NYPD Shoots Own Foot with Terror Report

In most respects, the much publicized NYPD report released yesterday, "Radicalization in the West: The Home-grown Threat," merely reaffirmed long-held concerns in the intelligence and law enforcement communities about the growing ranks and dangers of radicalized American Muslims in the Northeast. In recent years, similar reports and concerns have been shared among intelligence and law enforcement professionals in the Washington, DC and Los Angeles metro areas, among others. The fact that inmates in American prisons, as well as young disaffected Muslims, are converting to radical Islam in increasing numbers and filling the ranks of home grown terror cells with operatives of all races and ethnicities is a sobering truth, not a newly discovered trend.

Several years ago I reviewed a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office report on the recruitment of Hispanic and African-American inmates in California prisons by radical imams that came to similar conclusions as the new NYPD report. The NYPD report was not surprising, although the depth of knowledge about radicalized American Muslims evidenced in the NYPD report far exceeded the intelligence reported by Los Angeles officials.

However, at least Los Angeles officials, unlike their New York colleagues, were more interested in operational security (OPSEC)and restricted dissemination of their report only to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies rather than grandstanding for the media to demonstrate it's indispensability for budgetary or political purposes, as NYPD appears to have done. It is true that NYPD is indispensable to the safety of millions and performs its duties well, but it's choice to make the new report on homegrown terror available to the public will prove, in the long run, self-defeating for all law enforcement and intelligence community professionals.

My assessment of NYPD’s decision to release its report to the public through the media may seem harsh. Many will argue that the public has a right to know and can better assist law enforcement if evidences of radicalization are generally known. If the NYPD report had been intended to raise public awareness or to solicit public assistance, I would concede that public release of the document would have been necessary. However, that was not the stated purpose behind NYPD’s report. The document, according to Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Adviser to the President of the Rand Corporation, a powerfully influential government “think tank,” the NYPD report contained sensitive information that would be utilized best only by the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Jenkins, who contributed an “outside expert’s view” to the report itself, assessed the NYPD report and unwittingly provided a strong argument for why the report should have been labeled “law enforcement sensitive” with limited distribution:

The utility of the NYPD model, however, goes beyond analysis. It will inform the training of intelligence analysts and law enforcement personnel engaged in counterterrorist missions. It will allow us to identify similarities and differences, and changes in patterns over time. It will assist prosecutors and courts in the very difficult task of deciding when the boundary between a bunch of guys sharing violent fantasies and a terrorist cell determined to go operational has been crossed. Above all, by identifying key junctions in the journey to terrorist jihad, it should help in the formulation of effective and appropriate strategies aimed at peeling potential recruits away from a dangerous and destructive course.

Of course, now that every current or future radical Muslim can study NYPD’s ninety-page guide to the radicalization process and how law enforcement can detect and deter it, the work of law enforcement and intelligence professionals just became much more difficult. Did NYPD learn nothing from intelligence reports confirming that after the New York Times ill-advisedly exposed the NSA’s terrorist domestic surveillance program in 2005, al Qaeda quickly altered its operational methods and stopped making the types of phone calls the NSA had successfully monitored? The NYPD’s report, and more importantly the choice to release it publicly to bask in the accolades it generated, will certainly render useless all law enforcement training on Islamic radicalization for years to come, as radical American imams and their followers will merely adopt new behaviors and strategies to counter what they now know law enforcement will be looking for.

In NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly’s preface, he clearly established the intended target audience for the intelligence report:

The aim of this report is to assist policymakers and law enforcement officials, both in Washington and throughout the country, by providing a thorough understanding of the kind of threat we face domestically. It also seeks to contribute to the debate among intelligence and law enforcement agencies on how best to counter this emerging threat by better understanding what constitutes the radicalization process.

“Policymakers,” “law enforcement officials,” “debate among intelligence and law enforcement agencies on how to counter this emerging threat.” There was no mention of public awareness or citizen assistance. It is unfortunate that the Commissioner did not display wisdom, OPSEC, or even common sense by disseminating the report only to what he identified above as his target audience.

Now that the report has been released to the public and Commissioner Ray Kelly had his spotlight moments in subsequent press conferences, a brief review of the document is in order, as it provided much food for thought for both the intelligence/law enforcement communities and the general American populace. The report and Commissioner Kelly’s press conferences also contained several controversial paragraphs and statements that revealed as much about the analysts who wrote the report as they did about radicalized American Muslims. Both aspects merit further analysis.

From the NYPD report:

…Much different from the Israeli-Palestinian equation, the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge, or desperation.

Rather, it is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause and unfortunately, often finds them in the extremist Islam.

The wording of this section contained a blatantly Palestinian-apologist bias, ascribing the motives of Palestinian terrorists to “oppression, suffering, revenge, or desperation,” presumably heaped upon them by Jews in general or Israel in particular. It is the height of irresponsibility to provide terrorists with political or religious justification for their heinous acts, yet the NYPD did exactly that by drawing a non-existent distinction between what motivates Western Muslims and Palestinian Muslims to radicalize.

Palestinian youth, mirroring their Western counterparts, are also “looking for an identity and a cause,” and they too find it in extreme Islam. The only real difference in the radicalization process between the two is that the Palestinian lives in much closer proximity to his most hated enemy and skirmishes between Jews and Muslims are obviously more frequent and create lasting impressions. Recruitment and indoctrination are much easier among Palestinian youth because they are more likely to know or be related to someone who has died for “the cause,” either during attacks on Israeli soldiers or in a suicide bombing. Such martyrs are treated as religious heroes, and their names are revered.

It is a universal aspiration of youth to be a “hero,” and Palestinian youth are taught from a very young age that there are eternal rewards for terrorism. Not many young Muslims in Michigan collect “martyr cards,” as their Palestinian counterparts do. These cards are similar to American baseball cards but bear the image and pertinent life details of those who detonate themselves to kill “infidels.” Proximity to a conflict and a desire to “fit in” cannot be underestimated in its effect on future radicalization. Unfortunately, NYPD’s analysts not only underestimated those factors among Palestinians, but reinforced the highly questionable assumption that Palestinians are justified in their acts because of the “Israeli-Palestinian equation.” Terrorism, particularly against civilians, never should be given credibility by a law enforcement agency that has witnessed its effects firsthand and will likely do so in the future.

A strong point of the report was its analysis of the role of the Internet in spreading radical jihadist Islamic ideology throughout the world, and more specifically the West:

The jihadist ideology combines the extreme and minority interpretation [jihadi-Salafi] of Islam with an activist-like commitment or responsibility to solve global political grievances through violence. Ultimately, the jihadist envisions a world in which jihadi-Salafi Islam is dominant and is the basis of government.

This ideology is proliferating in Western democracies at a logarithmic rate. The Internet, certain Salafi-based NGO’s (non-governmental organizations), extremist sermons /study groups, Salafi literature, jihadi videotapes, extremist - sponsored trips to radical madrassas and militant training camps abroad have served as “extremist incubators” for young, susceptible Muslims -- especially ones living in diaspora communities in the West.

The Internet is a driver and enabler for the process of radicalization. In the Self-Identification phase, the Internet provides the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology.

It also serves as an anonymous virtual meeting place—a place where virtual groups of like-minded and conflicted individuals can meet, form virtual relationships and discuss and share the jihadi-Salafi message they have encountered.

The NYPD report correctly identified the Internet as, what Commissioner Kelly later called it, “the new Afghanistan,” or new battleground against Islamic extremism. The problem is that the Internet is used by countless groups of all political and religious stripes to spread their hateful ideologies. The KKK, Aryan Nation, criminal gangs of all nationalities, cults, and other groups that advocate offensive or dangerous ideologies all have presence on the Internet and communicate with each other through that medium. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the means to obtain legal authorization to monitor traffic on such Internet sites under certain conditions, but can do virtually nothing to prevent young Muslims from visiting the sites and being influenced by what they read there. Commissioner Kelly rightly pointed to the Internet as a critical battleground, but offered no insight into what NYPD’s intelligence division would recommend as an effective strategy to counteract the corrosive influence of the Internet.

The absence of such recommendations likely indicated that NYPD analysts had none to offer, but in their defense, analysts of other agencies are also at a loss. The free-flow of ideas on the Internet is the backbone of its usefulness. All measures to impose content controls or restrict access to the Internet are met with fierce opposition from free speech advocates who argue that once the government assumes control of or censors the Internet on American servers, the freedom and privacy of Internet users will be forfeited. That reality presents the daunting task of formulating a strategy to counter the influence of a radical ideology that threatens our very existence yet can be embraced in the living rooms and bedrooms of any home in America equipped with a computer.

How successful will American law enforcement and intelligence agencies be in detecting and identifying Americans on the path to Islamic extremism? The NYPD report provided an accurate but chilling answer:

The individuals are not on the law enforcement radar. Most have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble. Other than some commonalities in age and religion, individuals undergoing radicalization appear as “ordinary” citizens, who look, act, talk, and walk like everyone around them. In fact, in the United Kingdom, it is precisely those “ordinary” middle class university students who are sought after by local extremists because they are “clean skins.”

Detecting future terrorists who “look, act, talk, and walk like everyone around them” presents a challenge unlike any previously faced by American law enforcement and Intelligence agencies. The task is further complicated by political correctness and a tendency in the media and among political liberals to accuse the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat that Islamic extremism poses to America and its allies. The NYPD report confirms that the War on Terror, a term Democrats refuse to acknowledge or use today despite their initial enthusiastic embrace of it when it was politically profitable, is increasing in its intensity. What some call a Bush Administration “bumper sticker slogan” is a very real ideological war being waged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Britain, and in American homes of youths searching for an identity, hero status, and like-minded social contacts.

As long as there is heroism in terrorism, the ideology will continue to spread at an alarming rate. The NYPD report, like most previous assessments by other agencies, provided little encouragement that an effective counter strategy can be crafted.

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