Firewalling of at a connection causes an interstice into a new network. Networks will then run parallel until a connection is made. Are you hoping to create a Pelican Bay (a maximum security prison in CA)? That only breeds hate and destruction.

How do you segment who gets to be free in *a* society? “we are an open society, but we do not have to be an open society for all people at all times.”

Did you look at the opportunity to divide & conquor in the Pew Report? Notably in Section III re OBL and AQ and the alienation these should be feeling in the Muslim world. Do we exploit it? No, not really. In fact, we are nearly oblivious to the differential between AQ and AM (associated movements) that is real. So real in fact, the US military doesn't use AQ in their briefings anymore, they use AQAM. How much are we self-perpetuating a stereo-type, limiting information, and creating images to justify political decisions? Zarqawri is something we created and empowered through our own propaganda. By not properly exploiting the inhumanity of “Them” and focusing on Justice and Law, we lose the opportunity and the high ground. When we stereo-type, we not only polarize but fail to capture significant nuances. West African Islamists are far different than East or Middle East Islamists, but yet I don't see how your modeling allows for this.

This isn't give me a hug and make me feel good but reality based in sociology. Take a look again at Sageman's Understanding Terror Networks, Pape's Dying to Win, and even Major Cox's monograph “Information Operations in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom – What Went Wrong?” and I think you'll read something different in the Pew Research reports.

“By shrinking the bandwidth of the connection between ourselves and feedback we dislike, we force the feedback to the filtered through other, parallel networks. This degrades the feedback, lessening its effect on us.”

This assumes it in no way builds and festers. A patently false assumption that leads to very dangerous realities.

Limiting access to “those communities” in a globally connected world is attempting to short-circuit both physical and electronic communication. Not bloody likely and I'd like to see a model on how this might be done. Dan, this doesn't agree with the reality of interconnectivity.

About Zarqawri, you need to do research on his rise to “fame”, AQ's (yes, AQ's) insistence he reshape his mission, and his 'power' before the US put him on the pedestal for propaganda reasons.

Is OBL also? In a certain way, but nearly as much. There was a reason American political discourse started to marginalize him (in debates) and focus more on AQ itself. OBL however is relatively smart, smarter than most of our other opponents (read AQ's strategic plan… it's available).

Associated Movements is necessary because all isn't C2 from AQ. From entrepreneurs (i.e. pitch a mission, receive money and minor assistance, and go) to simply copy-cats to hopeful that want to 'catch OBL's eye', to trace all back to AQ is to imply and associate too much command and control in a central place and to neglect the power of the middle manager (so to speak) and the propagandist.

The MI of social sciences? I'm aghast… actually I'm not because I don't know what you mean.

Thanks for drawing me out.

“Firewalling of at a connection causes an interstice into a new network. Networks will then run parallel until a connection is made.”

Exactly. By shrinking the bandwidth of the connection between ourselves and feedback we dislike, we force the feedback to the filtered through other, parallel networks. This degrades the feedback, lessening its effect on us. We can see a similar thing happening now, with negative anti-US feedback being able to get no further than the United Kingdom. Also in this case the destructive interference from the filtering networks prevented a connection of the desired magnitude.

“How do you segment who gets to be free in *a* society? “

The simplest solution would seem to be identify communities in the Gap that export terrorism to us, and limit entry of members of those communities. This may take the form of significant visa hurdles on non-citizen Arabs or Muslims, for instance. (Only the Islamic half of the Gap exports much terrorism to us, so it is only that part we must worry about for now.)

I don't know what you specifical mean by “associated movements,” but we have used division to create tactical and operational victories. Among Sunni Islamists, the Muslim Brothers in Iraq endorsed the recent Iraqi elections, for example, that al Qaeda in Iraq opposed. However, as the Romans knew, a lasting divide and conquer isn't based on making yourself seem nicer to people.

I don't know what you mean by “Zarqawri is something we created and empowered through our own propaganda.” Is bin Laden too?

“This isn't give me a hug and make me feel good but reality based in sociology. “

The Mississippi of the social sciences

Stu

Good catch! Geography definitely places Israel in the Seam (which is best defined as those parts of Tom Barnett's “Gap” that are neither African nor Islamic) [1]. (A detail view of the map is available at another blog post [2]], and shows Israel as a smudge of the Seam).

Mea culpa.

[1] http://tdaxp.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/05/18/redefining-the-gap-11-results.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2006/08/11/leave-iraq-now.html

“This assumes it in no way builds and festers. “

Not really, and more likely the opposite. The increase in connectivity between the US and the Islamic World of recent decades has allowed those regimes to divert feedback it dislikes on us. New technologies, combined with our policies, allowed a gaggle of Egyptians and Saudis to give feedback to us that would have been given to local authorities in earlier times. It is that connectivity which allowed allowed violence in the greater middle east to build and fester, because globalization in those parts has short-circuited the local feedback loop.

“AQ's (yes, AQ's) insistence he reshape his mission,”

I'm aware of this, and I lectured to my students on Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi. al Qaeda in Iraq is not al Qaeda, but (as you would say) an affiliated movement. That change either's status as violent feedback that we want over there (forcing those regimes to fight both terror and the causes of terror), rather than over here (which gives those regimes a breather).

On that last joke: Because sociology related fields are famous for their avoidance of quantitative analysis and weak paradigms, little progress is achieved in that field. Just as any other state, no matter how poorly run, can always say “At least we are better than Mississippi,” any other social science, no matter how scandalized, can always say “At least we are better than sociology.” I know Catholicgauze has some unkind words for social geographies, the sociological contribution to his field…

“Nah, let's gather at the S&M bar and talk about how Zionism uses Plan Columbia to stop social justices and then we can gather with the Marxist Specialty Group and try to make the Assoication of American Geographers into an activist group just like we did with the American Medical Assoication.” Hippies! It's called numbers! Use them!