The US Approach toward Islamic Militancy: Current Policies in Historical Perspective
Following the events of 9/11, the US declared a global war on terror and a new strategy based on preemption for defeating Muslim extremism and terrorism. However, the new US strategy so far has not been more successful than earlier strategies in combating either Muslim extremism or international terrorism. Arguably, it may even have contributed to the strengthening of the appeal of Islamic extremism and certain terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda. The principal reason for this lack of success has been the historically inconsistent and contradictory approach of the US to dealing with the problem of Muslim militancy and its manipulation of it for short-term objectives.
Study of revenge : Saddam Hussein's unfinished war against America
"Study of Revenge", the sequel to the "New York Times" best-seller "Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf", co-authored by Laurie Mylroie and Judith Miller, exposes the threat Saddam Hussein still poses to Americans and challenges the Clinton administration to explain why it has obscured that threat. The Gulf War never ended for Saddam Hussein. He had already recovered sufficiently by 1993 to undertake a campaign of terror, of which only the first two acts were planned in advance: the January shootings outside the CIA headquarters in Virignia and the February bombing of one tower of the World Trade Centre in New York, in an attempt to topple it against its twin. This is the story of the Trade Centre bombing. Mylroie contends that the mastermind behind the bombing was an Iraqi intelligence agent, Ramzi Yousef, who escaped and left behind the Muslim fundamentalists who participated in the plot and were meant to be caught. She argues that the Clinton administration's mishandling of the event led to the emergence of a fraudulent and dangerous theory about Middle East terrorism - that it is no longer primarily state-sponsored but is carried out by individuals or "loose networks". The misunderstanding is particularly dangerous in light of the prospects for biological terrorism. In addition to her account of events around the bombing, Mylroie describes how Saddam Hussein has steadily regained strength and eroded the system of postwar constraints that were supposed to hold him in check. She suggests that because of the proscribed unconventional-weapons capabilities Saddam retained in violation of the Gulf War cease-fire - and without the check of UN weapons inspectors - he is far more dangerous than is generally recognized. Mylroie bases her case on a meticulous analysis of the government's evidence in the terrorism trials that followed the Trade Centre bombing. Her book is written as a detective story, and the reader is invited to conduct the investigation into state sponsorship of the terrorism that the US government failed to conduct.
Thermally Induced Dynamics of Satellite Solar Panels
Thermally induced structural motions are known to affect the attitude dynamics of low Earth orbiting satellites during eclipse transitions. Motions of e exible appendages such as solar panels lead to rigid body rotations of the entire satellite because the total angular momentum of the system is conserved. These potentially large attitude disturbances may violate pointing accuracy and jitter requirements. One type of thermally induced dynamics exhibited by solar panels is thermal snap. The Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is a prominent example of a satellite that experiences thermal snap disturbances during eclipse transitions. This paper describes recent studies of thermally induced dynamicsof solarpanels, including an analysisofsatelliteattitudedynamics resulting from thermally induced structural motions and a laboratory investigation of the thermal-structural performance of a satellite solar panel. Analytical and experimental results demonstrate thermal bending deformations with acceleration transients that have characteristic thermal snap disturbance histories in response to rapid changes in heating. The studies show that solar panel thermal snap disturbances are caused by through-the-thickness temperature differences that vary at a nonconstant rate. Finite element analysis correctly predicts the thermal snap phenomenon observed in the solar panel experiments.