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By Ervin Staub

A few hours after the 9/11 attacks, speaking on our local public radio station in Western Massachusetts, struggling with my tears and my voice, I said that this horrible attack can help us understand people’s suffering around the world, and be a tool for us to unite with others to create a better world. Others also said similar things. But that is not how events progressed.

Our response to that attack led to three wars we are still fighting, including the war on terror. How we fight these wars and what we do to bring them to an end will shape our sense of ourselves as a moral people, our connections to the rest of the world, our wealth and power as a nation, and our physical security.  What can we do to reduce hostility toward us, strengthen our alliances, and regain our moral leadership in the world?

One of the basic principles of human conduct is reciprocity. As one party strikes out at another,  the other, if it can, usually responds with force. Often the response is more than what is required for self-defense. It is punitive, taking revenge, teaching the other a lesson. But the first party  takes this as aggression, and responds with more violence. Israelis and Palestinians for many years engaged in mutual and often escalating retaliation, sometimes reciprocating immediately, sometimes, the Palestinians especially, the weaker party, waiting for the right opportunity.

Many young Muslims, and even non-Muslims converting to Islam, have been “radicalized” by our drone attacks, and our forces killing civilians in the course of fighting. The would-be Times Square bomber has talked to people about his distress and anger about such violence against Muslims. While we kill some who plan to attack us, especially as we harm innocent others, more turn against us.

Of course, we must protect ourselves. But positive actions are also reciprocated—not always, but often, especially if the intention for the action is perceived as positive. Non-violent reactions and practices must be part of effective self-defense. Respect is one of them. Many Muslims were killed in the 9/11 attacks, and we should have specifically included them in our public mourning. Many Arab and Muslim countries reached out to us afterwards, even Iran, and we should have responded more than we did to their sympathy and support. Effective reaching out is more challenging now, and after the mid-term elections the world might see reaching out by President Obama as acting out of weakness. But the U.S. is still the great power, and both the administration and members of Congress ought to reach out to the Muslim world.

But even as we show respect and work on good connections, we ought to stop supporting repressive Muslim regimes. That has been one of the grievances against us. An important source of Al-Qaeda has been Egyptian terrorists, who fought against a secular repressive Egyptian regime. Then as Al-Qaeda was organized by the Mujahideen, who fought against and defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, they turned from such “near enemies” against the far enemy, the United States, which supported these repressive regimes.

Another important matter is dialogue between parties. Dialogue can be abused, used simply to gain time, or as a show to pacify third parties, or can even be a fraud as in Afghanistan where an “impostor” played the role of a Taliban leader in dialogue with the government . The Bush administration strongly opposed dialogue with terrorists—but then with money and other inducements got Sunnis in Iraq, who have been attacking us, to work with us. In persistent dialogue, in contrast to the very occasional negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the parties can develop relationships, gain trust, and then become ready to resolve practical matters.

To resolve our wars, we cannot simply bomb and shoot. We must also

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What does Osama bin Laden really want from us? Listen to this podcast and find out.

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You can also look back at past episodes on the archive page.

Featured in this Episode:

Michael Scheuer was the chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999 and remained a counterterrorism analyst until 2004. He is the author of many books, including the bestselling Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism (recommended by bin Laden himself). His latest book is the biography Osama bin Laden which he recently discussed on The Colbert Report (and this podcast!).

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The Ben Daniels Band

Six thousand tons of sunscreen wash into the ocean every year, exponentially encouraging the growth of viruses that attack coral reefs and other marine plant life. So, protecting your child’s tender parts as you romp on the beach is potentially contributing to the demise of flora half a world away. I’m not a “butterfly effect” believer--no wing flapping causes a tsunami--but a statistic like that makes you think. Call me an environmental wacko or whatever else means I care about the world I’m walking in and will leave behind, I know there is a cosmic connection between everything and everyone, and it is our job to protect it and our honor to be part of it. This notion of interconnectedness is, in large part, what led to my choice of vegetarianism. I couldn’t keep allowing other creatures to come to harm for my benefit. I thought of the direct link between actions and their impact during a moment of silence in observance of 9/11. My heart kept crying, “I’m sorry!” to all the souls of that day. Sorry for your suffering. Sorry for your death. Sorry for your life lived in chaos. Because of the ties that bind us, the human fabric tore, leaving ragged edges. But if we are united in tragedy, so, too, are we connected in joy. Debra Frasier’s On The Day You Were Born is a message to each little soul that the community of Earth anticipated their unique arrival with wonder. I like that idea.

http://www.amazon.com/Day-You-Were-Born/dp/0152579958

http://www.debrafrasier.com/

and never forgetting.

It isn't enough to talk about peace, one must believe it.
And it isn't enough to to believe in it, one must work for it.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by
which we arrive at that goal.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

It's so hard to long for peace in a world where people are trying to kill us. I mean where does defending ourselves stop and peace really begin? Maybe the answer is that peace, the longing for it the working for it, has to be everywhere, in everything we do. It has to be as big a force as the threat. Peace has to start at home. Thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families and our brave troops all over the world. I wish I could hug them all.

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By Sharon Zukin

Of all the mosques, in all the towns, in all the world, why did this mosque cause a furor in this town? I’m speaking about Park51, an Islamic “community center promoting tolerance and understanding,” as its website says, which is being planned to replace an old five-story building in Lower Manhattan that formerly housed a Burlington Coat Factory store with a modern, thirteen-story multi-service facility modeled on Jewish community centers and the YMCA. The burning issue of course is that this location is two blocks from the World Trade Center site where nearly 3,000 men and women died in a terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. A terrorist attack planned and carried out by…Muslims.

But this is New York, for goodness’ sake, which prides itself as – and is often excoriated for being – the most cosmopolitan city in the United States. And it’s not even a mosque, or not exclusively a mosque; it’s a cultural center mainly for Muslims but with an interfaith board of directors, outreach programs for members of the surrounding residential community and a small memorial to the victims of the World Trade Center attack, as well as space for prayer. Park51 is projected to be a place for learning, recreation, and, oh yes, preserving the religious identity of the one million Muslims who live in New York City and the many Muslims who work in Lower Manhattan, some of whose co-religionists—bond traders, street vendors, computer technicians, restaurant workers—were 9/11 victims too.

The plan for Park51, as yet undeveloped and with uncertain funding, won approval this summer from a series of public authorities who have jurisdiction on the matter. From the local community board, an advisory commission that must give its opinion on every change of land use in its district, to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Committee, the city council, and the mayor, every public official declared the project has a right to build in its chosen location. After the controversy broke and the Anti-Defamation League declared its opposition—but before the construction workers’ union said they would not work on the project and President Obama supported American Muslims’ right to worship where they choose (within unspecified political limits), the governor offered to mediate talks about choosing a different location. Apparently a new location might be less insulting to those who feel an Islamic center would defile the “sacred ground” where victims died.

Most New Yorkers would prefer to move Park51 farther from the WTC site but keep it in Lower Manhattan. But they also believe that Muslims have a right to build a mosque wherever they choose; they want Muslims to compromise, not yield their constitutional freedom to worship.

This ambivalence is not surprising. You would think a Muslim center that promotes tolerance would find a home in this most ethnic, most tolerant, most global of cities. But we know from all the controversies that have erupted around rebuilding the World Trade Center site that nothing about this location is either local or normal. Especially not a mosque and not when thousands of Americans are rallying against immigrants of all kinds and “Arabs,” whatever their religion or looks may be, are portrayed as terrorists in both popular films and high-class novels.

Just two weeks ago in midtown a Muslim taxi driver from Bangladesh was slashed by a passenger, an und

By Edward E. Curtis IV

Like Gettysburg, the National Mall, and other historic sites, Ground Zero is a place whose symbolic importance extends well beyond local zoning disputes and real estate deals. The recent controversy over a proposal to build a Muslim community center two blocks away from the former World Trade Center shows it clearly: the geography of Lower Manhattan has become a sacred ground on which religious and political battles of national importance are being waged.

After New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission gave its approval for the demolition of the building now located on 45-47 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, the Rev. Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice announced that it is suing to stop the project.

Though Robertson’s organization is supposedly dedicated to the “ideal that religious freedom and freedom of speech are inalienable, God-given rights,” it is not primarily concerned with religious rights, at least not the rights of Muslims. It is instead part of a loose coalition of Americans who have identified the presence of Muslims, both at home and abroad, as a primary threat to both the United States and the Judeo-Christian heritage.

Their Muslim-bashing has deep roots in American history. Since the days of Cotton Mather, the New England Puritan minister, many Americans have associated Muslims with religious heresy. In the early 1800s, as the United States waged its first foreign war against the North African Barbary states, politicians, ministers, and authors regularly used themes of oriental despotism, harems, and Islamic violence in political campaigns, novels, and sermons.

Later, when the U.S. failed to quell Muslim revolts during the U.S. occupation of the Philippines in the early twentieth century, U.S. Army Gen. Leonard Wood called for the extermination of all Filipino Muslims since, according to him, they were irretrievably fanatical.

Islamophobia, an odd combination of racism, xenophobia, and religious bias, receded in importance during the 1900s as the specter of communism replaced it as a primary symbol of foreign danger. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, stereotypes about the Islamic “green menace” have once again become a central aspect of our culture.

This time Muslims are fighting back. Their civil rights and religious leaders are challenging this old American prejudice, in part through unprecedented interfaith community activism. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the leader of the group proposing the Muslim community center near Ground Zero, is one of them.

In response to questions about why he wants to build a community center so close to Ground Zero, Rauf has said that he wants the community center to be a source of healing, not division. Rauf also pledged that Park51, as the project is now called, will be a “home for all people who are yearning for understanding and healing, peace, collaboration, and interdependence.”

Rauf has powerful friends–or at least allies. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who choked up defending the right of Muslims to build the community center during a speech in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, argues that “we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves…if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.”

Those who agree with Mayor Bloomberg represent the other major faction struggling for the American soul at Ground Zero. For them, the American soul is imperiled when its founding ideals are cast aside. In this case, the ideal is the first amendment guarantee of the free exercise of religion. “Of all our precious freedoms,” said Bloomberg,

Richard English was born in 1963 in Belfast, where he is Professor of Politics at Queen’s University. He is a frequent media commentator on Irish politics and history, and on terrorism, including work for the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NPR, Newsweek and the Financial Times. His latest book is Terrorism: How to Respond, which draws on over twenty years of conversations with terrorists themselves, and on analysis of a wide range of campaigns - Algeria, Bader Meinhof, The Red Brigade, ETA, Hezbollah, the IRA, and al-Qaeda - to offer both an authoritative, accessible analysis of the problem of terrorism, and a practical approach to solving it. In the original post below, Professor English lays out what he sees as the seven key elements in responding to terrorist violence.

This summer’s fatal terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Spain and Iraq in their various ways reflect a paradoxical reality: despite the unprecedented efforts made since 9/11 to combat terrorist violence, the terrorist problem remains at least as prevalent as it was before the commencement of the ‘War on Terror’.

Indeed, the situation has in some ways grown worse. The number of terrorist incidents recorded globally in 2001 was 1732. By 2006 – five years into the War on Terror – the figure had risen to 6659. The monthly fatality rate from terrorism in the years immediately preceding 9/11 was 109; in the five years after 9/11, the monthly death-toll from terrorism rose to 167 (and this excluded deaths from attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq – with those included, the monthly death-toll rose to 447).

Of course, there are no easy solutions to the terrorist problem. The longevity of this form of violence is a testament to that. But this long history of terror is, perversely, a tremendous resource as we seek to deal with this global, murderous challenge. For we do, in fact, have a huge body of experience to draw on as we consider how best to deal with the terrorist threat. There are – or should be – a long list of ‘known knowns’ in terms of what we should and should not do about terrorism.

The difficulty tends to be this: each state faces each its own new terrorist crisis in effectively amnesiac fashion. Depressingly for those of us who research the history of terrorism, the same mistakes tend to be made each time, as though the lessons required re-learning. I remember a conversation with a scholar in Washington DC in 2006, in which I suggested that the US might have learned far more than it apparently had about how to deal with terrorism, from historically-informed scrutiny of what other states had been through. ‘Ah, but we have to see our own crisis as exceptional,’ I was told. This is, perhaps, true enough as a depiction of prevalent opinion. But it is no less depressing, and damaging, for that.

In 2003 I published a history of the IRA. At that time, the IRA was in the process of leaving history’s stage just as the post-9/11 crisis meant that terrorism itself was becoming a global preoccupation as never before. So it seemed worthwhile to try to set out the lessons of history – Irish, but also drawn from other settings – in a systematic and accessible way, to try to address the problem of what we should do when the next terrorist crisis strikes.

My argument as a result of that process is that we can only effectively respond to terrorism if we learn the lessons of terrorism’s long history, but that we can only learn those lessons if we adopt a proper means of explaining terrorism, and that we can only explain it if we are honest and precise about exactly what terrorism is in the first place. So, what is terrorism? Why do people resort to terror? What can we learn from terrorism past? How should we respond?

The seven key elements in a response to terrorist violence, as I see them, are:

First, learn to live with it. Politicians have all too often tried to give the impression of a resolve to uproot terrorism altogether, which is self-defeating and unrealistic. Individual terrorist campaigns will come to an end, terrorism itself will not, and our best approach is to minimize and contain it.

Second, where possible, address the root causes and problems which generate awful terrorist violence. This will not always be possible (neither the goals of the Baader-Meinhof group nor of Osama bin Laden could be delivered). But there are moments in history when effective compromise can be reached, normally after terrorist groups themselves recognize that their violence is not bringing anticipated victory, and that a turn to more conventional politics makes sense.

Third, avoid an over-militarization of response. There is an understandable temptation after terrorist atrocities to respond with military muscle, and this can have beneficial effects. It has also, on very many historical occasions, back-fired, with rough-handed military action and occupation stimulating that very terrorism which it was intended to stifle.

Fourth, recognize that high-grade intelligence is the most effective resource in combating terrorist groups. From 1970s Germany to 1990s Northern Ireland there have been many cases where intelligence has decisively aided the constraining of terrorist campaigns.

Fifth, adhere to orthodox legal frameworks and remain wedded to the democratically produced framework of law. All too often the Abu Ghraib pattern has been evident, with the state transgressing the line which distinguishes its own legal activity from illegal brutality: such transgressions tend to strengthen rather than undermine terrorist violence.

Sixth, ensure the coordination of security, financial, technological and other counter-terrorist efforts, both between different agencies of the same state, and between different states allied in the fight against terrorist violence.

Seventh, maintain strong credibility of public response. Any resort to implausible caricatures of one’s enemies will prove counter-productive among that constituency which is potentially supportive of terrorist violence but likely – if presented with credible alternatives – to recognize the futility as well as the appalling bloodiness of terrorist action.

All of the above points were ignored during the post-9/11 response of the War on Terror, and each of these errors has made our current position more difficult.

Richard English is Professor of Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast, and author of the award-winning books Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland. He is also a frequent media commentator on terrorism and political violence. His latest book, for OUP, is Terrorism: How to Respond, in which he argues that the post 9/11 War on Terror has been a spectacular failure because politicians have ignored the lessons of the past. Drawing on over twenty years of conversations with terrorists themselves, he offers a practical approach to solving the problem of terrorism.

After the jump is a video of Richard English talking about the book, filmed by Meet the Author.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A continuation of last post...

3. 7th Anniversary of 9/11: Really, this whole country was affected, but not everyone was directly affected (didn't lose loved ones in the planes, twin towers, or Pentagon). This year, I decided to just say a little prayer to God for the continued strength of those who lost loved ones. I opted not to watch the shows that replay the images of that day. In the past, every time I watched the shows, my heart hurt. Listening to the frantic calls of the ones who didn't make it...seeing the towers fall...looking at the big hole in the Pentagon...learning that the passengers in United 93 decided to do something about the hijackers...I just didn't want to do it this year (watch the shows). The images are already forever etched into my brains. To me, it was the day America learned that she was not untouchable. I will NEVER forget that day - couldn't, even if I wanted to.

4. 12th Anniversary of Tupac's Death: Tomorrow, September 13th, will mark the 12th anniversary of Tupac's death. I felt it (in my heart) when I'd heard that he was gone, like, is this some kind of sick joke? He's not really dead...is he? And now, some magazine has listed Tupac as the most overrated person in music (link: http://news.yahoo.com/story//nm/20080903/music_nm/overrated_dc)! I mean, come on, really? I have to admit, I'd gotten tired of the "Tupac's really alive" comments that circled around since his death, BUT, to say he's overrated, in IMHO, is just plain...dumb. Pac is one of the best. His death didn't stop that. Now, he's not my all time favorite rapper (Nope, Jay Z has that title), but he is in my top 5. Overrated? I don't think so!

And last, but certainly not least,

5. Hurricane Ike: So, we're preparing for Hurricane Ike right now. It hasn't even made landfall yet, but Galveston is already having flooding issues. The waves have started crashing over the sea wall, built to protect Galveston from hurricanes. They've predicted that, after all is said and done, Galveston will be under water. I'm in Houston, which means we won't get the storm surge, but we will get the wind and rain (and, in some areas, the flooding). Thankfully, I don't live in an area that has bad flooding. We're just concerned with the wind and electricity going out. The reporters are comparing this hurricane with Hurricane Alicia, which devastated both Houston and Galveston in 1983. This is going to be weird for me. I've never been in a hurricane - always had the threat, like H. Rita - but never been in one. Hurricane Alicia hit here a year before we moved to Houston and Hurricane Rita skipped our area (although one of our windows blew out) and hit the areas about an hour or more away. My family's preparing, though. Got the food, batteries, gas, etc. The 'cane isn't set to hit 'til early tomorrow morning, but the sky's getting a little darker, and the wind is picking up on what would normally be a scorching, sunny day. My prayer is for all of us, especially those who have homes in Galveston. And, can you believe that there are still some people who refuse to leave? I'm not talking about people who can't leave. I'm talking about those who can leave, but are refusing to. Everyone (Galveston's mayor, reporters) is saying how imperative it is that they leave (even to the point of saying it's life or death) but they won't. I can't understand that. It's already flooding and Ike hasn't even hit yet. Those waves crashing above the sea wall? About 15 ft. Did I say that Ike hasn't even hit yet?

Galveston Seawall on a good day...see how far the water is?

Galveston Seawall today...15ft waves crashing against the wall.

My thoughts go back to that fresh sunny morning 7 years ago. My prayers go out to all who grieve and have suffered from the tragedy that day. 

James W. Jones is Professor of Religion and Adjunct Professor of Clinical Psychology, at Rutgers University. His book, Blood That Cries Out From the Earth: The Psychology of Religious Terrorism, looks at what makes ordinary people evil. Jones argues that not every adherent of an authoritarian group will turn to violence, and he shows how theories of personality development can explain why certain individuals are easily recruited to perform terrorist acts. In the article below Jones argues that understanding people who turn towards terrorism is the first step to halting their violent acts. Check out Jones’s webpage here.

How much do we really know about terrorism? The short answer is “a lot” and “a very little.” “Terrorism” — as the cliché about one person’s terrorist being another’s freedom fighter suggests — is more often used as an epithet or a bit of propaganda than a category useful for understanding. There is general agreement that terrorism is not an end in itself or a motivation in itself (except perhaps for a few genuinely psychotic individual lone wolves). No movement is only a terrorist movement; its primary character is more likely political, economic, or religious. Terrorism is a tactic, not a basic type of group.

The first step in clarifying this topic of “understanding terrorism” is to become clear about the purpose of our attempts to understand terrorism. Part of the confusion over the understanding of terrorism results from the more basic confusion of not knowing what we want our explanations of terrorism to do for us. Before we undertake to “explain” terrorism, we should be clear as to what we want this “explanation” to accomplish? Many hope that understanding terrorism will help predict future terrorist actions. Others hope that it will help devise effective counter-terrorism strategies. Will a psychological, or political, or military, or religious understanding of religious terrorism aid in those goals?

I know from my work in forensic psychology that predicting violent behavior in any specific case is very, very complicated and very rarely successful. And dramatic acts of violence that change the course of history — the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand that lit the match on the conflagration of World War I, the taking hostage of the American embassy in the Iranian revolution, the 9/11 attack — are rarely predictable. We can list some of the characteristics of religious groups that turn to violence and terror. I have studied some of the themes common to Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist groups that have turned to terror. We can also outline the steps that individuals and groups often go through in becoming committed to violent actions. The NYPD has done exactly that in a recent study. But I remain skeptical that any model will enable us to predict with any certainty when specific individuals or groups may turn to terrorism. There are warning signs we should be aware of. But these are signs, not determinants or predictors.

As for counter-terrorism, it is an important strategic principal that one should know one’s enemy. We succeeded in containing the expansiveness of the former Soviet Union in part because we had a detailed and nuanced understanding of the Soviet system. Understanding some of what is at stake religiously and spiritually for religious groups that engage in terrorism can help devise ways of countering them. So a religious-psychological understanding of religious terrorists’ motivations can be an important part of the response to them.

In the months following 9/11 I often heard demagogues on the radio say that psychologists (like me) who seek to understand the psychology behind religiously motivated violence simply want to “offer the terrorists therapy.” The idea that one must choose either understanding or action — that one cannot do both — is an idea that itself borders on the pathological and represents the kind of dichotomizing that is itself a part of the terrorist mindset. Such dichotomized thinking, wherever it occurs, is a part of the problem and not part of the solution. I worked for two years in the psychology department at a hardcore, maximum security prison. But I never thought of that as a substitute for just and vigorous law enforcement. Understanding an action in no way means excusing it; explaining an action in no way means condoning it.

There is, however, a deeper issue here. Understanding others (even those who will your destruction) can make them more human. It can break down the demonization of the other that some politicians and policy makers feel is necessary in order to combat terrorists. The demonization of the other is a major weapon in the arsenal of the religiously motivated terrorist. Must we resort to the same tactic – which is so costly psychologically and spiritually – in order to oppose terrorism? Or can we counter religiously motivated terrorists without becoming like them?

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Amos N. Guiora is a Professor of Law at the S. J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, where he teaches criminal law, global perspectives on counterterrorism, religion and terrorism, and national security law. He served for nineteen years in the Israel Defense Forces.  Recently he testified before the House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommitee about the importance of sharing information in preventing terrorism.  You can watch the video here and download the transcript here.

On May 15, 2008 I testified before the House Of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment. The Subcommittee, chaired by Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Cal) was particularly interested in the subject of resilience—that is whether government and business alike are prepared for a terrorist attack on two different levels: preparing for an attack and ensuring continuity in the aftermath of the attack.

The two issues—before and after—are the essence of counter-terrorism preparation. For them to be truly implementable, government must engage in information sharing on all three levels (state, local and federal) and also with the business community. While the idea of information sharing with the business community raises important –and legitimate—questions within the law enforcement community, it is an absolute requirement.

During the course of my testimony, the Members of the Subcommittee were particularly interested in the difference between the American and Israeli cultures—in particular how Israelis respond to terrorism and understand that attacks are, in a sense, inevitable and how that understanding enables society to more quickly “rebound” in the aftermath of an attack. Furthermore, Members inquired as to the nature of the information sharing relationships and whether this did not raise important legal and constitutional issues.

To ensure a resilient homeland in a post-9/11 society, the United States must have a homeland security strategy that (1) understands the threat, (2) effectively counters the threat while preserving American values, (3) establishes a system of accountability, and (4) creates public-private and federal-state partnerships facilitating intelligence sharing and the continuity of society in the aftermath of an attack.

It is necessary to work with clear definitions of the terms and concepts that frame this strategy for resiliency. As I have previously articulated, “one of the greatest hindrances to a cogent discussion of terrorism and counterterrorism has been that the terms lack clear, universal definitions.” For this reason, I provide clear, concrete definitions of terrorism, counterterrorism, homeland security, effectiveness, accountability, and resiliency—the key terms in articulating the strategy for a resilient homeland. In addition to these definitions, I include two critical matrices for: Determining Effectiveness and Implementing Accountability.

The central focus of this testimony examines the dire consequences of the break-down in communications following both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, which suggests that in order to realize resiliency in the future, it is paramount that there is clear cooperation and coordination between the public sector and the private sector. Effective resiliency will ultimately be tied to establishing public-private partnerships.

In establishing these partnerships, they must be based upon three critical components: (1) clearly defined roles and responsibilities; (2) articulating a coordinated prevention-response plan; and (3) repeated training and/or simulation exercises using the prevention-response plan against realistic disaster/terror scenarios. By strategically strengthening security, sharing intelligence, and creating plans for post-attack procedures (such as evacuation plans, transportation plans, establishing places of refuge, and having basic supplies available to aid first-responders) private partners become the key to a secure and resilient homeland.

The importance of information before, during and after a disaster or attack is vital to resilience. Information sharing is, perhaps, the single most important aspect of successful resilience. Information sharing requires government agencies (federal, state and local) to share information both amongst themselves and with the private sector. Furthermore, it requires that the private sector—subject to existing legal and constitutional limits—share information with the public sector. Successful information sharing requires cooperation and coordination both internally (within sectors) and cross sectors (between public-private entities).

The lessons of 9/11 and Katrina speak for themselves. Resilience in the aftermath of either disaster or attack requires federal, state and local government agencies to understand that information sharing is vital to the nation’s homeland security. That information sharing process must include the private sector. Otherwise, the mistakes of yesterday will inevitably re-occur.

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Look. I know there are illustrators out there who read this blog. I know this because I keep pronouncing some of you "hot" in as obvious a way as possible. And I know that all illustrators, irregardless of gender, make just gobs of money and have nothing better to do than lounge about on their private yachts, sipping lemon martinis and informing the handsome pool boys that they "missed a spot". This is all common knowledge. So since you have nothing better to do, why not use your artistic talents for good instead of evil? I am referring of course to the Cybils Award. Right now it looks something like this:

Simple. Utilitarian. Gets the job done and doesn't pussyfoot around. Problem is, it doesn't stick onto dust jackets all that well. A pity that. Y'know what would stick well? A redesigned award of a circular nature. Perhaps one that somehow managed to convey that it was handed out by bloggers. Hmmmm. But where oh where to find someone with the chops to design such an image?

Here's what I figure. You design something schnazzy (snazzy with a 'ch' in it) and apropos. You then send said image to Kelly Herold and she (in turn) makes cute little stickers out of it. THEN your art ends up on the cover of all sorts of books for years and years and years to come. Instant fame! Instant recognition. Instant tiny kisses to your feet.

Go for it, dudes. It's like getting a chance to redesign the Newbery only with a 21st century twist.