War and Secrets

Allied freighter attacked and sunk by German U-Boat

From the German point of view, it was the Second Happy Time. During 1942, the Axis sank 609 Allied ships totaling over 3 million tons at a cost of only 22 U-boats. It was, indeed, a happy time for the Germans as they focused their attention on the east coast of North America. Lack of preparation, no blackout of American cities, and an underequipped Atlantic U.S. Navy led to enormous German success.

(The First Happy Time was in 1940 and 1941, as Germany took on the unprepared British Royal Navy and the convoys they protected).

There was one other key to German dominance of the shipping lanes: Engima. Enigma was a German cipher machine used to encrypt messages. Enemy military commanders were able to gather intelligence and send orders with little chance of eavesdropping by the Allies. Convoys were discovered and submarines ordered to intercept in complete secrecy. The toll on Allied shipping was appalling.

The British established a top-secret effort at Bletchley Park to take on the challenge of breaking Enigma. To complicate matters, there were several variations of the machine in varying degree of sophistication. With the able assistance of Polish mathematicians, the British began to gain some success in decoding Luftwaffe and German Army messages. But the German Naval Enigma was a substantially different machine and defied cryptanalysis. Our convoys were sitting ducks.

And then fortune smiled. On October 30, 1942, the British Air Force spotted the German submarine U-559 on the surface off the coast of Egypt.  The airplane summoned the destroyer HMS Hero which closed on the submarine and forced it to submerge. Other destroyers joined the hunt and U-559 was severely damaged by depth charges. Losing trim, she came to the surface and was boarded by British sailors who retrieved her Enigma machine and code books.

Meanwhile, brilliant mathematician Alan Turing, who had been working on code breaking at Bletchley Park, turned his attention to the Naval Enigma. (Alan Turing is the father of our digital computer – thank him as you use your laptop computer or iPhone). Turing was finally able to break the Naval Enigma code using his deep experience at Bletchley and the newly obtained U-559 materials. The Second Happy Time came to an abrupt end for the Germans, and the sealift of men and materiel accelerated as we prepared for the invasion of the continent.

The Bletchley Park operation was very complex. It involved spies in the field, the best mathematical minds, radio listening stations, and science-fiction room-sized calculating machines like Colossus. And all of this was top secret and continued to be so long after the war had ended. All who were involved were required to sign the Official Secrets Act and vow to remain silent. And this secrecy was vital to ensure that the Germans did not know that their codes had been broken. The lives of millions and the very outcome of the war were at stake.

In thanks, the British recognized Turing by awarding him the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1945, then convicted him in 1952 of the criminal act of homosexuality. Turing kept his silence and committed suicide two years later. (Last month, over 60 years too late, the Queen issued a Royal Pardon “in fitting tribute to an exceptional man”.)

Which is why it is so incongruous that Edward Snowden has hundreds of thousands if not millions of fans.

Snowden revealed far more than the NSA collection of telephone metadata. A Pentagon report just sent to Congress asserts that most of the documents Snowden took relate to military operations. According to House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, "The vast majority of the material was related to the Defense Department, and our military services," not NSA operations.

You might think, “So what? We’re not in a real war.” And you would be wrong. Our struggle against the virus of radical Islamic jihad is no less grave than those earlier anti-submarine patrols on the dark, storm-tossed Atlantic.

The lives of our citizens and the lives of our troops are now less secure thanks to Mr. Snowden. You can be a fan if you like. But Alan Turing, who sacrificed much and contributed even more, would most likely disagree.

Reflections on the Boston Marathon Bombings

Dr. Richard Falk, B.S., L.L.B., S.J.D., a Princeton professor and special envoy to the United Nations, has thought deeply about America’s place in the world.  And he has come to the conclusion that the Boston Marathon bombings are our own fault. Dr. Falk thinks that America is involved in a “global domination project” and we are reaping the anger that we deserve. Of course, Dr. Falk also believes that 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration, a view shared by other such intellectuals as Zubeidat Tsarnaev (the bombers’ mother) and TV host/comedian Rosy O’Donnell.   

The truth, as is often the case, is far simpler: violent Islamic jihadists are at war with us. Disturbingly, a growing number of plots and attacks are originating from “homegrown,” or domestic, sources.

According to a Congressional Research Service report published on January 23, 2013, there had been sixty three violent jihadist plots since September 11, 2001, four of them successful. (We know those numbers now to be sixty four and five, respectively). The CRS study did include plots hatched on foreign soil if the conspirators were American citizens or legal immigrants. It did not include those planned or attempted by foreign nationals, whether on U.S. soil or not (such as British “shoe bomber” Richard Reid).

The study included another finding of note – that the pace of these plots and attacks has increased since 2009.

What are we to make of this? What shall we do?

First and foremost, we must be honest with ourselves and recognize our adversary. The administration, in a Harry Potter-like dodge of “he-who-must-not-be-named,” refuses to acknowledge that the enemy is violent Islamic jihadism.  Case in point – the Army has classified the murder of 13 American troops and the wounding of 32 more by Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood as “workplace violence.” Politically correct contortions such as these strain our credulity, causing our government to lose credibility and, thereby, our trust. 

Next, it goes without saying that Muslims at large are not the enemy. There are only a small proportion of Muslims who believe in the validity of violent jihad. And even these zealots are within their rights to hold this belief. It is the even tinier fraction of fighters who have crossed the line from thought to action, who are willing to visit unspeakable evil on innocents in the pursuit of their goals. These are the enemy, and we must name them and confront them.

Finally, we must not misjudge the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism. It is no less real than that emanating from foreign soil. The wonder of the Internet and social media has a dark side, and that is in the ease with which ideas can be communicated and reinforced. Hasan, the afore-mentioned Fort Hood attacker, traded many emails with his mentor, Imam Anwar al-Awlaki. In one exchange, he asked al-Awalki “when [is] jihad appropriate, and [whether] is it permissible if innocents are killed in a suicide attack?” Hasan added, “I can’t wait to join you in the afterlife.”

Violent Islamic jihadism is like a virus – it jumps from mind to mind and is either embraced, amplified, or is rejected. It doesn’t infect all whom it encounters. An even smaller number of these, severely infected, are moved to action. To fight this epidemic, our best hopes lie in close relationships and cooperation with the Muslim community. They do not want to see the name of their great religion besmirched. Interfaith services and activities should be encouraged. Community policing, with proper sensitivity, is a must.

A final, important thought. While we must recognize that the inhuman evil perpetrated by the Tsarnaev brothers was a successful bombing attack, it was an abject failure as an act of terror. The people of Boston were not terrorized. Their shock and disbelief quickly morphed into cold, resolute anger: this shall not stand. It did not. And it will not.