Thesis (D. Min.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-227).

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CHDS State/Local / The tragedy of 11 September 2001 revealed two major shortcomings: the US military and the Department of Defense's inability to respond quickly to and defend against the threat posed by foreign terrorists to the United States, and the inability of the Intelligence and Law Enforcement Communities to fuse and analyze foreign threat intelligence with domestic law enforcement information in a timely fashion to provide adequate indications and warning of such an attack. The United States Northern Command Intelligence Directorate (J2) has the primary mission in providing accurate, timely, and relevant indications and warnings of potential threats to the Commander, USNORTHCOM. The USNORTHCOM J2 must be able to use all intelligence sources, including law enforcement information, to better understand the potential threats and capabilities arrayed against it. This enables the USNORTHCOM J2 to provide the Commander, USNORTHCOM an all-source, fused analytic assessment of potential threats as the command carries out its mission to "deter, prevent, and defeat threats and aggression aimed at the United States," and thus fulfilling the command's role as the Department of Defense's primary lead command in homeland defense and homeland security. / Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) - Navy - Terrorism Analysis Branch Chief, US Northern Command (Northcom) NORAD - Intelligence Directorate

I am investigating the significance of historic events of flight through image making; particularly incidents that captured the collective imagination and became part of our cultural memory. These events have surpassed mere entries in historical texts and become mythic. In the terms of Jungian psychology, they have become symbolic. In terms of Semiotics, they have become signs. Through photographs and installation, I seek to understand their presence in my, and our, unconscious mind.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks attributed the September 11 attacks on the U.S. homeland to the terrorists' exploitation of "deep institutional failings." These findings are similar to the conclusions of the Presidential Commission investigating the 1986 Challenger accident and the Columbia Accident Investigative Board (2003). Generally Commissions aim to provide the fullest possible account of events contributing to the catastrophe under investigation and to identify lessons learned, but avoid specifying responsibility and accountability. For this reason, various commission reports have been criticized for being abstract and shallow. These criticisms make a valid point. How commissions make sense of failures has real consequences in terms of preventing reoccurrences. If these accounts do not satisfactorily address the question, How did this happen?, clear prophylactic measures for the future also remain unspecified. This dissertation calls into question the usefulness of current constructions of system failure that focus solely on the abstract role of the institution or system in creating the conditions for failure. For the purpose of acquiring insight into our current narratives of system failure and accountability, the 9/11 Public Hearing Transcripts are analyzed. This research is a qualitative textual analysis of excerpts from the Transcripts related to both pre-9/11 intelligence failures and accountability. Using Weick's view of sensemaking to gain a better understanding of our current constructions of system failure/resilience and accountability, this research identifies the dominant constructions of pre-9/11 intelligence failures and accountability that are documented in the 9/11 Public Hearing Transcripts and the sensemaking resources that reinforce and solidify these constructions. Verbatim excerpts from the 9/11 documents are included to support claims. The theory of autopoiesis, a form of systems theory, is introduced as an alternative resource for constructing narratives on system-environment relationships and accountability. Leadership practices that foster system resilience and individual accountability for system-wide performance are presented.

The TV show is a central focus of American life, one that not only reflects but also produces social imaginaries for the American audience that support the way people interact and engage with reality. It is the nation’s most influential storyteller, which dominates the nation’s imagination and understanding of reality. This dissertation explores the political and cultural meanings of four TV shows from the George W. Bush era: The West Wing (1999-2007), Deadwood (2004-06), The Wire (2002-08) and Heroes (2006-10). In examining these TV shows, this dissertation aims to shed light on both the origins of the state of exception, its conduct, its purpose, and the possibility of meaningful critique of or resistance to the state of exception. Chapter I discusses The West Wing, focusing on President Bartlet’s decision-making process regarding the assassination of Abdul Shareef, so as to elucidate the decisive actions of a sovereign figure in a state of exception. Chapter II explores Deadwood’s resurrection of the nineteenth-century mining camp in our twenty-first century, in terms of the capitalist state of exception. In discussing the show’s portrayal of the conflicts among the main characters, this chapter reveals that the same sovereign logic of exception is innate in the expansion of capitalism. Chapter III examines The Wire’s depiction of rebellious petty-sovereigns such as Major Colvin, Detectives McNulty and Freamon. According to The Wire, the claims of equality are deeply urgent in the bleak reality of contemporary America. With their commitment to equality and justice, the petty-sovereigns intervene in the bleak reality in their subversive ways. Chapter IV explores Heroes’s rendering of the main characters’ struggles against a fictional national emergency, the Company’s conspiracy to blow up half of New York City. In this chapter, I argue that Heroes portrays a political subject that attempts to constitute itself outside biopolitical sovereign power—what Hardt and Negri would call the advent of the multitude. While explicating the struggles of the main characters, I argue that its limitation in envisioning a new world underscores how contemporary critics fail to see past sovereign politics when they imagine another world. / English

Project (D. Min.)--Iliff School of Theology, 2006. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-123; 126-146).

This thesis looks at the missiological implications of church planting in global cities. Chapter 1 introduces the main argument for this thesis: that all evangelism strategies should hold church planting as the end goal and that the most strategic places to implement these strategies are our global cities as evidenced by what has happened in New York City. The chapter will begin with a look at the significant movement that has happened in Manhattan over a twenty year period (1990- 2010) with the evangelical population of the city growing from less than one percent evangelical to now more than three percent. An introduction to the definition of global cities will segue into a look at the imperative for church planting initiatives in these cities. Chapter 2 will offer a deeper study of the characteristics of a global city and the missiological significance of such cities. It will explore world urbanization in light of the fact that over 50 percent of the world now lives in cities. The strategic nature of the cities will be analyzed given the influence that global cities have on the culture of the rest of the world. Finally, New York City will be shown as a global city and its significance on the missiological landscape will be highlighted. Chapter 3 provides a history of some of the major New York City church planting initiatives. Specifically, it will review the church planting history of Concerts of Prayer and the Church Multiplication Alliance, Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church and Jim Cymbala and The Brooklyn Tabernacle. Lastly this chapter will reveal methodologies used by other prominent ministries to reach the city context. Chapter 4 will look at implications learned from New York City on how a global city church planting strategy could impact the Southern Baptist Convention. A look at the history of SBC church planting in New York City will be looked at with special attention being paid to the effectiveness of these strategies. Chapter 5 will conclude this thesis with a look at the lessons learned during this research process. It will also look at three areas of further study that are needed. This work contends that the priority of all missions strategies should be a focused approach on global city church planting. This will prove to be an effective use of people and financial resources that ultimately has an impact on the whole world.

This work aims to analyze the responses of Syria to two international changes comparatively. After the end of the Cold War, US initiated a foreign policy doctrine based on American hegemony. This policy was firstly manifested in the war on Iraq as a response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on January 17, 1991. It was noteworthy to see Syria aligning with the US during the Gulf War (1990-1991), as the country had been allied against the US during the Cold War period. Syria was also the first state accepting US proposal for a peace conference known as Madrid Peace Conference. All these developments reveal that Syria had been cooperated with the US in the aftermath of the Cold War. The second international change analyzed within the framework of this study is the September 11 events. Following the September 11 attacks, the US declared a &ldquo / war on terror&rdquo / to recover its superpower position and intervened in Afghanistan and then Iraq. In that process, Syria opted for countering the US and became the leading critique of the invasion of Iraq. This study examines the different responses of Syria to the end of the Cold War and the post-September 11 period through using neoclassical realism as a model.

I was interested in researching the underlying factors that drove resiliency in regional U.S. hotel markets. I did this by conducting an empirical analysis of twenty nine different markets post September 11 and investigating general, leisure and business variables. I concluded that leisure variables were the underlying drivers of resiliency in regional U.S. hotel markets. I then conducted an event study to try to apply my findings to stock market prices of publicly traded hotel companies. Although it was a challenge to differentiate between companies that depended more on leisure versus business customers due to their asset diversification, I categorized each company into one of the two subsets. If my findings held, I would assume that that the cumulative abnormal returns for the companies that relied on business customers would be more negative than the companies who relied on leisure customers. However, this was not the case, so the findings that leisure variables drive market resiliency were not a good predictor of stock market reaction.