Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
AT: Failed States Terrorism
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AT: Failed States TerrorismFailed states don’t lead to terrorism Stewart Patrick (research fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.) 2006: Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? http://twq.com/06spring/docs/06spring_patrick.pdf A closer look suggests that the connection between state weakness and transnational terrorism is more complicated and tenuous than often as sumed. First, obviously not all weak and failed states are afflicted by terrorism. As historian Walter Laqueur points out, “In the 49 countries currently designated by the United Nations as the least developed hardly any terrorist activity occurs.”27 Weak capacity per se cannot explain why terrorist activity is concentrated in particular regions, particularly the Middle East and broader Muslim world, rather than others such as Central Africa. Other variables and dynamics, including political, religious, cultural, and geographical factors, clearly shape its global distribution. Similarly, not all terrorism that occurs in weak and failing states is transnational. Much is self-contained action by insurgents motivated by local political grievances, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), or national liberation struggles, such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. It is thus only tangentially related to the “global war on terrorism,” which, as defined by the Bush administration, focuses on terrorists with global reach, particularly those motivated by an extreme Salafist strand of Wahhabi Islam. Third, not all weak and failing states are equal. Conventional wisdom holds that terrorists are particularly attracted to collapsed, lawless polities such as Somalia or Liberia, or what the Pentagon terms “ungoverned spaces.” In fact, as Davidson College professor Ken Menkhaus and others note, terrorists are more likely to find weak but functioning states, such as Pakistan or Kenya, congenial bases of operations. Such badly governed states are not only fragile and susceptible to corruption, but they also provide easy access to the financial and logistical infrastructure of the global economy, including communications technology, transportation, and banking services.28 Fourth, transnational terrorists are only partially and perhaps decreasingly reliant on weak and failing states. For one, the Al Qaeda threat has evolved from a centrally directed network, dependent on a “base,” into a much more diffuse global movement consisting of autonomous cells in dozens of countries, poor and wealthy alike. Moreover, the source of radical Islamic terrorism may reside less in state weakness in the Middle East than in the alienation of de-territorialized Muslims in Europe. The “safe havens” of global terrorists are as likely to be the banlieues of Paris as the wastes of the Sahara or the slums of Karachi.29 In other words, weak and failing states can provide useful assets to transnational terrorists, but they may be less central to their operations than widely believed. If there is one failed state today that is important to transnational terrorism, it is probably Iraq. As CIA director Porter Goss tes- tified in early 2005, the U.S.-led invasion and occupation transformed a brutal but secular authoritarian state into a symbol and magnet for the global jihadi movement.30 AT: Failed States ProlifFailed states don’t have the resources to proliferate Stewart Patrick (research fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.) 2006: Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? http://twq.com/06spring/docs/06spring_patrick.pdf As with terrorism, the risk of proliferation from weak states is often more a matter of will than of objective capacity. This is particularly true for WMD proliferation. The technological sophistication and secure facilities needed to construct such weapons would seem to require access to and some acquiescence from the highest levels of the state apparatus. This may be less true for small arms proliferation. Some weak states simply lack the capacity to police the grey or black market and to control flows of such weapons across their borders.
Stewart Patrick (research fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.) 2006: Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction? http://twq.com/06spring/docs/06spring_patrick.pdf Yet, if state weakness is often a necessary condition for the influx of organized crime, it is not a sufficient one. Even more than a low-risk operating environment, criminals seek profits. In a global economy, realizing high returns depends on tapping into a worldwide market to sell illicit commodities and launder the proceeds, which in turn depends on access to financial services, modern telecommunications, and transportation infrastructure. Such considerations help explain why South Africa and Nigeria have become magnets for transnational and domestic organized crime and why Togo has not.39 Criminals will accept the higher risks of operating in states with stronger capacity in return for greater rewards.
Holly Ramer 7/2 /09 “Plant disease hits eastern US veggies early, hard” http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jUaRHVqY9wF145J22CxSuZmkpuyQD996QTV03 CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Tomato plants have been removed from stores in half a dozen states as a destructive and infectious plant disease makes its earliest and most widespread appearance ever in the eastern United States. Late blight — the same disease that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s — occurs sporadically in the Northeast, but this year's outbreak is more severe for two reasons: infected plants have been widely distributed by big-box retail stores and rainy weather has hastened the spores' airborne spread. The disease, which is not harmful to humans, is extremely contagious and experts say it most likely spread on garden center shelves to plants not involved in the initial infection. It also can spread once plants reach their final destination, putting tomato and potato plants in both home gardens and commercial fields at risk. Meg McGrath, professor of plant pathology at Cornell University, calls late blight "worse than the Bubonic Plague for plants." "People need to realize this is probably one of the worst diseases we have in the vegetable world," she said. "It's certain death for a tomato plant." 2. Famine inevitable – oil vs. food Debora MacKenzie 6/16/09 “Obesity and hunger: The problem with food” http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227121.800-obesity-and-hunger-the-problem-with-food.html Unfortunately not. We produce our record harvests by harnessing fossil-fuel energy for farming. Thermodynamics rules: you can't get something for nothing. Oil prices have begun to climb, and will keep climbing as oil sources diminish. Meanwhile, demand for food grows. So food prices are on the rise, boosted further by climate change, demand for biofuel, and limits on soil and water. Higher food prices mean that the impoverished eat less nutritiously - or simply less. 3. Demographics will escalate even the most minor disaster Juniper Russo Tarascio, November 26, 2008 “Famine in America? Why 99% of the U.S. Is in Danger of Starvation” http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1218309/famine_in_america_why_99_of_the_us_pg2.html?cat=3 This transition is a distressing one indeed. While demographic shift from rural to urban lifestyles may seem like a blessing to many who loathe the hard labor associated with rural, agrarian life, it may spell disaster for those who are struggling through life in the Big City, hundreds or even thousands of miles from their food sources. During the Great Depression, formerly wealthy executives stood in line for hours waiting in ragged clothes for a hand-out of hot soup, while the rural "poor" went about life as usual, barely noticing the Depression. Survivors of the Depression who lived in agrarian regions often joked that they were "too poor to notice the stock market crash", but they were, in fact, better off than the majority of inner-city workers in that they never went hungry. As a result of this, the one-half of Americans with access to their own home-grown foods were exempt from the horrors of the Great Depression. Now imagine that, instead of 50% of the population suffering from the woes of an economic collapse, it was the 99.2% who are not involved in agriculture full-time. The comparison makes 1929 look like a walk in the park. Worse still, our food transporation services are now fully dependent on massive amounts of petroleum for transport, and the distances of food transporation have increased from tens of miles to thousands, which makes the modern grocery network look even more fragile by comparison. Directory: files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. Tropical Cyclones documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> Cartographic Concepts for Realizing a Location Based umts service documents -> 1/ Background Statistics Human development index rank Download 2.71 Mb. Share with your friends:
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