Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

'Depart Iraq Immediately.' U.S. Embassy Advises Americans to Leave After Qasem Soleimani Assassination

Friday, January 3, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats National Preparedness

Comments: 0

The State Department is urging American citizens to leave Iraq immediately, citing danger in the aftermath of a U.S. airstrike which killed Qasem Soleimani, one of Iran’s most senior military commanders.

President Donald Trump authorized the strike that killed Soleimani, who led the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, at Baghdad’s international airport early Friday morning.

American citizens were specifically warned to avoid the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, which had been besieged by Iranian-backed militias Thursday.

“Due to heightened tensions in Iraq and the region, the U.S. Embassy urges American citizens to heed the January 2020 Travel Advisory and depart Iraq immediately,” the State Department said in a statement released Friday. “Due to Iranian-backed militia attacks at the U.S. Embassy compound, all public consular operations are suspended until further notice. U.S. citizens should not approach the Embassy.”

Soleimani had approved the attacks on the U.S.’s Baghdad embassy in the days before his death, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement confirming U.S. responsibility for the general’s death.

The Pentagon said Soleimani was also “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”

“General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the statement added.

The State Department advised U.S. citizens in Iraq to leave the country preferably by air travel, or failing that, across land borders.

Across the Middle East, security has been ramped up at U.S. military bases in the expectation of retaliatory attacks.

The United States killed Iran's top general and architect of Tehran's proxy wars in the Middle East in an airstrike at Baghdad's international airport on Jan. 2, an attack that threatens to dramatically ratchet up tensions in the region.

(Pictured) People chant slogans during a protest against the assassination of the Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who were killed in an air strike in Baghdad airport, in Tehran, on Jan. 3.

Comments

There are no comments yet. Be the first to add a comment by using the form below.