberet act?

The opening session gave a state of play and also showed some of the problems in counter terrorism. Cemil Cicek, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey appealed for more cooperation but failed to discuss some of the Turkish army's more contraversial actions against the Kurds, not least shelling Iraqi villages.

General Ehsan ul Haq, former chairman of the Pakistan Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a somber analysis of the success of a military based response to terrorism in Afghanistan, stating that al Qaeda has survived 6 years of military assaults and the difficulties terrorism has caused Pakistan.

Funnily enough he didn't mention Pakistan's building up of the Taliban and support for the training camps etc. He probably ran out of time.

The first session asked how good we have been at protecting against terror, where the threat is going and how to counter it.

Gilles de Kerchove, EU Counter Terrorism Coordinator said there havd been improvements in border security etc and called for more databases of personal details in cluding telecom, ISP records etc and the enhanced sharing of such databases throughout the EU. Possible downsides and impact of civil liberties weren't touched upon.

However he did point out that the current wave of potential terrorists were 'post Iraq, inspired by but not directed by al Qaeda.'

The second session asked how good have we been at countering extremism.

Basically the answer seems to be not very good at all and events like Iraq, Abu Graib have encouraged people to move towards extremist groups. It appears that the next wave of terrorists will be less coordinated, more spontaneous and Iraq, Abu Graib and Gitmo are events that may have tipped large numbers away from mere radicalism and into actual terrorism.

At this point I was tempted to ask why on earth the East West Institute decorated Tony Blair as Statesman of the Decade!

An interesting contribution was made by J Rami Mroz, about how terrorists use the internet. I asked how people could use the internet to counter extremism and how this could widen people's participation. After the chairman's 'pardon, Blair... what?' had elements of Lady windermere. The question was met with the promise of a whizz-bank jolly supper 'platform' they were developing.

I think it still might be a bit 'think-tanky' but there is a potential for widening it past policy wonks and bringing in global bloggers etc and using our networking skills to make this into something interesting and useful. I'll be discussing this more with them after the conference.

The third session was divided and I went to a presentation of a policy paper on the Security of Pakistan's Nuclear Facilities. The paper is short but concise and informative. I'll discuss it later, but if you can't wait grab it here .

The fourth session on measures to channel support away from extremist groups was disappointing, to put it mildly. The panellists were good, including Nasra Hassan from the UN information service and Mohammed mohammed Ali who is involved in reconstruction work in Iraq. I will cover him in more detail later.

Sadly the subject narrowed down to dealing with Arab suicide bombers and the session sufferred greatly for this.

I asked a question, posing a scenario of a town with mixed population and economic depravation, with immigrant communities feeling isolated after the 9/11 backlash and withdrawing into fuzzy froups and extremist preachers appearing. Against this I posited a white population increasingly voting for far-right groups, essentially the scenario unfolding all over europe - the pannelists nodded at this - and then said I am against this divisiveness and growing extremism, not for the 1% who might go on to terrorist acts but because of the effects on the 99%. I have a million dollars, how do I spend it?

No answer.

Sadly  one pannelist seemed obsessed with the micro-semantics of referring to islamic extremists, another on resolving the Palestine problem - as if this would have had any effect on the Shining Path, IRA, Ayran Nations etc.

Blairwatch has been invited to attend the East - West Institite's annual conference on security and countering violent extremism.

To start the conference a number of publications have been released:

Countering Violent Extremism - Videopower and Cyberspace by J Rami Mroz is a well written examination of how extremists use the internet and responses to this.

Although it does provide a good run through of activity and tactics used with case studies of al Qaeda and the US Christian Identity movements use and tactics for internet operations, some aspects worry me.

Firstly it calls on government and civil society to promote peace building and support initiatives to counter extremism. Fine, but do certain governments have any credibility with disaffected youth who may be targeted for recruitment by etremists?

It also looks at MEMRI, and whilst noting that they have a too heavy bias to have any real credibility, suggest that it does offer a model of a media watchdog that could be replicated in more neutral hands.

Finally it asks ISP's to suppress websites that directly promote terrorism but not other expressions of extremist thought.

I think they've missed something - weblogs aren't even mentioned in the pamphlet, and weblogs - or a meta-blog could be a real asset in noting individuals and groups of people involved in building a more peaceful world through conflict resolution and bridge building between communities.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting and thoughtful publication that our readers will find interesting.

I've managed to get some audio of the presentations online. The quality isn't top rate but they are well worth listening to.

Mariam Rawa from the from the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan spoke about living in a nation ruled by warlords and the failure of the coalition and NATO's operations: Listen Here 8MB mp3

Paddy Ogilvy spoke on the situation in Afghanistan: Listen Here 8MB mp3

Louise Richardson discussed the root causes of terrorism and how well we are addressing them: Listen Here 8MB mp3

Stephen Tankel discussed how Western tactics are increasing support for al Qaeda and then compared them with Christian Identity groups and the differences in how they are precieved: Listen Here 8MB mp3

Sometimes you just see something or meet someone and it hits you just what an awful effect our Afghan adventure has had on millions of people. In the second section, Promoting Democracy and Human Rights: The Case of Afghanistan.

Tomorrow there will be a demonstration in Kabul with thousands expected to protest at the government's refusal to sign human rights legislation. Paddy Ogilvy, Senior Risk Analyst painted a picture of a state about to fall apart. (Listen to his presentation 9mb mp3) Once again, US/UK strategy is playing into the Taliban hands and is utterly self defeating. After trying brigade-level attacks, that failed when meeting the ferociousness of the Gurkas with massive casualties, they have moved to highly mobile units. The aim is to provoke an air strike in a village, knowing that the high level of civilian casualties will push the village away from the West and into the embrace of the Taliban.

They understand the geography, the tribal alliances and the culture in a way the coalition never will. recent street patrols by aggressive female coalition soldiers have alienated the Afghanis. Suicide attacks are up from 3 in 2004 to 136 last year and a projected figure of over 250 this year.

Although IED's are becoming common they aren't as technically advanced as those in Iraq, which is currently keeping casualty figures down, but there are hundreds of volunteers for suicide bombings and the trend is for such bombings to be more common and to have a higher kill rate.

In questioning Paddy also stated that Pakistan's ISI has transferred resources from Kashmir to Afghanistan and their liason officers are involved in the areas where al Qaeda is reported to have re-grouped and described the 'Talibanisation' of areas as being more like a Pakistan Taliban rather than the Afghanistan Taliban.

Mariam Rawi ( Listen to her presentation 9mb mp3), from the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan painted a horrific picture of what life is like in a government run by vicious warlords dominating the legislature and their involvement in the heroin trade. In recent developments they have started processing opium into heroin inside Afghanistan, instead of exporting raw opium and the amount of money they make has rocketed.

There is no alternative to the poppy trade in this 'B52 Democracy'. The warlords need to be disarmed, removed from the government and prosecuted for their crimes.

Listening to her, a very brave woman who has to appear under a pseudonym and cannot be photographed, reminded me that our failures have ruined the lives of millions of decent people, millions who share our aim and desire of living in a democratic country. Instead we've delivered them to a regime of drug barons, warlords and rapists.

They need our help, here's how you can help

One thing they want is digital cameras to help them document what's going on. Please support them.

Half way through today I felt rather optimistic and relieved. Why? Because our own analysis and perspectives on fighting terror, Iraq etc were being echo'd by a great number of speakers. It seems that Blairwatch is not a fringe organisation but our views are in the mainstream. Sadly they're not mainstream in Downing St, but we're far, far from alone in our views. At the end of the morning, however, I felt sick and angry.

The first session was The Root Causes of Terrorism. Mary Robinson ex Irish President and UN Commissioner for Human Rights stated that only democracy can beat terrorism and focussed on the use of language as the words we use shape our response and strategy. War is not a good word to describe the situqtion but it allowed civil liberties to be compromised as more restrictions were possible under a 'war'. Orwellian euphamisms were also condemmed.

Louise Richardson ( listen to her presentation 8MB mp3)said it was hard to analyse how and why people become terrorists because: 1, There are so many of them. What can ce common between a palestinian, a Peruvian Shining Path, an Irishman? 2, There are so few of them. Terrorism is a micro-phenomenon It is also a complex phenomenon but there are some common features, such as a highly simplified view of the world, but poverty itself wasn't a main factor; Instead she preferred to talk about risk factors that combine to make someone lean towards terror. There were three broad ingredients; a disgruntled individual, a complicit community and an underlying greviance. There is no militqry solution to terrorism and the military themselves feel they are too much of a blunt object to succeed. The US have made two errors; to use the word 'war' and to focus emnity on individuals such as bin Laden. Bringing in the world to solve a global problem and educating people about their aims would be more successful.

Stephen Tankel ( listen to his presentation 8MB mp3) spoke on how inconsistency in Western values and our strategy in fighting terrorism has permitted al Qaeda to position itself as a defender of muslim values. He then went on to discuss other terrorist actions, such as the Christian Identity movement, Ayran Nations and the US militias. We talk about Islamic terrorism but when it comes to these fundamentalist Christians who commit acts of terror we start referring to them as the 'radical right' and not as Christian terrorists.

The main event was a workshop on"Towards a Code of Conduct for Counter Terrorism" that had valuable contributions from Human Rights Watch, British American Security Information Council.

We also had a neo-con who was suitably batshit. Claudia Rosett from the right of sensible Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, decided not to address the subject, but launch a long tirade about the UN Food for Oil programme and comparing the UN to a terrorist nation. There was no actual point to this and under questioning she did admit that the UN does a lot of good work. She also diverted briefly enough to describe the Organisation of Islamic States as 'a bunch of thugs who provide excuses for terrorists'. Back on Planet Earth the session continued.

Stephen Monblatt compared the shift in CT from arresting and trying terrorists to the post 9/11 strategy of prevention. Another difficulty is in defining terrorism and he quoted one country who had discovered over 120 different definitions of it in their own national laws. Once again he underlined the need for civil liberties as history shows that repression doesn't stop terrorism, rather it gives it an arena to prosper.

 Joanne Mariner from Human Rights Watch gave a robust defence of civil liberties and assaulted the Orwellian doublespeak of the Bush administration and euphamisms for what can only amount to torture. She illustrated her case by quoting information gathered under torture that was incorrect, asking how incorrect intelligence can fight terrorism. Some inmates are being denied representation by lawyers because the inmates have classified information. This information turns out to be the fact that they were tortured, or in Bush-speak had 'enhanced interrogation' and the techniques used are classified....

Rendition came under criticism especially as states are handing suspects over to regimes that practice torture, citing 'diplomatic assurances' from such states are not sufficent. She finished with the observation that respecting human rights is not an obstacle but an integral part of CT. Please check the link on her name for a list of truly excellent articles by her and there's more here.

Some interesting presentations and some just giving the party line from Moscow and Beijing. There are a couple of points arising from a broad range of speakers that Civil liberties are key in defeating terrorism, but these liberties must be promoted abroad and defended at home.

I caused a minor stiff in a workshop on WMD by asking the panel to define what is and what is not a WMD. Three replies and three different definitions. I gave several examples of 'terror' attacks and was told that the sarin attack in Tokyo was a WMD because theoretically it could have caused large numbers of casualties, then I was told that WMD specifically only reffers to Chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Then the Chair pointed out that in his indictment, bin Laden was charged with setting off a WMD with his truck bombs in Kenya and Tanzania.

So, we're at war with something we can't define (terrorism) and must take resolute action against something we can't define (WMD). So, how can we win? Who has ever won a battle against an undefinable enemy?

Tomorrow I'm going to hear some neo-cons. Double expresso for breakfast.

I've just registered for this conference and hope to report throughout the next three days. The first session is entitled "How good have we been at fighting terrorism?"

Gijs de Vries, EU Counter Terrorism Coordinator who gave an overview of CT (Counter Terrorism) activity and made the point that he didn't like discussing causes as it suggests a 'linear' relationship or progression. However he felt that there were contributing factors including insecurity and violence in some parts of the world, but he didn't feel that poverty per se was a major factor. He claimed that in the EU there were 200 Terrorist networks involving 1,600 people and 30 'priority plots' though who or what a terrorist or plot was undefined.

Al Qaeda is now regrouping and using the internet. Terrorist methods were changing and adapting and the role of converts is increasing. He offered several suggestions for CT: Need to prevent radicalisation Information exchange, esp of databases - a recent experiment in opening databases up between Germany and Austria had 1,500 hits in the first week.

He stressed the importance of Muslims to reclaim Islam and for non-muslims to support them. But the key suggestion was the need to resovle 'festering conflicts' and the number one long term strategy to defeat terrorism is to uphold human rights. The Universal declaration of Human Rights is cross-denominational and has common values, but we MUST respect these values and safeguard them: Human rights are the best defence against terrorism

Dame Neville-Jones ex Chair Joint Intelligence Committee was critical of CT efforts saying 'How well have we done? Not very. Although we have had some success at countering the threat, that wasn't the same as dimminishing it. Activity in EU is high, Al Qaeda is regrouping, but surprisingly it hasn't become a 'brand' or inspiration but there is evidence of real organisation and of links to other groups. In the last year Al Qaeda has made 58 videos. These are not just propaganda but also show training in new techniques, such as shaped charges. These techniques are being used by geographically seperate groups.

She covered what she called The Iraq Effect: Even conservative figures show that there have been a massive increase in attacks (up by 700% since May 2003 compared to 2001-2003), 50% in Iraq, 25% in Afghanistan. Terrorism is not insurgency. Iraq is not just a recruiting sargent for al Qaeda and similar groups but it where they are being trained, learning new techniques against a more sophisticated military than they have previously encountered. We are facing 'formidable techniques and motivation'. Al Qaeda has weaknesses; Most of their victims are muslim and there is no support for them or their desired Caliphate and an overwhelming majority of muslims have no time for them.

A CT strategy must be based on policies that we practice at home as well as abroad. We need to protect but Security resides in civil liberties and we must prevent terrorists from achieving their aim of increasing inter-communal tension.