2 SEP 2002GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITYThen need for the intelligence community to grow has become obvious.
There is no longer a safety zone within the United States against global threats. The position that the United States took after the War of 1812, actually the war that lasted from 1812 to 1815, was known as the Monroe Doctrine, and this standard of protecting America only has been the cornerstone of all policies even after World War II. The twenty-first century will require more than the United States own intelligence effort. The need for a global intelligence action has become apparent. On September 11, 2001 terrorism from abroad became a reality. There is no way for the United States to prevent future attacks on Americans without working as a coalition force with the other nations to identify, track, and eliminate terrorist networks around the world.
One of the main problems with fighting a war on terrorism is that the nations of the world have become to accustomed to working alone as individuals vice working together. The United States will need to change its approach in order to conquer the worldwide threat of terrorism. The way to defeat terrorism at home and around the world is to form an international counter-terrorist task force. In order to prevent future acts of terrorism on the United States and around the globe, the free-nations of the world will have to come together and form a large task force to counter against the terrorist threat. The main problem with forming a world wide counter-terrorist headquarters is that there is no one single definition of terrorism. Each country has a definition of the word terrorism based on the political stance that the country takes on use of force (UNITAR, 29).
The United Nations must first come up with a clear definition of terrorism in order to facilitate the creation of an international counter-terrorist organization. Once an international organization is established free-world nations will help to compile a detailed database of suspected terrorists and terrorist activities. Such items would include: the plutonium market, human intelligence reports, money trails of terrorist funds, etc. With a large database as the main weapon utilized by the organization, the individual nations could have information at their fingertips in order to make quick and timely decisions about individual nations national security. With an international counter-terrorist database the different nations of the world would be able to work together to solve terrorism dilemmas.
One of the main problems with fighting terrorists is the constant movement of goods, property, and people from nation to nation. In the United States alone, 8. 8 billion dollars worth of goods and 1. 3 million people enter the nation everyday, but the United States Customs Service is only able to inspect about 2 percent of inbound traffic (Thornberry). With an organized customs and contraband team working under an international counter-terrorism organization, all goods and personal property could be regulated prior to crossing any international borders.
As for the people traveling, extensive background checks will be preformed prior to persons boarding flights with this large centralized database. Any parties thought to have terrorist associations could automatically be detained to find out what the reason for travel is, or at least long enough to check thoroughly the individuals body and carry-on for any contraband. Another responsibility of the international counter-terrorism task force is to educate all people worldwide of the effects and repercussions that these terrorists and the terrorist organizations are inflicting on everyone. The lesson that the American media taught through coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing was that Americans do not like to see other Americans being killed (Grosscup, 117). The same philosophy may be the key to the international success of attacking terrorism and as well as lead a good majority of the worldwide population to shun these terrorist organizations. Granted this technique will not work on all people, but reduction in the number of active terrorists as well as those that may sympathize with terrorist movements makes the mission of the war on terrorism easier.
As long as the people of the world are educated on the fanatical acts that are taking the lives of innocent and decent citizens, the possibility of siding against a terrorist organization becomes greater. Another part of educating, which has had more than substantial results, is to utilize the media for an international most wanted list. To many times the most wanted lists are put out and the only people to see them are government employees. The show Americas Most Wanted has resulted in a 94 percent capture rate of the criminals profiled according to a recent CNN report.
The reward is partially an incentive, but the greater reward of peace of mind is what motivates the everyday citizen to pick up the telephone and make the world a safer place. An approach similar to this can be adapted for the international scene utilizing all mediums (internet, newspaper, television, radio, etc. ) to disseminate information on the terrorists and the organizations that are responsible for terrorist actions. The approach of using the all-available media to contact as many people as possible will help to bring a good majority of the terrorists to justice. With the implementation of an international counter-terrorism task force, the individual nations will not only have the assets of each others information, but each others personal skills as well.
The situation where one nation may want to coordinate a human intelligence operation, but may not have enough manpower to properly set the mission up can be solved with virtually unlimited skilled personnel trained to adapt to the said mission. The international task force would be able to set up a translation center as well, allowing foreign-language translators to more easily assist investigators of terrorists from anywhere in the country. The assets for setting up an international counter-terrorist task force are already established. The many different national counter-terrorist task forces that already exist all have the basic same goals of ridding the world of all threats to peace. The only thing that the international community needs is to do is work together against the evil terrorist forces that have set out to destroy the very fundamental right that the majority of the world has come to enjoy: The right to enjoy a life without fear. The events of September 11, 2001 will continue to haunt the world until the world fights back with an effective plan to prevent future attacks.
In order for any nation to be safe from the evils of terrorism the nations of the free world need to unite against the forces of hatred and fight back together. By forming an international counter-terrorist task force, the world will be better prepared to defeat terrorism. WORKS CITEDGrosscup, Beau. THE NEWEST EXPLOSIONS OF TERRORISM. FarHills: New Horizons, 1998.
Thornberry, Mac; Congressman. FDCH Congressional Testimony. 24 Apr 2001. UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training andResearch). GLOBAL TERRORISM.
AMU Reprint: New York, 2000.
