Category: The War on Terrorism

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National Security The War on Terrorism War on Drugs

The Rule of Law

I’m written quite a bit about the Rule of Law on this blog. I’ve come to see it as the cornerstone of my political views – this belief that, as Thomas Paine famously asserted in his Common Sense:

For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.

This distinction – between the holder of power and the law – is one of the fundamental insights of our Founding Fathers – and one that the Bush administration treated with contempt – a contempt I am loathe to attribute to conservatives in general, but one which far too many for my comfort seem to share.

Protecting the Rule of Law is what I (along with Philip Bobbitt) propose that the Wars Against Terrorism must focus primarily on.

One of the primary reasons I believe the War on Drugs must end is to protect the Rule of Law.

My criticisms of the Bush administration’s War on Terror arise largely from their abuse of the Rule of Law – from asserting unchecked presidential authority to attempting to evade any laws by creating a prison in Guantanamo to flagrantly committing felonies even after being advised as such by the attorney general and FBI director.

I believe Bush’s War on Terror evolved all too quickly into a war on the Rule of Law itself, as one of the few remaining checks on presidential power. 

It is why I believe that men and women who knowingly attempted to undermine the Rule of Law, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent allowed by the law. 

Perhaps the reason I have been so attracted to this concept as a fundamental principle is that it is not an absolute one – but instead requires a balancing test. Rather than focusing on liberty or equality – both of which are important principles that must be balanced against other principles to avoid becoming the justification for great evils, the concept of the Rule of Law itself is a balancing test between anarchy and authoritarianism, between justice and legality, between what is needed and what can be done.

Categories
Foreign Policy Iran Iraq National Security The War on Terrorism

Clear-eyed Engagement

Roger Cohen continues to make the case for clear-eyed engagement with Iran: 

Let’s be clear: Iran’s Islamic Republic is no Third Reich redux. Nor is it a totalitarian state.

He suggests that Iran may prove to be what George W. Bush and the neoconservatives tried to make Iraq into:  a model for the Middle East of what a country that has come out the other side of extremism looks like, quoting a friend:

“Iran — the supposed enemy — is the one society that has gone through its extremist fervor and is coming out the other end. It is relatively stable and socially dynamic.”

Fareed Zakaria in a Newsweek article seemingly designed to provoke the ire of the right-wing argues that:

We can better pursue our values if we recognize the local and cultural context, and appreciate that people want to find their own balance between freedom and order, liberty and license. In the end, time is on our side. Bin Ladenism has already lost ground in almost every Muslim country. Radical Islam will follow the same path. Wherever it is tried—in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in parts of Nigeria and Pakistan—people weary of its charms very quickly. The truth is that all Islamists, violent or not, lack answers to the problems of the modern world. They do not have a world view that can satisfy the aspirations of modern men and women. We do. That’s the most powerful weapon of all.

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Barack Obama National Security The Opinionsphere The War on Terrorism

We Cannot Pass the Buck

David Cole in the New York Times:

As a legal matter, we are compelled to investigate by the Convention Against Torture, a binding treaty, that requires its signatories to investigate and refer for possible prosecution credible evidence of torture under their jurisdiction.

That obligation has been triggered by, among other things, the admissions that C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding on at least three suspects with the express approval of Vice President Dick Cheney and other Cabinet officials, and by the finding of Susan Crawford, head of military prosecutions at Guantanamo, that interrogators there, acting under orders of then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tortured Mohammed al-Qahtani. If we do not investigate such evidence, foreign courts have the right to pursue torture prosecutions of U.S. officials under the principle of “universal jurisdiction.”

In other words, as per our treaty obligations, we must investigate any credible allegations of torture. If we do not, many top Bush administration officials will not be able to leave the country for fear of arrest and the worst of America’s abuses over the past years will be revealed by foreign nations.

We must take responsibility. We cannot pass the buck.

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Foreign Policy National Security Pakistan The Bush Legacy The War on Terrorism

Pakistan: The Nexus

Barton Gellman on page 229 of his book, The Angler:

By his own declared measurements of danger, Iraq should not have been the center of the spiderweb for Cheney. The nexus, if it was anywhere, was in Pakistan – a nuclear state whose national hero sold parts to the highest bidder, whose intelligence service backed the Taliban, and whose North-West Frontier Province became a refugre for al Qaeda. Saudi Arabia, too, had a lot more links to bin Laden than Iraq did. As Cheney saw it, there was nothing decisive to be done about those countries. Washington needed whatever help the Saudis and Pakistanis were willing to provide, and if either government fell, the successor was almost sure to be worse.

The Bush administration’s failure to deal with Pakistan may be it’s most profound misstep. Of course, the lack of appropriate information and pressure on the part of the CIA and the Clinton administration also contributed to the problem. Regardless, it is clear that when we refer to the fight against terrorism, the nexus of our concerns and our war is Pakistan. Christoper Hitchens wrote a column entitled, “Pakistan is the problem” back in September in which he discusses the role the ISI, Pakistan’s security service, plays in sponsoring terrorism against India and Afghanistan – about how the Taliban and al Qaeda were both financed, supported, and to some extent created by Pakistan to encourage their strategic depth – and how A. Q. Khan created a global bazaar in nuclear weaponry, seemingly with the consent and support of the Pakistani military:

[W]e were too incurious to take note of the fact that Pakistan’s chief nuclear operative, A.Q. Khan, had opened a private-enterprise “Nukes ‘R’ Us” market and was selling his apocalyptic wares to regimes as disparate as Libya and North Korea, sometimes using Pakistani air force planes to make the deliveries.

At the same time, Pakistan is – whether intentionally or not – furthering the chaos in Afghanistan. American national security types have expressed their frustration about this in various ways:

It’s tough to fight a war in Afghanistan when the opposing team decides to fight the war in Pakistan.

Alternately, David Sanger explains the boozy hypothetical question asked by one of his friends involved with Pakistan and national security:

How can you invade an ally?

The situation, as complicated and fraught as it already is, is growing more unstable. The New York Times editorial board sums it up:

Almost no one wants to say it out loud. But…Pakistan is edging ever closer to the abyss.

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Barack Obama Foreign Policy National Security Pakistan The Opinionsphere The War on Terrorism

The Story That Tells You Everything You Need To Know About US-Pakistan Relations

[digg-reddit-me]

This excerpt is of David Sanger speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussing “Obama’s Foreign Policy Inbox.”

The nexus of all of our fears and worries about terrorism and Islamic extremism is in Pakistan today – as Barton Gellman explained in The Angler:

The nexus, if it was anywhere, was in Pakistan – a nuclear state whose national hero sold parts to the highest bidder, whose intelligence service backed the Taliban, and whose North-West Frontier Province became a refugre for al Qaeda.

WMD proliferation, al Qaeda, assorted other religious extremists – all these combine in the unstable nation of Pakistan which the New York Times explained is “edging ever closer to the abyss.” Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are not clearly on America’s side – perhaps hoping to outlast our interest in the region. Niall Ferguson reports that Pakistan’s stabilizing middle class has been hit hard by this financial crisis; the religious extremists have fought the central government almost to a standstill in the frontier regions of Pakistan – and a truce is now being negotiated. Pakistan’s civil society movement which drove General Musharaff from power is now rising up against the civilian government thanks to political shenanigans to marginalize opposition parties. Corruption seems endemic. The military and intelligence services seem to be implicated in some way in the recent Mumbai attacks – as well as numerous other terrorist incidents and A. Q. Khan’s  nuclear black market.

All of this helps explain why America likely has special ops troops stationed over the border in Afghanistan ready to secure it’s nuclear sites in the event the nation suffers “a rapid and sudden collapse” – which the Pentagon’s Joint Operating Environment determined was a not insignificant possibility. 

Continue reading “The Story That Tells You Everything You Need To Know About US-Pakistan Relations”
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Barack Obama Law National Security Politics The Bush Legacy The War on Terrorism

A Summary of the Civil Libertarian Case for a “War” Against Terrorism

[digg-reddit-me]Liberals and those concerned about civil liberties should embrace the term “war” and policies consistent with some form of a war against terrorism. Bush’s War on Terror has largely discredited this idea because he abused the term, used it as a political wedge issue, and used it as a cloak for his attempts to remove checks to his power. But Obama has a chance to create a framework for a rational and effective war against terrorism – by redefining the aims of this war from aggrandizing the power of the president to preserving the rule of law and our way of life.

Bush’s War on Terror too quickly evolved from a struggle against terrorism to an attack on the rule of law and on any other checks on the president’s power – a war planned in advance of September 11, but justified in the aftermath by a fear of terrorism. The goal of this war was to ensure maximum flexibility for the executive to act which distracted the president from determining and taking the most effective actions. Bush focused on whether he could use torture rather than on whether torture was effective; he wanted the power to detain any individual without any oversight – without taking into account that this would hurt our war aims; he wanted the authority to wiretap and otherwise intercept communications without any limits, and so he authorized the commission of felonies based on a wacky legal theory that expanded his power rather than asking the law to be changed. Bush declared War on Terror but waged war on any checks to his power.

Obama must continue to fight the Wars Against Terrorism ((I think the term “War on Terror” is misleading and vague. We need a new formulation. I’m not crazy about “Wars Against Terrorism” but for the moment, it’s the best I’ve got. It conveys both the multiple fronts of the war as well as the primary enemy, a tactic that strikes at the Achilles heel of our society.)) while reversing Bush’s war against checks on presidential power. Obama must focus on strengthening our society and its’ instutions (including our civil liberties and the rule of law); he must take measures to protect America from catastrophic events and attacks; and he must focus on creating resilient structures that can bounce back after an attack.

Some have asked if war is the right model to achieve these goals. They usually suggest a law enforcement approach instead.

I believe war is the right approach – as war is how a society has always responded to violent existential threats. Terrorism is such a threat. The term war has evolved over time to cover different state responses to these violent existential threats – and in this case it must evolve again. As part of our strategic approach to this war, we must aim to preserve the rule of law and create a more resilient society after an attack. 

At the same time, civil libertarians should realize that if we were to declare the war over, we would leave our society’s values vulnerable in the aftermath of the next attack – as perhaps, Americans shaken and vulnerable, seek a return to war footing, as they sought after September 11, and those liberties granted in peacetime will be once again revoked.

Instead, we must continue this war; but rather instead of seeing the rule of law as an obstacle, preserving it must be our fundamental war aim.

Categories
Law National Security The Bush Legacy The War on Terrorism

Congressman Pete King Wants Club Med Investigated For Human Rights Violations Just Like Guantanamo

[digg-reddit-me]He must have had a bad experience with Club Med. 

Military.com reports that:

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who led a group of congressmen to Guantanamo, told the New York Post the facility was like a Club Med for terrorists.

Club Med? The most reasonable explanation is that Congressman Pete King (my congressman and likely 2010 Republican Senate candidate) was treated very badly at this resort chain, and I’ve contacted Club Med inquiring about this. If Pete King is saying that Club Med is like Guantanamo, he is apparently alleging that they have treated their guests similar to how the prisoners at Guantanamo were treated. So, what types of things happen at Club Med, according to Pete King? Here’s a few examples:

Captives at Guantánamo Bay were chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor for 18 hours or more, urinating and defecating on themselves, an FBI report has revealed.

The Guardian.

Spc. Sean D. Baker, 38, was assaulted in January 2003 [at Guantanamo Bay] after he volunteered to wear an orange jumpsuit and portray an uncooperative detainee. Baker said the MPs, who were told that he was an unruly detainee who had assaulted an American sergeant, inflicted a beating that resulted in a traumatic brain injury…

[Pentagon] officials conceded that he was treated for injuries suffered when a five-man MP “internal reaction force” choked him, slammed his head several times against a concrete floor and sprayed him with pepper gas…

As he was being choked and beaten, Baker said, he screamed a code word, “red,” and shouted: “I’m a U.S. soldier! I’m a U.S. soldier!” He said the beating continued until the jumpsuit was yanked down during the struggle, revealing his military uniform.

The Los Angeles Times.

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”

“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions…

Bob Woodward in the Washington Post.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion “tantamount to torture” on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The New York Times.

Then there’s the fact that Khadr claims to have confessed under torture. Videos of him weeping during an interrogation surfaced last year and served only to remind the world that he was a teenager confined at Guantanamo among “the worst of the worst.” Khadr was allegedly shackled in stress positions until he urinated on himself, then covered with pine solvent and used as a “human mop” to clean his own urine. He was beaten, nearly suffocated, beset by attack dogs, and threatened with rape. In May 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Canada v. Khadr that the detention of Khadr at Guantanamo Bay “constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights protected by international law…” We need to start to make amends for the fact that children in our custody were tortured.

Dahlia Lithwick in Slate.

Mohammed al-Qahtani, detainee No. 063, was forced to wear a bra. He had a thong placed on his head. He was massaged by a female interrogator who straddled him like a lap dancer. He was told that his mother and sisters were whores. He was told that other detainees knew he was gay. He was forced to dance with a male interrogator. He was strip-searched in front of women. He was led on a leash and forced to perform dog tricks. He was doused with water. He was prevented from praying. He was forced to watch as an interrogator squatted over his Koran.

That much is known. These details were among the findings of the U.S. Army’s investigation of al-Qahtani’s aggressive interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba…

[Later h]e was interrogated for 18 to 20 hours per day [using coercive rather than sexually humiliating methods, including waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and extreme temperatures], for 48 of the next 54 days, according to an Army investigative report. On Dec. 7, 2002, he had to be revived at the detainee hospital when his heart rate fell to 35 beats per minute, according to a log of the interrogation published by Time magazine. Then the interrogation continued.

FBI agents at Guantanamo joined the opposition. A Nov. 27 FBI “legal analysis,” since reported by Newsweek, labeled several parts of the plan as “coercive interrogation techniques which are not permitted by the U.S. Constitution.” It also warned that several of the proposed tactics could constitute torture, depending on how a judge viewed the intent of the interrogator.

MSNBC.

Clearly, if Club Med is anything like Guantanamo is, it should be investigated for torture, prisoner abuse, child abuse, and various violations of international treaties. I’m awaiting a response from Morgan E. Painvin, Club Med’s listed press contact, as to whether Pete King has any substantiation for his apparent allegations of torture and human rights abuses at Club Med.

An alternate and plausible explanation would be that Pete King has been involved in sadomasochism for too long and that it has warped his sense of pleasure and pain. Of course, it’s brave of a suburban politician to admit such a fetish. So I must commend him for his honesty if this is his way of coming out.

I’m not sure I can think of any other reasonable explanations for this statement by Congressman King without calling him delusional, a liar, incredibly ignorant, or a propagandist.

[Photo licensed under Creative Commons courtesy of Ed your don.]

Categories
Barack Obama Law National Security Politics The Bush Legacy The Opinionsphere The War on Terrorism

Andrew Sullivan’s Warning Shot

I agree Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald on this:

Glenn is absolutely right to remind us that the whole point of our resistance to the war crimes of the last seven years was not to rely on our subjective beliefs about the moral integrity of a lone man in the Oval Office. It is to restore a maximally transparent, lawful and effective policy against Jihadist terrorism under the rule of law and the Constitution. Obama needs to be held to exactly the same standards as Bush. And if he thinks we will give him a pass, he needs to think again.

The point of my previous post is that Obama may agree that we must force him to be accountable as well. It is better for the coequal branches of government to check the president’s power than for these branches to defer to the president’s renunciation of certain powers.

Categories
National Security Politics The War on Terrorism

The War on Drugs Is Making Us Less Safe

[digg-reddit-me]The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy including a number of prominent Latin American politicians yesterday called the U.S. War on Drugs a failure. As summarized by Jose De Cordoba of the Wall Street Journal:

As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point.

“The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war,” said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. “We have to move from this approach to another one.”

The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy “taboo” and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana. [my emhpasis]

The complete report (which I haven’t yet reviewed) can be found here (pdf). 

The key point is the one I highlighted in the passage above – not only is the Drug War failing – but it is, according to these prominent ex-politicians  – and “There’s no one so brave and wise as the politician who’s not running for office and who’s not going to be”)  – pushing these neighbors of ours to the breaking point. Which is part of the reason the Joint Operating Environment report by the Department of Defense saw the sudden collapse of Mexico as a possibility in the next year. 

The War on Drugs isn’t just failing. The War on Drugs isn’t just causing us to imprison a greater percentage of our population than any other in the world. The War on Drugs isn’t just eroding our laws and institutions. The War on Drugs doesn’t just undermine the War Against Terrorism. The War on Drugs isn’t just making our efforts in Afghanistan harder. The War on Drugs isn’t just wasting law enforcement resources, and costing America gold medals.  

No – it is also destabilizing nations right next to us.

This is what makes a reevaluation of our Drug War a national security priority.

Categories
National Security Politics The Bush Legacy The War on Terrorism

Torture, Plain and Simple

David J. Morris, a former Marine, attended the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program whose purpose was to train US soldiers to withstand torture but whose techniques migrated to interrogation of prisoners after the Bush administration pushed for “enhanced interrogation.” Morris writes of his experience being subjected to these techniques:

I was incarcerated at SERE for only a few days, but my mind quickly disintegrated. I became convinced that I was being held in an actual prisoner of war camp. Training had stopped, from my point of view. We had crossed over into some murky shadow land where the regulations no longer applied.