Starting Points

Jan 4, 2010

Somalis seeking asylum take back-door route to U.S.

By Amy Taxin
Monday, January 4, 2010; A11

LANCASTER, CALIF. -- The asylum seeker from Somalia hung his head as an immigration judge grilled him about his treacherous journey from the Horn of Africa. By air, sea and land he finally made it to Mexico, and then a taxi delivered him into the arms of U.S. border agents at San Diego.

Islamic militants had killed his brother, Mohamed Ahmed Kheire testified, and majority clan members had beaten his sister. He had to flee Mogadishu to live.

The voice of the judge, beamed by videoconference from Seattle, crackled loudly over a speaker in the mostly empty courtroom near the detention yard in the desert north of Los Angeles. He wanted to know why Kheire had no family testimony to corroborate his asylum claim.

Kheire, 31, said he didn't have access to e-mail in detention and didn't think to ask while writing to family on his perilous trek.

It seemed like the end of Kheire's dream as he waited for the judge's ruling. He clasped his hands, his plastic jail bracelet dangling from his wrist, and looked up at the ceiling, murmuring words of prayer.

Kheire is one of hundreds of Somalis in the past two years to have staked everything on a wild asylum gamble by following immigration routes to the United States traditionally traveled by Latinos.

With the suspension of a U.S. refugee program and stepped-up security in the Gulf of Aden and along Mediterranean smuggling routes, more overseas migrants from Somalia are pursuing asylum through what one expert calls the "back door."

"The U.S. has closed most of the doors for Somalis to come in through the refugee program, so they've found alternative ways to get in," said Mark Hetfield, senior vice president for policy and programs at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. "This is their new route." About 1,500 people from around the world showed up in U.S. airports and on the borders seeking asylum during the 2009 fiscal year, according to statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Somalis were the biggest group to make the journey, with most arriving in San Diego. More than 240 Somalis arrived during that period -- more than twice as many as the year before.

Most Somalis have reached the United States -- there are about 87,000 here -- through U.S.-sponsored refugee-resettlement programs. But the State Department suspended a family-reunification program for refugees in 2008 over fraud concerns. The number of Somalis admitted by refugee programs dwindled to about 4,000 last year.

Those now traveling through Latin America are taking a path well worn by asylum seekers from other countries. Immigration lawyers say they have worked with clients from Ethiopia and Iraq who also reached the United States through Mexico.

"To get a flight from Africa to Europe is very hard. The easiest place to go is America," said Yahya Idardon, an asylum seeker who fled Somalia last year after his father and brother were killed. "Africa to Latin America is easy. . . . When you are going to Latin America, no one is concerned about you, no one is asking, so it is easy to go there and cross all these countries." Once reaching the U.S. border in San Diego, Somalis are frisked, fingerprinted and screened by an asylum officer to gauge whether they have a credible fear of returning home.

They are then shuttled to an immigration detention center until their cases go to court.

About 80 Somalis are being held in Lancaster, a detention center 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Dozens more have been held in San Diego and the remote border town of El Centro, immigration lawyers said.

On Jan. 4, the government plans to start releasing many asylum seekers while they wait for their immigration cases to be heard. It is unclear how many Somalis will be let out; they must prove their identity and many don't have documents. And still others say they have nowhere to go even if they were freed, their attorneys said.

Compared with asylum seekers from other countries, Somalis have been more likely to win their cases, according to immigration court statistics.

But in the courtroom in Lancaster, Kheire spent the last moments of his hearing worried that the judge would send him back to Mogadishu to face the threat of death -- even after he had survived such a harrowing journey.

The attorneys for Kheire and the government sat quietly in the courtroom, listening to the judge read the ruling as Kheire prayed.

A Somali interpreter whispered urgently into Kheire's ear. He broke into a hesitant smile. He would be allowed to stay.

Kheire left the courtroom in his black, laceless sneakers and jail jumpsuit, escorted by sheriff's officials. Later that night, he was dropped off by authorities at a nearby train station. He had $5 in his pocket.

"They said, 'This is America. Welcome to the United States of America,' " Kheire said.

Bombing and fire disrupt a fragile peace in Karachi, Pakistan

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By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 4, 2010; A05

KARACHI, PAKISTAN -- When a bomb exploded during a Shiite religious procession here last Monday, killing 44 people and touching off hours of violence that left hundreds of shops burned to ashes, it shattered the sense that Pakistan's largest city and financial hub was immune to the plague of Islamist violence that has swept this nuclear-armed nation.

With one strategic blast, the attackers added a volatile new ingredient to the cauldron of ethnic and sectarian tensions, political brawls, business mafia rivalries, and street crime that simmers in this metropolis of 18 million. Although these conflicts periodically erupt into violence, they have rarely disrupted the purposeful hum or resilience of city life.

This time, the destruction triggered by the explosion was so shocking and affected so many interest groups that the entire city went on strike Friday, uniting in an act of peaceful protest. The normally clogged boulevards and teeming bazaars were silent; the swank seaside eateries were empty. Even the Karachi stock exchange shut down instead of grandly opening for New Year's Day.

"They came in and destroyed everything," said Akbar al-Habib, 38, standing amid heaps of charred cloth from his garment shop in Lighthouse Market, where dozens of stalls had burned all night while armed men blocked anyone from entering. "Who would do this to us?"

Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the bomb that exploded on Jinnah Avenue as several hundred thousand Shiites marched in mourning for a martyred seventh-century imam. For many here, the more important questions are who orchestrated the spree of destructive economic violence that followed and why thousands of police deployed to protect the Shiite procession were unable to stop it.

Instead of answers, the six-hour rampage and 48-hour inferno, which caused more than $400 million in damage, have produced a week of confusion and finger-pointing between the Karachi city government, which is run by the urban Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), and the Sindh provincial government, which is controlled by the rural-based, nationally ruling Pakistan People's Party.

With few solid facts emerging, the devastation has also provided tinder for conspiracy theories to suit the agendas of every religious, ethnic and political group in the complex, fragile mosaic of Karachi society. They range from accusations of economic sabotage by property owners to wild speculation of international plots by Western and anti-Muslim powers.

Some groups have accused Shiite militants of using their holy day to create chaos, saying fire accelerants were hidden inside religious cloths. Shiite leaders insist that most mourners continued with their procession after the bombing, while the looting and arson broke out many blocks behind. They assert that the attackers were trying to provoke sectarian divisions among Shiites and Sunnis, backed by a conspiracy of Western interests.

"We were mourning peacefully, and I followed the procession to the end," Mohammed Hussain, 21, said after Friday prayers at a Shiite mosque. "We could not even bring a cigarette lighter into the march, and we were surrounded by police and barricades. How could we think of such violence?" A few minutes later, he joined a group of Shiite protesters shouting: "Down with Israel. Down with America! Yes to Sunni-Shiite Unity!"

Several other theories circulated among merchants from the medicine, cosmetics, plastics and clothing markets that went up in flames. One was that the government or real estate mafias had the shops torched to drive tenants from valuable property. Another was that Pashtun thugs, from the same ethnic group as the Taliban, destroyed the markets to help the extremists and weaken the MQM, which is ethnically Mohajir and ardently anti-Taliban.

At Bolton Market, the epicenter of the fire, clusters of angry merchants watched glumly Friday and Saturday while workers shoveled mounds of burned goods from shops. Several multistory concrete buildings had collapsed from the intense fire, fueled by perfume, cotton and other flammable goods.

"These people were highly organized. They had weapons, cutters for the locks and chemicals to spread fire. This was not the work of emotional Shiite mourners," said Wasim Qureshi, 40, a perfume importer. "Our country is in the middle of a war on international terror. Only the terrorists will benefit from this disaster, and whoever did it was working on their behalf."

Pashtun political leaders dismissed accusations that Taliban supporters carried out the violence. Shahi Sayed, provincial president of the major Pashtun party, flatly accused the MQM of staging the violence to tar his community as a terrorist base.

"The MQM is like a mafia of thugs who rig elections, blackmail businesses and get support from the army," said Sayed, a hulking politician whose house is protected by tribal police. "They would destroy their own community to divide the Sindhis, drive out the Pashtuns and keep people away from Islam."

Similar accusations came from the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party, which set up tents near the damaged markets to assist victims of the fire. Local leaders of Jamaat, which is sympathetic to the Taliban, also blamed a plot by the MQM to malign Islam. They published photos in their party newspaper showing alleged MQM loyalists engaged in looting.

For MQM officials, Friday's events were a major political blow. The party has campaigned publicly against the "Talibanization" of Karachi. But now, with the terrorist threat squarely confronting the city, and the business community up in arms over the inadequate response by police and firefighters, Karachi's leaders are struggling to restore public confidence, tamp down the swirling conspiracy theories and ensure that the incident does not create dangerous new fissures.

"Karachi is the jugular vein of our economy, and a complex city with many fault lines. If Karachi is destabilized, then Pakistan is destabilized," said Farooq Sattar, an MQM leader and former Karachi mayor, who denied suggestions that his party fomented the violence. "We cannot allow either to happen."

Crackdown on alcohol seen as part of conservative moment in Iraq

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By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 4, 2010; A01

BAGHDAD -- The banner appeared mysteriously this fall on a railing along Abu Nawas Street, the hub of nightlife on the banks of the Tigris River in downtown Baghdad, where the atmosphere in recent months has grown markedly more subdued.

"Damned is he who sits at a table with alcohol," the handwritten sign said.

Posted near a strip of nightclubs recently raided by police, the unsigned missive spoke to a new fight being fought across Iraq as government officials attempt to assert greater control over the country's moral and social norms.

The March 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent violence have made Iraq's moral compass swing wildly for the past six years. It has been a time of lax government authority; power struggles among armed groups including the Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda in Iraq, which imposed strict norms; and mass migration, which has changed the makeup and character of entire towns and cities.

In recent months, the pendulum has veered toward conservative mores. Government officials, including many competing in the upcoming parliamentary election, have sought to impose stricter limits on alcohol consumption and coeducational schools.

In some ways, whether the Iraq that emerges from the U.S. occupation becomes more conservative or more permissive than its neighbors will depend greatly on which politicians are chosen in that election, scheduled to take place March 7. But it is far from clear whether the upcoming contest will affirm or buck the current trend.

"Unfortunately, the democratic system in Iraq has led to the rise of undemocratic parties and movements that don't believe in the concept of human rights or personal freedoms," said Mithal Alousi, a secular Sunni lawmaker. "These parties are trying to leave an impression among the uneducated and the simple-minded people that they are the guardians of religion and proper behavior, and conversely, that secular parties are the ones promoting alcohol consumption and the opening of nightclubs, and thus are un-Islamic."

Alcohol is relatively hard to come by in Iraq's southern provinces, which are predominantly Shiite and tend to be more conservative than the rest of the country. Baghdad has several liquor stores, most owned and operated by Christians. Owners say they are afraid the government will drive their business underground by refusing to renew licenses.

Hazim al-Araaiy, a Shiite lawmaker who heads the conservative Sadrist bloc in parliament, said banning alcohol is long overdue to protect families and live within the tenets of Islam.

"Our policy on alcohol is firm -- we have always opposed it," he said. "We do not need such practices to win votes or leave the impression that we are faithful Muslims."

Few have as much riding on the outcome of the debate as Kamal Suleiman, owner of a prominent liquor store on Abu Nawas Street.

The strip, he recalled recently, was abuzz with nightlife during most of Saddam Hussein's regime. Parties sometimes lasted until dawn. Liquor-store owners had no trouble renewing yearly licenses.

During the 1990s, in an effort to appease conservative tribes whose support he desperately needed after uprisings by Shiites and Kurds, Hussein tightened social norms.

The party life suffered, Suleiman said, but liquor stores and some bars remained in business.

During the sectarian war that began in 2006, insurgents targeted liquor stores, which they deemed sinful, and they burned trucks transporting booze.

"During the sectarian years, we closed because we were a target," said Aziz al-Azidi, one of the managers at the liquor store. "They threatened us, and they threw grenades to destroy liquor stores."

As security improved in 2008 and dogmatic groups lost sway in Baghdad and other key cities, Suleiman opened his store again and began importing truckloads of wine, beer and spirits from neighboring Turkey.

In recent weeks, he and other liquor-store owners across Baghdad were told they would not receive new licenses after theirs expired at the end of the year.

"The citizens want their stores open," Suleiman said. "The people of Iraq need an open, secular country. But the government is trying to take a conservative route."

Radi Hassan, who owns a fish restaurant across the street from the shuttered bars, said he was pleased to see them raided.

"These places were operating without a license," he said, standing outside his restaurant on a chilly afternoon. "They even had dancing women inside, women of the night."

So far, security has been the dominant issue among politicians vying for votes in the election. But politicians have increasingly addressed issues of morality and social norms in parliamentary debates, articles in newspapers and on the campaign trail. Some have argued that the current government is overly influenced by religion; others have defended the government's right to set strict societal norms.

The Baghdad provincial council received numerous complaints about the nightclubs before ordering the raids, said council member Mohammed Rubaie.

Rubaie, among the most secular members on the council, suggested that the establishments be allowed to reopen in a nonresidential area, but his initiative got little backing.

"Don't forget -- the Baghdad provincial council is led by an Islamic party and most of its members are Islamic party members," Rubaie said.

Similar debates are taking place in the teeming Sadr City district, miles from Abu Nawas Street and among the most conservative in the capital.

On a recent afternoon, at the end of the school day, a small group of educators debated the recent enforcement of a policy that bars coed middle and high schools.

The rule is a burden in places such as Sadr City, where fighting left many schools in shambles and qualified teachers are scarce.

"We are a tribal society," said Ahmed Ghata Saber, an Islamic studies teacher at a middle school in Sadr City who opposes mixed-sex education.

"There is nothing more important than to keep our society safe."

Colleague Mohammed Salim Gati, who teaches English, disagreed, saying the division creates misunderstandings about the opposite sex.

"Mixed schools are a better idea for us," he said. "Their level of intelligence and understanding would be better."

Principal Zaid Ruhaim Mohammed said the policy was misguided and useless.

"When they leave school," he said, "they find ways of playing together."

Special correspondents K.I. Ibrahim and Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.

Jordanian informant lured CIA operatives into suicide attack, officials say

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By Joby Warrick and Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 4, 2010; 3:52 PM

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian informant who lured intelligence officers into a meeting with a promise of new information about al-Qaeda's top leadership, according to two former U.S. government officials briefed on the incident.

The informant had been working undercover in eastern Afghanistan for weeks, and had already provided U.S. spies with what one official described as "actionable intelligence" when he set the trap, the sources said.

In addition to the seven operatives, the bomb blast at a CIA base in Khost province killed a Jordanian intelligence official who had been assigned to work with the informant, the officials said.

The alleged bomber, identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was picked up in a vehicle a distance from the CIA base and apparently was not thoroughly searched before being brought into the compound, said one of the former officials, a veteran counterterrorism officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the incident remains under investigation.

"He was someone who had already worked with us," said the official, adding that the informant had been jointly managed by U.S. and Jordanian intelligence agencies.

The CIA declined to comment.

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The name of the alleged bomber was first reported by al-Jazeera, which described Balawi as a physician from the Jordanian town of Zarqa, also the home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the slain former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Jazeera reported that Balawi had been recruited to help track down Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian physician and No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda. MSNBC also reported that Balawi was the bomber.

The role of Jordanian intelligence at the CIA's Forward Operating Base Chapman was tacitly acknowledged over the weekend when the body of the dead Jordanian intelligence operative was flown home for a military burial in the capital city of Amman. The man, identified in Jordanian press accounts as Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was assigned to work as a "handler" for Balawi, the former U.S. counterterrorism official said.

Jordan is a key ally in the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda, and its intelligence operatives have been integrated into missions in the Middle East and beyond, current and former U.S. intelligence officials say.

"They know the bad guy's . . . culture, his associates, and more [than anyone] about the network to which he belongs," said Jamie Smith, a former CIA officer who worked in the border region in the years immediately after U.S.-backed Afghan forces drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Jordanians were particularly prized for their skill in both in interrogating captives and cultivating informants, owing to an unrivaled "expertise with radicalized militant groups and Shia/Sunni culture," said Smith, who now heads a private security company known as SCG International.

Yet, despite Jordan's critical role, officials from both countries have insisted that its participation remain virtually invisible, in part to avoid damaging Amman's standing among other Muslim nations in the region, former intelligence officials said.

U.S. intelligence officials declined to comment on the death of the Jordanian officer or to specify the role Jordanian agents were playing in the region. "We have a close partnership with the Jordanians on counterterrorism matters," acknowledged a U.S. counterterrorism official, who agreed to discuss the sensitive relationship on the condition of anonymity. "Having suffered serious losses from terrorist attacks on their own soil, they are keenly aware of the significant threat posed by extremists."

Bin Zeid was on one of the CIA's most sensitive listening posts in eastern Afghanistan when a suicide attacker exploded a bomb in the middle of a group of CIA officers and contractors. The seven Americans killed included the CIA base chief.

The base, in Afghanistan's eastern province, is at the heart of the CIA's operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border. It provides critical intelligence for strikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban positions, including targeting information for CIA unmanned aircraft, which carried out more than 50 strikes in Pakistan's autonomous tribal region in the past year. The base also is frequently a setting for debriefing of informants, current and former officials said.

Jordan's official news agency, Petra, said bin Zeid was killed "on Wednesday evening as a martyr while performing the sacred duty of the Jordanian forces in Afghanistan" and provided no further details about his death. Local news reports quoted family members as saying bin Zeid had been in Afghanistan for 20 days and had been scheduled to travel home on the day of the bombing.

His coffin's arrival in Amman on Saturday was handled with unusual pomp, with Jordan's King Abdullah II and his wife, Rania, personally presiding over a funeral and burial in a military cemetery.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the special relationship with Jordan dates back at least three decades and has recently progressed to the point that the CIA liaison officer in Amman enjoys full, unescorted access to the fortress-like headquarters of the Jordanian spy agency, known as the General Intelligence Department. The close ties helped disrupt several known terrorist plots, including the thwarted 2000 "millennium" conspiracy to attack tourists at hotels and other sites. Jordanians also provided U.S. officials with communications intercepts in summer 2001 that warned of terrorist plans to carry out a major attack on the United States.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Jordan agreed to create a bilateral operations center with the CIA and helped in interrogations of non-Jordanian suspects captured by the CIA and transferred to Jordan in now-famous "rendition" flights. Jordan's role was criticized at the time by human rights groups, and a United Nations inquiry in 2007 concluded that security officials had committed acts of torture, an accusation denied by Jordan.

Critics of the country's pro-U.S. policy say the closeness stems in part from Jordan's receipt of about $500 million worth of economic and military aid from the United States each year and from Jordan's status as one of only two Arab states to have signed a peace agreement with Israel. But Jordanian officials say the cooperation with the CIA is motivated by a mutual understanding of the danger posed by al-Qaeda and the religious extremism and violence it espouses.

"If al-Qaeda targets America, it also targets our stability and the peace of this region," a Jordanian intelligence said in a recent interview. "Based on this stance, we have had many successes countering terrorism."

Staff writer Dana Priest and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Jan 3, 2010

Students admitted early to college network on Facebook

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By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 3, 2010; C01

The first 570 members of George Washington University's Class of 2014 found out they had been accepted one day in early December. Within hours, they began to network on Facebook -- making friends, debating dorms, discussing "Real World: Washington D.C." and organizing a Wiffle ball team.

"Let the friend requests begin lol. Congrats again guys, 2014 all the way!" a high school senior from New Jersey posted late that night. A few days later, a senior from Illinois wrote, "The senioritis has definitely begun."

College classes don't start for eight months, senior year of high school is barely half over and most deadlines for general admission still haven't hit, but students who committed to attending selective universities through early decision programs have gotten a jump on their virtual college life.

"I already have a sense of having a class of close-knit friends," said Ryan Counihan, a high school senior from Boston who turned 18 last week and received online birthday wishes from several future GWU classmates. "We definitely have a leg up. . . . We have an extra four months or so to get to know each other."

At several colleges across the country, early decision has become an online clique, an opportunity to become a leader at a school they do not yet attend. The University of Chicago Class of 2014 Facebook group proclaims: "Well, we've gotten a head start on everything else. Let's meet each other!" A group at Brown University boasts, "The rest of the masses will find out if they'll be joining us early April."

GWU has a half-dozen Class of 2014 groups on Facebook, and the largest has more than 325 members. (Anyone can join, and there is no guarantee that all members have been accepted.) Together, the students have watched the mail for their acceptance packages, compared financial aid offerings, debated the pros and cons of living in a dorm known for having a "party culture," and marveled at how cool it will be to live in the District.

"Umm we'll be in DC for the next presidential inauguration . . . WHAT," a girl from New York posted. Fourteen others hit the "like" button, and a girl from Chicago responded, "I was thinking about that today and freaked out ahhh!"

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And there are plans for non-virtual contact: More than 60 students in the New York area will meet this month or next, and a smaller group in Boston will do the same. A handful of Chicago students met last month.

Students who apply for early decision tend to be devoted fans of the school, said Steve Roche, director of GWU's freshman orientation program, Colonial Inauguration. And that makes them more likely to plunge into networking once they are accepted.

Being accepted into college begins the transition from high school, Roche said, and often a Facebook profile metamorphosis: Besides adding friends and joining college networks, students might remove prom photos and ditch their loyalty to the Jonas Brothers.

Going through that transition in the middle of senior year, rather than right before graduation or over the summer, can be jarring. So when students or their parents called Roche last week asking for orientation information, he gently told them: "Here's the information. But worry about your high school career. . . . It's December, heading into January. Don't forget that you have that extra semester."

But for many students, the carefully choreographed college admissions process is starting sooner in their high school careers. Early decision, which is used by competitive colleges to fill part of their freshman class months ahead of time, has become more popular in recent years.

GWU received 70 percent more early decision applications this fall than two years ago. The university is holding a second early decision round this month. The deadline for that and general admission is Jan. 10.

Occasionally, the early deciders remind each other that they aren't the only members of the Class of 2014 -- and that others will quickly join the groups they've set up. The real test of their Facebook friendships will come when they meet each other.

These days, students increasingly come to freshman orientation knowing 30 or 40 people rather than being just vaguely acquainted with their roommate from the awkward phone call in which they decide who is bringing the microwave, Roche said. Still, most of those Facebook-forged friendships won't last.

"It's good because it makes them feel more comfortable," Roche said. "Just in my experience, those friendships don't last more than a week or two into the semester."

Max Hoffman, 17, broadcast the news of his acceptance on GWU's main Facebook page but has resisted joining the Class of 2014 group, friending future classmates or replying to the guy who wants to be his roommate.

"I don't want to push the whole process," said Hoffman, who lives outside of Boston. "I want to enjoy high school."

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5 myths about keeping America safe from terrorism

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By Stephen Flynn
Sunday, January 3, 2010; B03

With President Obama declaring a "systemic failure" of our security system in the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America's vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then. The biggest whopper of all? The paternalistic assertion that the government can keep us all safe without our help.

1. Terrorism is the gravest threat facing the American people.

Americans are at far greater risk of being killed in accidents or by viruses than by acts of terrorism. In 2008, more than 37,300 Americans perished on the nation's highways, according to government data. Even before H1N1, a similar number of people died each year from the seasonal flu. Terrorism is a real and potentially consequential danger. But the greatest threat isn't posed by the direct harm terrorists could inflict; it comes from what we do to ourselves when we are spooked. It is how we react -- or more precisely, how we overreact -- to the threat of terrorism that makes it an appealing tool for our adversaries. By grounding commercial aviation and effectively closing our borders after the 2001 attacks, Washington accomplished something no foreign state could have hoped to achieve: a blockade on the economy of the world's sole superpower. While we cannot expect to be completely successful at intercepting terrorist attacks, we must get a better handle on how we respond when they happen.

2. When it comes to preventing terrorism, the only real defense is a good offense.

The cornerstone of the Bush administration's approach to dealing with the terrorist threat was to take the battle to the enemy. But offense has its limits. We still aren't generating sufficiently accurate and timely tactical intelligence to adequately support U.S. counterterrorism efforts overseas. And going after terrorists abroad hardly means they won't manage to strike us at home. Just days before the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the United States collaborated with the Yemeni government on raids against al-Qaeda militants there. The group known as al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is now claiming responsibility for having equipped and trained Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to blow up the flight. The group is also leveraging the raids to recruit militants and mount protests against Yemen's already fragile central government.

At the same time, an emphasis on offense has often come at the expense of investing in effective defensive measures, such as maintaining quality watch lists, sharing information about threats, safeguarding such critical assets as the nation's food and energy supplies, and preparing for large-scale emergencies. After authorities said Abdulmutallab had hidden explosives in his underwear, airline screeners held up flights to do stepped-up passenger pat-downs at boarding gates -- pat-downs that inevitably avoided passengers' crotches and buttocks. This kind of quick fix only tends to fuel public cynicism about security efforts. But if we can implement smart security measures ahead of time (such as requiring refineries next to densely populated areas to use safer chemicals when they manufacture high-octane gas), we won't be incapacitated when terrorists strike. Strengthening our national ability to withstand and rapidly recover from terrorism will make the United States a less appealing target. In combating terrorism, as in sports, success requires both a capable offense and a strong defense.

3. Getting better control over America's borders is essential to making us safer.

Our borders will never serve as a meaningful line of defense against terrorism. The inspectors at our ports, border crossings and airports have important roles when it comes to managing immigration and the flow of commerce, but they play only a bit part in stopping would-be attackers. This is because terrorist threats do not originate at our land borders with Mexico and Canada, nor along our 12,000 miles of coastline. They originate at home as well as abroad, and they exploit global networks such as the transportation system that moved 500 million cargo containers through the world's ports in 2008. Moreover, terrorists' travel documents are often in perfect order. This was the case with Abdulmutallab, as well as with shoe-bomber Richard Reid in 2001. Complaints about porous borders may play well politically, but they distract us from the more challenging task of forging international cooperation to strengthen safeguards for our global transportation, travel and financial systems. They also sidestep the disturbing fact that the number of terrorism-related cases involving U.S. residents reached a new high in 2009.

4. Investing in new technology is key to better security.

Not necessarily. Technology can be helpful, but too often it ends up being part of the problem. Placing too much reliance on sophisticated tools such as X-ray machines often leaves the people staffing our front lines consumed with monitoring and troubleshooting these systems. Consequently, they become more caught up in process than outcomes. And as soon procedures become routine, a determined bad guy can game them. We would do well to heed two lessons the U.S. military has learned from combating insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan: First, don't do things in rote and predictable ways, and second, don't alienate the people you are trying to protect. Too much of what is promoted as homeland security disregards these lessons. It is true that technology such as full-body imaging machines, which have received so much attention in the past week, are far more effective than metal detectors at screening airline passengers. But new technologies are also expensive, and they are no substitute for well-trained professionals who are empowered and rewarded for exercising good judgment.

5. Average citizens aren't an effective bulwark against terrorist attacks.

Elite pundits and policymakers routinely dismiss the ability of ordinary people to respond effectively when they are in harm's way. It's ironic that this misconception has animated much of the government's approach to homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001, given that the only successful counterterrorist action that day came from the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93. These passengers didn't have the help of federal air marshals. The Defense Department's North American Aerospace Defense Command didn't intercept the plane -- it didn't even know the airliner had been hijacked. But by charging the cockpit over rural Pennsylvania, these private citizens prevented al-Qaeda terrorists from reaching their likely target of the U.S. Capitol or the White House. The government leaders whose constitutional duty is "to provide for the common defense" were defended by one thing alone -- an alert and heroic citizenry.

This misconception is particularly reckless because it ends up sidelining the greatest asset we have for managing the terrorism threat: the average people who are best positioned to detect and respond to terrorist activities. We have only to look to the attempted Christmas Day attack to validate this truth. Once again it was the government that fell short, not ordinary people. A concerned Nigerian father, not the CIA or the National Security Agency, came forward with crucial information. And the courageous actions of the Dutch film director Jasper Schuringa and other passengers and crew members aboard Flight 253 thwarted the attack.

Stephen Flynn is the president of the Center for National Policy and author of "The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation."

Booming economy, government programs help Brazil expand its middle class

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By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 3, 2010; A06

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Teresiña Lopes Vieira da Silva peddles spices and peppers from a street stall, but hers is no fly-by-night business.

She sells to restaurants in Rio's swankiest districts and sees her success reflected in the two houses she has bought. Instead of scraping by, she has joined the middle class in an increasingly affluent Brazil, her accomplishment made possible by government loans and a booming economy.

"Now I live in a house with six rooms," said Vieira da Silva, 62, speaking of her home in Rocinha, a poor but bustling district with growing ranks of entrepreneurs. "It does not have a pool yet, but I am planning to build one."

Once hobbled with high inflation and perennially susceptible to worldwide crises, Brazil now has a vibrant consumer market, investment-grade status for its sovereign debt, vast foreign reserves and an agricultural sector that is vying to supplant that of the United States as the world's most productive.

Brazil's $1.3 trillion economy is bigger than those of India and Russia, and its per-capita income is nearly twice that of China. Recent discoveries by Brazil's state oil company are expected to make the country one of the world's biggest crude producers. An unwieldy bureaucracy and red tape have not slowed foreign investment, which at $45 billion in 2008 is three times as much as it was a decade ago.

Economists and social scientists here say the booming trade-oriented economy and innovative government programs are lifting millions from poverty and shaking what was once a certainty: that a person born poor in Brazil would surely die poor.

Solid, tangible progress

Since 2003, more than 32 million people in this country of 198 million have entered the middle class, and about 20 million have risen above poverty, according to the Center for Social Policies at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, a Rio policy group that studies socioeconomic trends.

"We can generate inclusive growth as probably no other country can, given the scale of the country and the level of inequality," said Marcelo Neri, chief economist at the center. "Brazil is following what you may call a middle path. We are respecting the rules of the market and, at the same time, we are doing very active social policy."

Since 2002, a commodities boom has fueled strong growth and lowered poverty across Latin America. But Brazil's progress is perhaps the most notable because it has far more poor people than any other South American country and has long been one of the world's most unequal societies.

Neri said Brazil has made solid progress by creating 8.5 million jobs since 2003, and by instituting programs such as food assistance for poor families and low-interest credit for first-time home buyers and small-business owners.

The change has been tangible to people such as Thiago Firmino, 28, a teacher. He has lived in a poor locality all his life, but he owns a car and a computer and says his son's life will be easier than his.

"A lot of people improved their lives," said. "It is not like they built themselves a castle, but, you know, they have taken little steps and made things better."

The foundation of today's success was laid during the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, an academic-turned-politician best known for taming inflation in the mid-1990s. The man who has gotten much of the credit is his successor, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who as a union activist once railed against globalization.

Lula's election to the presidency in 2002 sent shudders through Brazil's economic elite, which worried that the former rabble-rouser would lead the country down a populist, anti-capitalist path, as Hugo Chávez did in Venezuela.

Lula did make ending poverty a priority, but he also proved to be a market-friendly steward of the economy and is popular today among Brazil's business community.

With Asia hungry for soybeans, beef and iron ore, economic growth in Brazil averaged 4.2 percent annually from 2003 through 2008, a year in which foreign investment in the country posted a 30 percent increase over 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The worldwide economic crisis caused a brief downturn here, but economists say Brazil will post 5 percent growth in 2010.

At SulAmérica Investments in Sao Paulo, Marcelo Mello, vice president of asset management, said that in the past, investors worried about inflation and high interest rates.

Now, driven by increasingly affluent Brazilian investors, Mello said, SulAmérica is managing $9 billion, three times the amount from five years ago. "Through the increase in real income over the last 10 years, we've seen a huge movement in our Brazilian fund industry and the Brazilian markets," he said.

The country's stock market is minting record numbers of billionaires, and the wealth in Brazil is palpable. Luxury apartment houses are rising in fashionable districts, and the world's most exclusive stores, from Tiffany's to Gucci, consider Rio and Sao Paulo fertile markets.

Bullish about the future

Of course, most of Brazil's people are far from rich. In the country's vast urban slums, many youths turn to drugs, the quality of public schooling is poor and basic services such as health care are chronically underfunded, residents say.

"Can you believe this serves 150,000 people?" said Flavio Wittlin, who runs a group that helps get young people off the streets, as he walked through a tiny health center in Rocinha. He said many services in the district, from garbage pickup to policing, are substandard.

Still, Rocinha is chock-full of machine shops and small stores, many of them spurred by government loans.

Although Brazil's industrial giants -- such as the airplane maker Embraer and the mining company Vale -- attract investors and headlines, the future is also rooted in businesses like Alan Roberto Lima's sewing shop.

The shop, on the second floor of his house in a hardscrabble neighborhood on Rio's outskirts, has only a half-dozen sewing machines. But Lima, 34, has in a few years found that Rio's upscale boutiques are a ready market for his skirts and blouses.

Now he talks of his own clothing line and, if that is a success, opening his own store.

"Preferably," he added, "near the beach."

U.S.-China relations to face strains, experts say

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By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 3, 2010; A03

The United States and China are headed for a rough patch in the early months of the new year as the White House appears set to sell a package of weapons to Taiwan and as President Obama plans to meet the Dalai Lama, U.S. officials and analysts said.

The Obama administration is expected to approve the sale of several billion dollars in Black Hawk helicopters and anti-missile batteries to Taiwan early this year, possibly accompanied by a plan gauging design and manufacturing capacity for diesel-powered submarines for the island, which China claims as its territory. The president is also preparing to meet the spiritual leader of Tibet, who is considered a separatist by Beijing. Obama made headlines last year when the White House, in an effort to generate goodwill from China, declined to meet the Dalai Lama, marking the first time in more than a decade that a U.S. president did not meet the religious leader during his occasional visits to Washington.

The expected downturn with Beijing comes despite a concerted effort by the Obama administration for closer ties. U.S. officials have held more high-level meetings with their Chinese counterparts -- including a summit in Beijing in November -- in the first year of this administration compared with the inaugural years of the four previous presidencies since relations were normalized with Beijing in 1979, records show.

"I think it's going to be nasty," said David M. Lampton, director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of "The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds." That said, he added, "the U.S. and China need each other."

The White House is hopeful, too, that the damage will be limited. "The U.S.-China relationship is now far broader and deeper than any one issue alone," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. "We will have disagreements . . . but we have demonstrated that we will work together on critical global and regional issues, such as economic recovery, nuclear proliferation and climate change, because doing so is in our mutual interest."

Still, the impending tension comes at a sensitive time. After hammering out a wobbly political deal with China on climate change in Copenhagen, the United States still needs China's help on three pressing international issues: Iran, North Korea and restructuring its economy so that its people consume more and export less. China recently backed a toughly worded statement on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency but continues to oppose enhanced sanctions, which the Obama administration has signaled it will pursue in 2010. The United States also seeks China's continued support in enforcing sanctions against North Korea and in pushing Pyongyang to return to nuclear disarmament talks.

Administration officials said they are sure China will react negatively to the arms sales and the meeting with the Dalai Lama. At a minimum, U.S. officials expect that President Hu Jintao will not attend a planned nuclear security summit scheduled for April. China could also halt the resumed U.S. dialogue with China's military, which had been one of the central goals of this White House's China policy. Any hopes for China's cooperation in Afghanistan are also in question.

One hint that China will limit the scope of its reaction came during Obama's meeting with Hu in November, analysts said. Hu used the formulation "sophisticated weapons" when speaking about any possible U.S. arms sale to Taiwan. U.S. officials took that to be a reference to a tranche of F-16 fighters that Taiwan has requested but that, according to U.S. sources, will not be on Taipei's shopping list this time.

"We hope that he [Obama] will not do that," said Zhou Wenzhong, China's ambassador to the United States, when asked about the possibility of the arms sales and the meeting with the Dalai Lama. "We have just had a very successful visit."

Still, U.S. officials and analysts have noticed a new assertiveness -- what one senior U.S. official called a "sense of triumphalism" -- on the part of officials and the public in China. This stems from a sense in Beijing that the global economic crisis proves the superiority of China's controlled economy and its authoritarian political system -- and that the West, and in particular the United States, is in decline.

This triumphalism was on display during the recently concluded climate talks in Copenhagen. China only sent a deputy foreign minister to meetings set for the level of heads of state; its representatives publicly clashed with their American counterparts. And during the climax of the conference, China's security team tried to block Obama and the rest of his entourage from entering a meeting chaired by China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao.

That type of swagger is new for China and it could make for a stronger reaction from Beijing.

"If they really believe the United States is in decline and that China will soon emerge as a superpower, they may seek to take on the U.S. in ways that will cause real problems," said Bonnie S. Glaser, an expert on China with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Complicating this picture is the view of some American analysts that the Obama administration -- with its intensive outreach to Beijing -- tried too hard in its first year to cultivate ties with China. Playing hard to get might have helped smooth out China's swagger, they suggest.

"Somehow the administration signaled to the Chinese that we need them more than they need us," Lampton said. "We're in the role of the supplicant."

The downturn would also occur at a time when China's long-established ally in the United States -- the business community -- is not as willing to argue on China's behalf as it was during rough patches in the past. China's government has made a series of moves to slow or reverse its market-oriented economic reforms over the last year that have prompted concern among many Western businesses. Although China has accused Washington of protectionist measures -- on Wednesday, the United States imposed new duties on Chinese steel-piping imports -- it also has moved aggressively to shut its markets to goods manufactured by Western companies in China. Now groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which traditionally backed ties with China, find themselves in the unusual position of organizing a public letter-writing campaign to pressure China to change its policies.

"If they continue on this particular path in a strong and inflexible way, there will be a significant political backlash not just in the United States," said a senior U.S. trade official. "China needs to be aware of that."

Al-Qaeda benefits from a decade of missteps to become a threat in Yemen

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By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 3, 2010; A01

SANAA, YEMEN -- Nearly a decade after the bombing of the USS Cole, a combination of U.S. and Yemeni missteps, deep mistrust and a lack of political will have allowed al-Qaeda militants here to regroup and pose a major threat to the United States, according to Yemeni and U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts.

The U.S. failures have included a lack of focus on al-Qaeda's growing stature, insufficient funding to and cooperation with Yemen, and a misunderstanding of the Middle Eastern country's complex political terrain, Yemeni officials and analysts said. U.S. policies in the region, they said, often alienated top Yemeni officials and did little to address the root causes of militancy.

Frustrated American officials say Yemen never made fighting al-Qaeda a top priority, which has stalled large-scale U.S. support.

These problems, which ultimately helped enable al-Qaeda militants here to plot an attack on a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, have forced the United States to open a new front in its anti-terrorism efforts. It is part of a largely invisible war, stretching from the Arabian Peninsula to Africa, waged from the skies and from high-tech intelligence centers, with unmanned aircraft, CIA operatives and vivid satellite images serving as the weapons of choice.

It is a war that challenges the Obama administration in ways that echo the conflicts in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These issues were on display in a U.S.-backed airstrike in southern Yemen on Dec. 17. The government said it struck an al-Qaeda training camp, killing at least 23 militants. But tribal leaders and residents say mostly civilians were killed. The strike has generated an outpouring of anger and anti-American sentiment across the south and in parliament.

"I saw parts of bodies, mostly women and children," said Mukhbil Mohammed Ali, a tribal leader. "America says it supports Yemen to eradicate terrorists. But America is only supporting Yemen to kill the innocent."

After years of paltry assistance, the United States last year provided $67 million in counterterrorism aid for training, intelligence and equipment. Assistance will more than double this year, Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said Friday in Baghdad before visiting Yemen the next day.

U.S. commandos are training Yemen's security forces and coast guard in counterterrorism tactics. American drones and satellites are guiding airstrikes.

But many say the war could arrive too late to change the trajectory in Yemen. Since the Cole attack, the nation has been on a path toward dissolution. The government is weak, unable to control large swaths of the country and the porous borders. It is stretched thin fighting a civil conflict in the north and a separatist movement in the south. It is burdened with crushing poverty and high unemployment; oil revenues and water supplies are shrinking.

In this atmosphere, al-Qaeda has flourished. It is seeking to create an operational and training base to use Yemen, strategically tucked between oil-rich regions, key shipping routes and vast lawless areas, as a launching pad for global jihad. Increasingly, though, al-Qaeda is also targeting the government and its security apparatus.

"The attack on the USS Cole should have been the loudest wake-up call against al-Qaeda," said Abdul Karim al-Iriyani, a former prime minister of Yemen. "But I don't think, even when I was in government, every attention was given to fighting al-Qaeda. Now, it is much more difficult than 2000."
An erosion of trust

On Oct. 12 of that year, al-Qaeda militants rammed an explosives-packed speedboat into the USS Cole, docked in the southern city of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors. In the aftermath, Yemeni and U.S. investigators worked together to tackle al-Qaeda, and their cooperation increased after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In November 2002, a U.S. Predator drone fired a missile at a car in eastern Yemen, killing six al-Qaeda suspects. They included the branch's leader, Abu Ali al-Harithi, whom the United States had linked to the Cole bombing.

Stunned by the strike, senior Yemeni officials demanded that the Bush administration not reveal its involvement. Yemen is a conservative tribal society with deep sympathies for al-Qaeda's core message of protecting Islam. The government worried about a domestic backlash if it became known that it had allowed the United States to operate on its soil.

But U.S. officials soon announced its success. That decision eroded Yemeni trust in the United States and damaged efforts to combat terrorism, Yemeni officials said.

"I was so angry," Iriyani recalled.

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge that the strike posed a political liability for Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. But they also contend that Yemen's government wavered in its commitment to fighting al-Qaeda even before that attack.

By 2003, the United States was focused on the Iraq war and appeared more intent on fighting corruption and promoting democracy in Yemen than on tackling al-Qaeda, experts said.

U.S. development aid to combat Yemen's soaring poverty rates and high unemployment -- key factors in enticing new recruits to militancy -- was minuscule. It declined from $56.5 million in 2000 to $25.5 million in 2008, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. U.S. officials say the aid was cut largely because of corruption concerns.

"When you look back and see how little attention Yemen was getting several years ago, it's shocking," said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "None of these problems with Yemen's stability are new, and we've known what was coming down the road."

In 2006, 23 al-Qaeda militants broke out of a maximum security jail in Sanaa, the capital. They included several operatives involved in the Cole attack, as well as Nasser al-Wuhayshi, who became the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Yemeni and U.S. officials say the militants were helped by Yemeni security officials sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

U.S. counterterrorism aid to Yemen was $4.6 million that year.

Today, the jailbreak is viewed as the genesis of the current generation of al-Qaeda militants in Yemen. But it was two more years before the United States substantially increased counterterrorism aid -- after al-Qaeda militants, including some who broke out of the jail, attacked the U.S. Embassy in September 2008, killing 16 people, including one American.
Cole's aftereffects

The ghosts of the USS Cole have haunted the U.S.-Yemen relationship throughout the past decade. All of the suspected attackers have been freed or escaped from prison, deepening tensions. Yemen's government has also refused to extradite to the United States two al-Qaeda militants, including one convicted of masterminding the Cole attack. Yemeni officials say their constitution bars the extradition of Yemeni nationals.

U.S. officials said their counterterrorism efforts have also been hampered by a Yemeni government that has frequently been unpredictable and fickle in its support. After early successes in arresting and killing al-Qaeda operatives after Sept. 11, 2001, Yemeni officials appeared to pull back out of fear of alienating powerful tribes and religious figures.
More vulnerable

In the past two weeks, the government has intensified its attack on militants, bolstered by increased U.S. assistance and a sense that al-Qaeda is becoming a direct threat.

But the more the government cracks down on suspected militants, the more vulnerable Yemen seems to become. In southern Yemen, opposition politicians and newspapers have accused the government of killing civilians in order to appease the United States. Yemeni officials have acknowledged that women and children were killed, but say they were the relatives of the militants.

The aggressive tactics could backfire. As in Pakistan, al-Qaeda militants thrive on the support and protection of tribes, which are highly sensitive about outside interference, even from the government. The militants live among the population, raising the odds of civilian casualties.

Mukhbil Mohammed Ali, the tribal leader, said his tribesmen are angry. They have even more sympathy for al-Qaeda, he said, as well as a growing animosity toward the Yemeni government and its benefactor, America.

"We all want revenge," he said.

Staff writer Joby Warrick and news assistant Christian Hettinger in Washington contributed to this report.