September 11, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher ...



September 11, 2006 FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Project Activity Report

(1) CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS:

Kay, Jonathan. "Sept. 11, 2001, Nov 1, 1922, Oct 2, 1187, Nov 27, 1095, Oct 10, 732, etc." , September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "There are many ways to conceive September 11, 2001. On a personal level, it was a tragedy for the 2,973 known victims and their family members. And on a military level, it represented the first blow in a war against terrorism that still rages strong in Afghanistan and Iraq. But five years after the fact, its status as a historical watershed also has become clear: September 11, 2001 represents one of the most significant dates in the 14-century long history of conflict between Islamic civilization and its Western counterpart."]

(2) FEMA REGION VI HISTORICAL BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES INITIATIVE:

Talked with Ross Richardson at FEMA Region VI today concerning the FEMA EM HiEd Project. He is working with Southern University in Baton Rouge, in its efforts to work with the other 30 HBCU's in Region VI, to spread the word about hazards, disasters and what to do about them. Mr. Richardson wanted to know how the HBCU's could access EMI training and education courses and also asked about HBCU attendance at EMI training courses.

(3) HOMELAND SECURITY:

Ervin, Clark Kent. Qaeda Set The Bar High." New York Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "So why haven't we been attacked in five years? Terrorists - especially those directed by or affiliated with Al Qaeda - are committed to carrying out spectacular attacks that maximize death, injury, economic damage and political symbolism.... For the future, we must take a hard look at how to improve the Department of Homeland Security, which has earned its reputation as the most dysfunctional agency in all of government. It has played little role in keeping us safe since 9/11.... The good news...is that we are unlikely to see many future attempts to strike our homeland. The bad news is that the few we will see are likely to be giant in scale, and the likelihood that the Department of Homeland Security will be able to stop them is small."]

Hess, David. "Chertoff Offers Progress Report on Anti-Terrorism Efforts." Congress Daily, September 8, 2006. At:

[Note: Based on Secretary Chertoff's speech at Georgetown University last week, noted then herein.]

Islam, Ranty. "Competition Heats Up for Homeland Security Dollars." Christian Science Monitor, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

(4) KATRINA:

Olsen, Florence. "5 Lessons From Katrina." Federal Computer Week, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: ""If there is one lesson to take from Hurricane Katrina, it's that effective government is absolutely essential... Based on lessons learned from Katrina relief operations, the government should seek to hire an adequate number of effective workers, better coordinate with state and local governments and private groups, study past successes and failures, and appoint chief management officers who have five-year mandates to transform agencies' core workforce, information technology and financial management functions. The fifth lesson is that the government needs to invest the time, money and intellectual capital necessary to implement those four recommendations."]

(5) MITIGATION:

Chan, Sewell. "9/11 Has Spurred Only Modest Changes in New York City and National Building Codes." New York Times, September 9, 2006. Accessed at:

Schleifstein, Mark. "Plan For Rebuilding Coast To Be Ready in November." New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 9, 2006. Accessed at:



(6) 9/11:

Greenfield, Heather. "Federal Report Responds to Internet's 9/11 Theories." National Journal, September 8, 2006. At:

Los Angeles Times. "9/11/06 - Five Years Later, Some Complacency Has Returned, But With the New Knowledge That Our Easily Distracted Openness is Also a Strength." September 11, 2006. At:

[Excerpt: "What died on 9/11 was the illusion that history had ended. The halcyon Clinton years were a deceptive interlude between the fall of communism and the collapse of the twin towers."]

(7) PANDEMIC:

McNeil, Donald G. Jr. "Immediate Treatment Needed for Bird Flu Cases, Study Says." New York Times, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Avian flu kills in much the same way the global flu pandemic of 1918 did, by drowning victims in fluid produced in their own lungs, a new study has found. The study also suggests that immediate treatment with antiviral drugs is crucial, because the virus reproduces so quickly that, if not suppressed within the first 48 hours, it tends to push victims into a rapid decline to death."]

Schmid, Randolph E. "Study Adds Details on Bird Flu, Humans." Associated Press, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "When bird flu infects people, the virus is more concentrated in the throat than the nose, the opposite of human flu. This finding may help doctors more quickly diagnose the bird flu in people."]

(8) PREPAREDNESS -- NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION:

Sheridan, Mary Beth. "Emergency Readiness Questioned - After Scrutiny, Homeland Security Adds Funds, Personnel." Washington Post, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

(9) WAR ON TERROR:

Abramowitz, Michael. "War's Critics Abetting Terrorists, Cheney Says." Washington Post, 11Sep06.

Agence France-Presse. "Global Media Abhors US Response to 9/11." September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Newspapers across the world have strongly criticized the US response to September 11, accusing the Bush administration of bungling its "war on terror" and squandering global goodwill by invading Iraq.... Many Arab newspapers said the US campaign and the invasion of Iraq had pushed the world closer to a clash of civilisations between the West and the Muslim world.... Egypt's semi-official Al-Ahram compared Bush to the mastermind of the attacks Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. 'Five years ago, the history of the world changed twice, once in the hands of Bin Laden and his gang, and once in the hands of Bin Bush and his administration'."]

Behn, Sharon. "Afghan Envoy Seeks Military, Financial Aid." Washington Times, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "We will not be able to stabilize the country if we don't build up the domestic security forces and have development in the countryside," Mr. Jawad said. "Had we invested more in development, we would have had less security problems today."]

Brooks, Rosa. "All The Wrong Places." Los Angeles Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "IN June 2005, Karl Rove came up with an effective new quip: Liberals, he declared, wanted to respond to terrorism by offering "therapy." In the White House advisor's view, "Conservatives saw what happened to us on 9/11 and said: we will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: we must understand our enemies." Today, it's hard to regard Rove's remark with anything but heartsick disgust. Despite the five years that have passed since the Sept. 11 attacks, we're nowhere near defeating our enemies - in large part because we've never made the slightest effort to understand them." Article goes on to review three new books related to war on terror: Louise Richardson's book "What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat;" Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton's book "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission;" and Richard Posner's "Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency."]

Cella, Paul J. "The Victory of September 11, 1565." , September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "The idea of religious war is not something modern man ever really contemplates; he only shudders at it. But this, for our enemies and thus inevitably also for us, is a religious war, whether or not we in the secular world of the West will take it seriously. If men choose to make war against you on religious grounds, you cannot change the fact of this religious war by wishing it weren't so. This one, moreover, has been a very long war, waged over souls and for the souls of whole nations; therefore it has been slow and erratically conducted. Rare is the war that occupies the leaders of more than one generation of men; rarer still is the war that occupies leaders of more than one age of men. This one has occupied medieval men, renaissance men, modern men, and it will surely implicate postmodern men. It began in what we call the Dark Age and has not yet ended; and we would do well not to sneer at a war that has gazed with patient, jaded eyes on the Battle of Tours, the fall of Constantinople and the Siege of Vienna; the victory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and her defeat; the break up of Catholic Europe and the decay of Protestantism; and the rise and fall of Feudalism, Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy, each in turn."]

Daalder, Ivo H. "Five Years After 9/11 - A Balance Sheet." Brookings Institution, September 6, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "The biggest winner in the global conflict that followed the strikes against the World Trade Center and Pentagon is Islamist jihadism.... Another group of winners are states like Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan.... What about the losers? Top among them must be Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization he created and led.... The biggest loser in the last five years...trust in America - in its power, purpose, and principles - has been eroded not just among its foes but, more importantly, among its friends."]

Davidson, Amy. "The World After 9/11." New Yorker, September 4, 2006. Accessed at:

[Amy Davidson talks to Seymour M. Hersh, Jon Lee Anderson, and George Packer about Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on terror, and whether America is stronger now. A Seymour Hersh excerpt: "The other possibility was that the nineteen hijackers were the equivalent of a pickup basketball team that made it to the Final Four. His guess was the latter. I think that's true." (Discussing a conversation he had with a CIA "official" shortly after 9/11.)]

[Jon Lee Anderson excerpt: "I think that Al Qaeda achieved in the attacks of 9/11 a blow so dramatic that it seemed to the Islamists to strip away the defenses and the perceived invincibility of the world's greatest superpower, and it became possible, in a psychological and even tactical way, for others to try to emulate it. So whether or not Al Qaeda is operationally as potent as it was around 9/11 doesn't matter."]

George Packer excerpt: "...we do not truly compete for hearts and minds, because we're not willing to pony up to invest, to show that America isn't only about war, or being crusading Christians..." Went on to contrast Hezbollah in Lebanon with U.S. in Afghanistan after large-scale ground operations ended: "Immediately following the ceasefire, after four weeks of bombing, Hezbollah announced that it would pay for the reconstruction of homes for the tens of thousands of people whose homes had been destroyed in the Israeli bombardment-for the homes, a year's worth of rent, and new furniture-and would itself rebuild, with funds from Iran, no doubt. Hezbollah effectively captured people's loyalties.... Following the American police action in Afghanistan, to chase the Taliban into the hills, almost nothing was done to rebuild the country."]

Fischer, Joschka. "Don't Forget Our Values." New York Times (Op-Ed by German Foreign Minister from 1998-2005). 10 Sep 2006. At:

[Excerpt: "...the question is, were the terrorists successful? The answer is mixed. In the aftermath of 9/11, the world was united with America. Even in Arab and Muslim countries, the sense of shock and feelings of solidarity with America far outweighed any sympathies with the terrorists.... Immediately after 9/11, Al Qaeda seemed to be losing its battle with America and the West. Unfortunately, that changed when America invaded Iraq. The fight against the jihadists will not be decided simply on the battlefield; it will also be decided in the sphere of international legitimacy. We know that Islamic extremists celebrate death through martyrdom, and the killing of innocents. But what are we in the West fighting for? We fight for our values: for our freedom, for democracy, for the rule of law, the equality of all human beings and for peace. In this context, Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the situation in Iraq could hardly be called successes. Against the new totalitarian challenge of Islamic extremism, we have to defend our values; and this means sticking to the values of our democratic societies, even under fire."]

Garamone, Jim. "Enormous Damage Done to al Qaeda Since 9/11, Cheney Says." American Forces Press Service, September 10, 2006. At:

Goldsmith, Jack L. and Adrian Vermeule. "How War Can Bring Peace." New York Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "OFFENSIVE action abroad has protected the homeland. Our military presence in Afghanistan and our aggressive policies around the globe have seriously disrupted the enemy.... Some maintain that such offensive action feeds resentment and spawns more terrorism. But if aggression can create resentment, passivity and defensiveness can inspire contempt. Our weak responses to Qaeda attacks on the Khobar Towers, the African embassies and the destroyer Cole, and our withdrawal from Somalia, emboldened the enemy and allowed it to organize and train for the 9/11 attacks."]

Grier, Peter. "Five Years After 9/11: A Shifted view Of The World." Christian Science Monitor, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Yet on one thing Muslims appear to agree: nearly 90 percent of the public in Islamic countries view the US as the primary security threat to their country..."]

Hirsh, Michael. "Where's the Clarity? Five Years After 9/11, Little of Bush's 'War on Terror' Rhetoric is Making Sense." Newsweek, September 8, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "...year by year, the so-called GWOT (global war on terrorism) has become less and less clear in its direction and goals-and less and less like any previous war. What began as a crystal-clear fight against a small, self-contained group of murderers has become a kind of murky, open-ended World War III in which the identity of the enemy is less certain and our allies seem to grow less reliable."]

Jenkins, Brian Michael. "State of Terrorism Address" (What would Osama bin Laden say to jihadists five years later?). Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Jenkins Excerpt: "My purpose here is not to parrot Al Qaeda propaganda, but to better understand why it has been so difficult to dent the determination of the jihadists.... (Imagined bin Laden excerpt: "It has been 10 years since we declared war on the United States, 15 since we first assisted attacks on the United States in Yemen and Somalia, 18 years since the creation of Al Qaeda, and a quarter of a century since I first went to Afghanistan to participate in the first truly global jihad, against the Soviet Union. For Americans, this is a long time. For us, it is a mere instant in a conflict that began centuries ago and will last until Judgment Day."]

Jordan, Lara Jakes. "Experts: U.S. Likely To Be Hit Again." Associated Press, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "The threat of terrorism against the United States remains chillingly lethal five years after 9/11, and officials predict another massive attack is not a matter of if - but when." (Note: Compare the tone of this article with the NYT piece by Shane and Bergman.)]

Mahle, Melissa Boyle. "We Can't Kill An Ideology." New York Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Al Qaeda is attacking when and where it chooses.... It has not hit America because it has chosen not to. Whether it lacks on-the-ground capacity for a spectacular attack, is still in the planning stages or is busy elsewhere is under debate within our intelligence community. The point is that five years out, Al Qaeda is as dangerous as, if not more than, it was on 9/11.... (On U.S. successes) these are not death blows - because you cannot decapitate an ideology. Although the majority of Muslims reject the political vision of a Taliban-style Islamic caliphate, many agree with Al Qaeda that the Western-imposed political order is the source of their political and economic woes. Moreover, militant resistance to the current order is gaining acceptance and prestige, aptly demonstrated by the groundswell of popular support for Hamas and Hezbollah in the Muslim world. During the last five years, our priority has been to beef up defenses and take the war to the terrorists. It's time to start discrediting Al Qaeda's ideology and offering Muslims nonviolent alternatives. The first step is to acknowledge that their grievances are legitimate and center on issues of dignity, economic disparity, border disputes and power alignment. The second is to acknowledge that our current approach is only helping Al Qaeda go mainstream." (Mahle is a former CIA Operations Officer.]

Maykuth, Andrew. "U.S. Strategy May Be Helping Taliban, Expert Says." Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Rubin, author of the 1995 book "The Fragmentation of Afghanistan" who has made more than 20 trips to Afghanistan since 2001, placed much of the blame on the Bush administration's focus on destroying terrorists rather than addressing the conditions under which terrorists thrive. 'They didn't understand that Afghanistan was not just a terrorist base',.... "Kabul city now has less electricity than it did during Soviet occupation."]

Randall, David and Emily Gosden. "62,006 - The Number Killed in the 'War on Terror'." The Independent (UK), 10Sep2006. At:

[Excerpt: The "war on terror" - and by terrorists - has directly killed a minimum of 62,006 people, created 4.5 million refugees and cost the US more than the sum needed to pay off the debts of every poor nation on earth."]

Rashid, Ahmed. "Losing the War on Terror" (Why Militants Are Beating Technology Five Years After Sept. 11." Washington Post, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "In the five years since Sept. 11, the tactics and strategy of Islamic extremists fighting U.S. or NATO forces have improved dramatically. To a degree they could not approach five years ago, the extremists are successfully facing off against the overwhelming technological apparatus that modern armies can bring to bear against guerrillas. Islamic extremists are winning the war by not losing, and they are steadily expanding to create new battlefronts.... If this is indeed a long war, as the Bush administration says, then the United States has almost certainly lost the first phase.... As al-Qaeda and its allies prepare to spread their global jihad to Central Asia, the Caucasus and other parts of the Middle East, they will carry with them the accumulated experience and lessons of the past five years. The West and its regional allies are not prepared to match them."]

Rifkin, Ira. "On 9/11, An Inter-Faith Reality Check." Jewish World Review, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "He polished the prose of Muslim leaders so their views would be marketable. He invited them home to break bread. He even attacked his co-religionists in print for not being more realistic. No more."]

Rumsfeld, Donald H. "Commentary: A Force For Good." American Forces Information Service, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "This enemy has made its immediate strategy clear in public announcements and in captured documents: to undermine the Coalition effort in Iraq, drive our forces out, and then use that nation as a base from which to destabilize the surrounding nations. They seek to extend a hoped-for victory in Iraq to a broad part of the Middle East and even parts of Europe and Asia -- to restore an ancient caliphate... We cannot allow the world to forget that America, though imperfect, is a force for good in the world."]

Shane, Scott and Lowell Bergman. "Adding Up the Ounces of Prevention." New York Times, September 10, 2006. At:

[Excerpt: "There is a consensus among counterterrorism officials and independent experts that the government's actions over the last five years - from the dismantling of camps run by Al Qaeda and the decimation of its leadership, to the tightening of visa and border controls, to the scores of terrorism-related prosecutions - have made the country a harder target. The Age of Terror, at least inside the United States, has morphed into the Age of the Foiled Plot. But this very success has led to a new debate. The government says the record vindicates its prevention strategy - to intervene long before an attack is imminent. Its critics assert that officials have exaggerated the threat posed by some accused plotters, painting hapless misfits as Qaeda operatives."]

Silber, Kenneth. "Who's Going to Win?" TCSDaily, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

["...consider some of the fundamental obstacles that stand between the terrorists and victory.."]

Stern, Jessica. "Keep American Muslims on Our Side." New York Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

The Independent (UK). "The Bitter Legacy of 9/11." September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

The Independent. "The World in 2031: How September 11 Could Shape Our Future," September 11, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Last week, the Harvard academic Niall Ferguson offered an optimistic prediction of how our world could look, 30 years after the September 11 attacks. But is the future really so rosy? Will our society and way of life survive the traumas of war, terrorism and climate change? Here, three leading historians look ahead - to a time we can only imagine." (Paul Kennedy of Yale, Michael Clarke of King's College London, and Lisa Jardine, University of London.)]

Tierney, John. "Waiting for Al Qaeda" (The terrorist threat is still small - it's the terrorism industry that got bigger). New York Times, 9 Sep 2006. At:

[Excerpt: "In his (John Mueller) forthcoming book, "Overblown," he argues that the risk of terrorism didn't increase after Sept. 11 - if anything, it declined because of a backlash against Al Qaeda, making it a smaller and less capable threat than before. But the terrorism industry has been too busy hyping Sept. 11 and several other attacks to notice."]

Walker, Martin. "Threat Assessment." New York Times, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "Karl Rove's observation that virile conservatives march forth to defeat their terrorist enemies while epicene liberals seek to understand them was memorable for its partisan venom. Yet the fact is, without making a thorough effort to comprehend the motives, fears and capabilities of Al Qaeda's militants, we can hardly hope to defeat them." Most of article concerns Louise Richardson's recent book "What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat." Walker then writes: "...Al Qaeda is commonly seen as a nihilist group with no negotiable objectives; with an ideology that embraces and glorifies suicide bombings; as so many mad dogs who can only be hunted down and killed. Richardson points out that this is a dangerous misconception. Al Qaeda is neither unique in its organization nor unprecedented in its scale and reach, or in its readiness to inflict mass casualties."]

Whitaker, Raymond. "9/11 - A Bloody Legacy." The Independent (UK), September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

[Excerpt: "The 'war on terror', which began with the attacks on the US, is five years old. It has killed tens of thousands and drawn British troops into conflicts around the world - but in Afghanistan, where the first victory was won, all the gains are in danger of slipping away."]

White House. "Interview of the Vice President by Tim Russert, NBC News, Meet the Press." September 10, 2006, 15 pages. At:

(10) WAR ON TERROR -- IRAQ:

Garamone, Jim. "Cheney Says U.S. Right to Overthrow Saddam." American Forces Press Service, September 10, 2006. Accessed at:

Ricks, Thomas E. "Situation Called Dire in West Iraq - Anbar Is Lost Politically, Marine Analyst Says." Washington Post, September 11, 2006. Accessed at:



B. Wayne Blanchard, Ph.D., CEM

Higher Education Project Manager

Emergency Management Institute

National Emergency Training Center

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Department of Homeland Security

16825 S. Seton, N-430

Emmitsburg, MD 21727

(301) 447-1262, voice

(301) 447-1598, fax

wayne.blanchard@



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