Another Award Winning Terrorism Expert

The White House released a new "strategy" paper on terrorism. This morning, NPR states that "for a closer look at the White House Strategy" it will turn to "Bruce Hoffman; he’s a Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown School of Foreign Service." Hoffman also has worked for the US security establishment RAND center which notes that "Bruce has been awarded the United States Intelligence Community Seal Medallion"(from the CIA).

I really tire of the MSM's terrorism experts; as Rami Khouri explains, these experts often know very little, speculate a lot, and "their guesswork is ideologically defined by the prevalent White House script of the day." This fits Hoffman to a tee. In the interview he states,

• "I think the strategy very, very commendably talks about the dynamic nature of terrorism and argues that terrorism is changing and therefore our strategy has to, which is quite right. It also, I think, is remarkably candid; it talks at length about the challenges of ending the sanctuary that terrorists can receive from states and the support that they obtain from states. And then goes on, as I said, very frankly to discuss how Iran and Syria have reemerged as problems after having be quiescent, or after having been, in Syria's case remarkably cooperative during the first phases of the war on terrorism.

It's convenient that Hoffman ignores the history of US terrorist actions and support for terrorism. And of course now (just as the Bush neocons argue) the bogeymen of the disastrous US policy of dominating the Middle East are Iran and Syria--despite the fact that Iran and Syria want nothing to do with the Sunni-inspired jihadists, but are more interested in controlling Shia power movements such as the "government" of Iraq and Hezbollah. ...Some expert!