 back to ThinkTech. This is Global Connections and our show today is all about whether the United States is safe from Middle Eastern terrorism or putting it broadly from terrorism. Is terrorism in the United States likely or could it be inevitable? Our guest to discuss this subject is group body conductor. She's a global thinker and a strategic analyst. And let me introduce the subject this way. So we have had several generations of hate in the Middle East and Islam has developed a lot of groups that are terrorists in nature. And there are people, in fact, there are state actors that use terrorism, like they use proxies in war for their own purposes. And every time you look, there is more terrorism, better armed, better directed by rogue states like Iran. And we have to get a handle on this. But you know what? They could get into this country. And there are already people in this country who are so angry and so motivated, radicalized, that that's a great concern. It's happening in Europe and it's happening elsewhere in the world. Terrorism is a sign of our times. And I suppose you could say it's happening in Russia or from Russia because every day I read Medusa and I find out that Mr. Putin is doing more assassinations inside of Russia and outside of Russia. And he's denying responsibility, but we know better. So is that terrorism? And is that terrorism that's extraterritorial? And of course, we have to look at Mr. Trump because he gives license to violence, even judges prosecuted in jurors, and likes to create chaos. Is that domestic terrorism too? Or could it get to be domestic terrorism? So here we are, Rupati Kandekar. And I put the question to you first, welcome to the show. But second, is the United States safe from Middle Eastern terrorism? What do you think? Hello, Ajay. Thank you for having me on such a relevant topic and always a pleasure to be with you. So, Ajay, US is not immune to terrorist threats from its conflicts in the Middle East. Now, the proximity is, the distance is huge, but the terror, the possibility is so near for all of us. It just can't be underestimated. And that's what we're going to discuss today, that it's in the news, the latest that San Francisco airport was shut down because of Gaza protesters. So you see something which is happening across the land and sea is affecting US life. And that's what makes Middle East politics so relevant to America. Ajay, terrorism is something, as the name suggests, we still don't have a definition for terrorism in Indian national politics, because one man's freedom is one man's terrorism. That is the thing that they jumble around with. And they don't have a set definition for terrorism. Even though it brings about a loss of life and property and everything, they don't have a definition of terrorism. So terrorism just stays to the point of creating terror or creating havoc in people's lives. And America as a country, we know it's a gravitating thought for immigrants, immigrants who have come for economic prospects. The nationalism, the patriotism for a country which is a relatively a new country in human civilizations. It has just existed for a few years, 200, couple of decades. But we have these civilizations which have gone for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. So you see, Jay, loyalty comes to forth that how much patriotism do you have for the country? How much will you give up for the country? How much will you protect the country? That comes into question at every point when we have these porous borders. How much do you protect America as a land of your own is a big question when you have migrants who have come in and settled. When you treat the land as your own, it's very fine. I agree But when you have, you know, Middle Eastern politics, now Jay, it's a little bit technical because Islam is one of the only religions who has a political roadmap. Now the political roadmap is a three-stage this they have that it is first Darul Aman, that is a land of peace where you where you just go and you cannot do anything, you maintain peace and calm. So that is the first stage. And the second stage is Darul Harab, that is land of conflict where you think that you can establish yourself, you struggle and you try to establish that is the movement and the dynamic stage. And second third one is Darul Islam where the entire world is a land of Islam. So that is the ultimate goal to transform it into Islam where it would be, now these concepts Jay are very technical because in the Islamic world, there are two categories of human beings between us and infidels. So you don't have a gray zone, it's a black and white, you're my friend or your enemy, that makes it more dangerous and whether they say it or not Jihad is a violent struggle for your means. So that brings about using means to achieve your ends which have no moral standing and that becomes a problem Jay because see Middle East is a zone where the US has maintained relations with all 18 nations except for two Iran and Syria. Otherwise the US United States has got diplomatic relations with all of them and Jay we see with the frequent visits of the president, the secretary of state, the various delegations that go in, they do go to mediate between conflicts, they do go to diffuse escalating tensions time and again, they have allies, they do have their stance on international conflicts but all of that has an effect on domestic because when these frustrations and indoctrinations enter US borders, terrorism is very easy to execute Jay. You can't have lines of defense against terrorism. If a suicide bomber is coming, how many lines will you put in front of him? Another one will cross, so protecting your subways, protecting your roads from terrorism becomes all the more difficult because your scope is so wide and wide for the terrorists, the target is clear, one car, one bomb, one building. Now the twin towers were symbols of free trade, liberal world, everything you know brought down in two seconds, two flights and you remember Jay, the person who had come to learn flying for during the 9-11, the flying school told him we can't teach you takeoff and landing in this much time, we may only be able to teach you to takeoff and he said that's all I need. So they are so clear cut in their approach to terrorism and defending against terrorism becomes a big question because we are living in a land of liberty. It's very hard to you know screen as you said, you could make a layer of protection but it may not be enough and so for talking about people trying to enter the country doing terrorism, isn't that hard to do that. You know you can get somebody and you can radicalize that person and you can get them into the country so easily. I am reminded of a whole new thread of YouTube videos that I've seen pop up on my screen about people smuggling, smuggling cigarettes, contraband, animal skins, even weapons through airports and you know the police in Europe, they catch them one way or the other and they you know either they confiscated, they send them home or even you know detain them and prosecute them but that's something visible. You don't need to carry anything into the country except an idea, a mission, a determination to be a terrorist from outside and then you you know you meet up with other people who will help you when you collaborate to do terrorism but you can get through the airport pretty easily unless you have you know a visible record of having participated in in terror overseas. So I think you know it's entirely possible that people can come into this country with the notion with the intention of doing terrorism and we don't have a way to stop them. I'd go a step further and say if you ask Homeland Security right now for a list or even a number of all the people in the country and on what kind of visa, they wouldn't have that. It's not just the southern border. This has been the case for decades. They don't have it with all of the AI and data processing competence we may have in Silicon Valley. We can't give you that list. We have no idea who's here, who's here legally, who's here illegally. So the point is you can have a whole gang of terrorists here and the government really not necessarily would not know about it. The FBI claims to know who's here and they claim to be following people who are risks. I'm not sure that's true. I don't you know and furthermore we have the constitutional protections we can't do the kind of investigation that maybe would help that Mr. Putin would do. So I think that entirely possible if not inevitable that people would come from outside and do that and they would find weapons and France here and the United States is only a question of time before somebody does that. So the question I asked you is are they motivated? Is it that Iran would send somebody? Is it that Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis would send somebody to the United States in order to do terror? Today if Bin Laden from the Torabora Mountains could send his guys to the American soil, these people are trained, they have the mercenaries who will give up their lives who are indoctrinated and who have a frustration against America. And for them advertising a terrorist attack is more important than anything else. We have learned in the Israel Hamas war that the October 7th attack was the advertisement that all the Hamas needed. So this kind of show and tell that they have the blitz that they want to create is only possible when they send these snipers targeted attacks through American borders. And Iran has doesn't have relations with America since 1980 when 79 when they bought the embassy in the US or Syria has, we always talk about these frustrations and indoctrination because mindset plays a very important role in terrorism that power to execute has to come through very deep thwarted frustration. And that's what happens when you have these countries and the language that they use is of constant domination that the US presents itself as. But the US has never ever done something to go and frustrate them to an extent that they come across the lands and create this. We always wanted to solve it within the Middle East. But the spilling out of effects is because they simply don't care about human life, the destruction that entails after the 9-11 towers. We're still talking about it, 2001. How attractive is the US as a target for terrorism? For terrorism such as you see on the streets of the West Bank and terrorism such as we saw in 9-11 and terrorism in terms of destroying institutions, buildings, government offices and the like. How attractive is it to a terrorist say in Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis to come to the United States and blow something up? Are we more attractive in targets in the Middle East? And what would be achieved exactly? Attractive is the right word, Jay, because there is a lot of liberty and fraternity that goes around in America. And that's what helps them. So that liberty that they can take to come in, enter, establish themselves and attack symbols with liberty is the point. We don't have restrictions. If it was an authoritarian, totalitarian country, Jay, these people would be crushed. We don't have a shoot at sight. There was an incident few days back that the New York police was overwhelmed and my PD was overwhelmed by the mob of migrants amongst those migrants who are being transported by school buses, two hotels, two schools. How many of them are being screened like you said? How many of them are being? How do we know their background? You remember one we had spoken about that he was a head of an Algerian terrorist outfit? He walked in. He walked in. The porous boundaries are giving us away, Jay. And once they get into the fabric of the society, it'll be more and more difficult for them. And these people exactly use the tenet of liberty to attack democratic America. I'm reminded of we should not limit this conversation to Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis. The fact is we have Mr. Putin himself, who is an expert at deniable assassinations. Nearly every day, if you read Medusa, which is a bunch of journalists who had to leave Russia and live and write in Lithuania, Latvia, the Baltics, they report on assassinations and attempted assassinations, attacks that somehow magically happened against people who speak out against Putin. And the last one was a hammer attack, just like Nancy Pelosi's husband a couple of years ago, where somebody stopped him on the street and began attacking him by bringing a hammer to his head. He lived, but he was a friend of Navalny's. He was a supporter of Navalny's, and he spoke out against Putin, and that was his reward. So all I'm saying is that Mr. Putin can seem to assassinate, poison, cause attacks to be made against anyone who speaks against him, but he could also be in this country, couldn't he? He could have somebody come in this country and go to a hardware store and come up with a weapon that could be lethal. Don't even have to have a gun. And I'm thinking that that's just as likely in terms of the disordered possibilities that we could have some terror assassination, if you will, organized by Vladimir Putin. What do you think? Jay, he's going to access every which way in any place he's going, because right now, after the March 15 election, he's going to be head of state till 2036. And Jay, they work in underhand dealings because that is, that is much easier for them, isn't it? Rather than organized simply the efficiency of the attack, the strike rate of the attack would be much higher when they have this one on one coming for poisoning, for assassinations, for anything like this. Putin is very, very sharp in this kind of warfare because that keeps him, he's a spy. We don't, we need to forget, he's trained, he's excelled in this kind of activity from the beginning, this underhand dealings that they do, they know what they're approaching. And Jay, conventional warfare and terrorism are completely opposite. And they work against each other in absolute efficiency, Jay. Like a terror attack would destroy the most powerful military setup ever with one suicide bomb or, you know, one targeted attack or one assassination. So this symmetrical balance is very real. Well, inherent in terrorism is terror, as you say. And it seems to me that the United States right now is on a trajectory to an election in November, which is what seven months away. And in terms of what motivates people to organize terrorism and to do terrorism here in this country is somehow connected, don't you think, to the fact that that election is coming. We are involved, you know, in the ninth inning of our long, long, you know, campaign here between Biden and Trump and others, many others running for Congress. And so it seems to me that the risk somehow is increased as we get closer to that election. That is that somebody organizing terror would have a greater motivation to, you know, change the nature of the public opinion and the election at the vote as we get closer. What do you think? Yeah, Jay, you're very right. These election timings are more chaotic. They have more approachable points that they can come forward to. Like, just to give a reference point when Afghanistan was attacked in the 80s and the attack in America happened in 2001. So this frame, time frame that they need for their frustrations to take place, Jay, is the time zone that we're looking at. We don't know when they will strike and what they will do. And, you know, Jay, the vulnerability of America is that the entire, what is that? The scope that the terrorists have. Anywhere it can be, street, your subway, your office, your building, your airport, your anywhere. They don't have a limit to that. How many things can we protect is the question, Jay. And citizens coming forward to help that creates the exact thing that they're looking for. They're going for terrorism and it's going to create that fear, that terror. You know, we have talk of arms being restricted, Trump comes up with one point, Biden comes up with one point. But Jay, we have spoken about this in a few of our programs that personal security becomes the issue at the end of the day. How much can you protect it when it comes to your own zone? What is your line of personal protection becomes the line? And when the terrorist comes to your door, how much can you protect? Then state apparatus, your defense goes a little bit step further. You know, we haven't talked about cyber terrorism. In cyber terror, you don't have to come through an airport. You don't have to bring in weapons. You don't even have to organize a terror group in this country. What you have to do is do electronic cyber terrorism. And you can do that from anywhere in the world, anywhere. And it can be bringing down a power plant, bringing down some critical infrastructure. And you know, although we haven't seen it, it's clear that you could bring things down so as to injure people, kill people, destroy cities, simply by doing cyber terrorism. You know, to me, that's a great risk. And it's like there's a war of deterrence going on. What I mean is maybe the Russians are not going to do that because they know that we would try to do it to them. So we deter each other. But the possibility exists that with modern technology and software and telecommunications, the Russians could hit significant institutions and industrial organizations in our country without even leaving Moscow. What do you think? Is that a greater risk or a lesser risk of terrorism from afar? No, Jay, you're right about this. It becomes all the more easy for these people to attack power grids, your surveillance systems, everything from a distance. Cyber terrorism is a huge risk today in an interconnected web world. And Jay, Russia and America both are capable of tackling cyber terrorism. But Jay, I'll tell you, Russia will never go head on. It will always use a proxy rogue state that we have. And they pay to do their dirty work. That becomes the problem, Jay. We cannot deal directly with Russia because they always have proxies. We never know who is the proxy, like how Iran is the proxy in this war. Russia has always used proxies. So that is one thing to trace the origin of the cyber terrorism also becomes a bit tested. And, yeah. Deniability. They want to have deniability, so they separate themselves. But we know who's running the Internet Research Agency in Moscow. We know that. We can put two to two together. Let me also bring China into this. China is very good at cyber terrorism. It's very good at insinuating Internet elements into our society that could be activated. For example, there was a piece on 60 Minutes not too long ago about how the Chinese were one of the largest crane makers, construction cranes in the world. I don't know why we aren't. We used to have the steel. Now, Japan is trying to buy US steel, if you haven't seen that. But China has lots of steel and China builds cranes. And this is not only limited to cranes, but there was a suggestion that China was building cranes that are automated, right? With your cell phone, you could operate a crane that's hundreds of feet tall of thousands of tons of steel in a shipyard, a moving cargo. And likewise, if something was insinuated into the software, somebody with a cell phone could deactivate the crane or crash the crane or let the crane fall over in a shipyard. So one fellow walking around with a cell phone could stop trade in the port of Los Angeles. Now, that's terrorism. It's cyber terrorism. And the Chinese have been delivering cranes to all of our ports. And we don't check up on that, and we don't know. So there's no point of being paranoid about it. But at the same time, I think we have to make sure that we are building them ourselves, that we are checking out the software and the control mechanisms, and making sure that nobody can do that to us. I don't think that China should be written off this discussion. China is capable of doing it. And there's a certain indication that it's sort of a sleeper cyber terrorism that China is doing or can do or would do. I think we have to be careful about that possibility. Your thoughts? What relevant point, Jay? What relevant point? China is almost a superpower in this kind of control that they have. And everything was made in China for the past few decades. So they have reached every home, every appliance, every television set, every screen, everything they have reached. And, Jay, how can we forget biological terrorism which we went through COVID? It was one phase that they brought in that they could control the entire world with such a one virus. So one laptop or one computer system or one biological weapon, or you know, you have this kind of mechanisms which they can target and enter your system is the terrorism that we are scared of or we are wary of. And, Jay, when they come in, the destruction may be, we can cover up later on. The compensation will 100% be there. We will recover from it. But the impact that it has is the issue, Jay. The impact of the curtailment of liberty, how many checks we had to go through, airports for or after 9-11 was the issue. How many restrictions, how many eyes would look if you found the suspicious? The ease of mind was destroyed after a terrorist attack. That is what is the most important part. The worry, the terror, the thought process that comes in after terrorism is the vital point during these things. Before we're done here, I want to turn to domestic terrorism for a moment. You know, I mean, sometimes you have people come from other countries and they're in the domestic fabric or they have become domestic and they're, you know, they're sympathetic to outside interests that were likely to damage the United States. But we have people who are very disenchanted about this country. You know, Donald Trump encourages disenchantment. He encourages, you know, people who don't trust the government, who don't trust the country, who are just unhappy people and who, you know, would be fertile ground for terrorism to be terrorists on a domestic basis. I mean, Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Oklahoma Federal Building years ago, you know, he had his reasons, but he was an American as apple pie and that was domestic terrorism. So, you know, I think we have to consider that here. You have people all over the country in the campuses who have not only rallied against Israel and expressed anti-Semitism, but who have rallied for Hamas. And, you know, and through that crowd, there would be people who are essentially sympathetic with Hamas, which is a terrorist organization. How far are they from becoming domestic terrorists, whether they were born here, whether they came here, or not? Doesn't matter. They're really against, they're motivated by hate, and they're against American institutions and American values. And it seems to me that we have a problem that is more serious now than it was, say, a decade ago, because we have more guns in the country. We have more people like the oath keepers and the proud boys and those who participated in the the January 6th insurrection for my money. And I'm not the first one to call them this. They're domestic terrorists, and they can strike any time. And we really haven't, you know, within constitutional limits, we haven't been able to really identify all the risks and deal with them. What are your thoughts about domestic terrorism coming to and expressing itself in the United States? So point on domestic terrorism becomes an issue because the frustrations that came out in the conflict that is happening in the Middle East were so rampant. The protest marches that happened were so visible and they were so forceful, if I use the word, because the vengeance that they display was something more than that would be displayed in the Middle East itself. It was an American soil. And J, this is out of their willingness. Imagine if they were offered money for it. Imagine if they were offered incentives to destroy institutions, if they felt that something would be, they would achieve if they had destroyed, if they destroy institutions. Now the San Francisco airport being shut down, like we said in the beginning of that is to abuse domestic routine. And that becomes a problem, J, because something that is happening in the Middle East is still affecting American domestic areas. And like you say, domestic terrorist or domestic mindsets, they come out of very acute frustrations, acute their inability to understand that what is happening over there is nothing to do with now. Nothing to do with here. And if they want to do anything about it, they should go and fight the front line in the Middle East rather than put it over here on where they enjoy the tenets of democracy, J. Don't forget that all these people, they live in a democratic state, they enjoy a democratic life, but they want to destroy the very institutions of democracy, the state apparatus, the police, everything protects your democracy. And domestic terrorists always attack these symbols. Well, you know, we have, we have Mr. Trump, who encourages chaos, he encourages extension and division. I mean, any, any good autocrat or would be autocrat, you know, will do that in order to enhance his own power. And so here he's running, and it's possible that he'll become president again. And an unrestrained president, he'll do more of that than he has been doing. That's one possibility. And the other possibility is Joe Biden, who is sort of straddles the issues in the Middle East. And for that matter, he straddles the issues in Ukraine also, where he sort of plays both sides of the fence in various ways. So my question to you, this is not an easy question with Marty, are you ready for a difficult question? You know, after all, you're a global geopolitical strategist. So I want to ask you a question like this. Is it riskier in this very poorest country in which we live? And that porousness is not limited to the borders. It's porous as we have discussed in so many other ways. In this very poorest country, is it more likely that we will, this is a hard question, more likely that we will see domestic terrorism or terrorism, whether from the outside or the inside, more likely under a Biden administration next time round, or a Trump administration next time round, which is riskier in terms of our defenses to terrorism, both foreign and domestic, and to our vulnerability to it? That's a very difficult question because we are in a phase of change day right now. Biden's policies are very slow and understanding. And Trump will come up with a display of show and tell of patriotism and the Abraham Accords. And he being the savior, Messiah of all the problems of the world, throwing out climate change, throwing out the U.N., throwing out NATO. And he will create peace. He claims to be the only president who has never had any war in his time. He's crossed the North Korea border. He is literally made for the television screen. He is really show and tell. And Biden has been doing this process, domestic violence. And I don't know what the MAGA will come up with with the euphoria that they will have if they have a possible victory is one of the things that everybody has to keep about. The clashes which happened, our reminiscent of the Civil War when the red and the blue fought. So that kind of face comes in when you have these affinities and you have these loyalty staring you apart between the red and blue. What we really need right now in America is harmony within domestic area to be able to fight external pressures and terrorism. We don't need a divided America to withstand terrorism change. That is so vital whether Biden, whether Trump, you know, there has to be unity in American politics and the civil society. There doesn't have to be a civil war at all amongst them. You know, you refer to Trump. If he loses, we might have another insurrection. So that changes the calculus, I think. If the people have voted for Biden, you know, cause Biden to win, that doesn't mean that Biden will be unopposed by Trump in another insurrection. Doesn't have to be exactly the same kind, but it would be an insurrection because that's what he does. He doesn't accept succession of power. And so if that happens, that sort of changes the odds, doesn't it? So it means that if whatever happens in this election, either way, there might be an insurrection here or at least a vulnerability to violence and to what I would consider domestic terrorism. But I have one more question for you, everybody. This is in a way more difficult. Let's get practical. Let's roll up our sleeves. I'm going to make you advisor to the White House today, which I think you should be. And the question is, what do we do? What do you advise the administration to do in this very poorest country with not only poorest borders, but poorest airports and poorest society? What do we do to protect ourselves and to deal with people who would do us harm on a terrorist basis? What organizations would you bring to bear? What law enforcement would you would you enhance? What steps would you take to protect us in this constitutional society we have where people have rights and you can't just throw them in jail? You have to investigate in a way that's consistent with due process. What would you do? This is a hard question. I must say, this is harder than the previous question. What's your answer to that? Jay, we are in a transitional phase right now. Total transition and the anti-incumbency factor against Mr. Biden is so high right now that we don't know what is exactly going to happen. If America had to go for it, we needed to strengthen the police departments in every state, they should be given, they are given a bad name through one killing or one racist coloring that the police department has. It's not true, they do protect us in daily lives. Security institutions have to be strengthened. The civil liberties which we have, they will have to be curtailed because at risk is the entire American population. Jay, any society which is as liberal as the American society, it's difficult to say that it will have the same liberties as before because another terrorist attack will just curtail everything. So, before that, there should be a little bit of raising of the screenings. The borders have to be not this porous that is happening. You have AOC and everybody coming up saying help the migrants. That kind of woke talk has to be curtailed. American security and American nationalism has to be put to forefront because to screen these people, terrorism is a very personal contribution that happens of every citizen. Only then terrorism can be curtailed because terrorism itself is a very personal affair. When they take it to their personal vendetta, then terrorism happens. So, protection against terrorism comes to a point where there is your personal investment in it. When you are ready to give up part of your freedom, when a citizen is ready to come up with the means to be aware, means to help the government and the government and the citizens work hand in hand. And like we said, unity between America has to be at the forefront. Nationalism, patriotism for your country has to be at the forefront. It's a land of gravitating, it's a gravitating land of immigrants. But it has to be a country which loves the American soil. Yeah, I hope we can get back to that to be the next greatest generation. I got one more that you touched on that I want to ask you about, everybody. There are many people that say, well, what do you have to do if you want peace in the world and you want to cut off the possibility of terrorism? It's simple. You get rid of Netanyahu and you have a two-state solution and everybody will be happy. And there will be peace in the land and thus, at least from foreign sources, there'll be peace. There'll be less likely to have foreign terrorism come to the United States. What are your thoughts about that? Is that likely to solve this problem? My point of view is that let Netanyahu get rid of Hamas, which will solve the problem properly. And how about the two-state solution? The Biden administration is pushing that and I'm saying, is that really a solution? Is that a practical solution for Israel or for us? They really don't deserve it because Gaza was given as an independent property completely. They were free to do what they want. They built tunnels. They built tunnels to attack Israel on the fateful day of October 7th. They chose that the liberty that they have, they chose it to create terror in Israel on October 7th. So can we risk it again? Can we risk another attack? No. Emphatically, no. Yeah. Okay. I'm with you, Rubadi. Rubadi Kandikar and geopolitical strategist that really helps us out to understand what is going on there and also here in the United States. Thank you so much, Rubadi. Thank you so much. Aloha.