What If Everyone Hyped an Attempted Terrorist Attack And Nobody Cared? Posted by Michael Cohen

Interesting results from a recent CNN poll on the American people's reaction to the attempted terrorist attack against a Northwest flight on Christmas Day. The verdict is in: yawn

Nearly two-thirds of people questioned in the poll say they have a moderate or great deal of confidence in the administration to protect the public from future terrorist attacks, up 2 points from August. Thirty-five percent say they have not much or no confidence at all, down 1 point from August.

A number of Republicans have criticized the president over his handling of the attempted bombing of Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. But according to the survey, 57 percent approve of the way President Barack Obama's responded, with 39 percent disapproving of how he handled the situation.

The poll also indicates no increase in overall concerns about terrorism. "In October, about a third said they were worried that a family member would become a victim of terrorism, and that number is unchanged in the wake of the attempted attack in December," Holland notes.

"The public seems to react calmly to individual incidents, possibly because most Americans believe that the government cannot prevent every single terrorist plot from occurring."

Six in 10 say the terrorists will always find a way to launch an attack, no matter what the government does, he adds - identical to the number who felt that way during the Bush administration.

"The public seems to react calmly to individual incidents!" What is wrong with these people - don't they know we're at war with Islam! It's these types of mature reactions to one-off terrorist incidents that speak to the real danger is America facing.

Crikey, don't the America people know that Republicans need a campaign theme for the 2010 election?

Afghanistan Confusion Watch - The Civ-Mil Version Posted by Michael Cohen

Over the weekend we had more evidence that the White House and the military are not on the same page on Afghanistan - and apparently things are getting kind of ugly:

Senior White House advisers are frustrated by what they say is the Pentagon’s slow pace in deploying 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and its inability to live up to an initial promise to have all of the forces in the country by next summer, senior administration officials said Friday.

Tensions over the deployment schedule have been growing in recent weeks between senior White House officials — among them Vice President among them Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, and Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff — and top commanders, including Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan.

One administration official said that the White House believed that top Pentagon and military officials misled them by promising to deploy the 30,000 additional troops by the summer. General McChrystal and some of his top aides have privately expressed anger at that accusation, saying that they are being held responsible for a pace of deployments they never thought was realistic, the official said.

So there are a ton of things here. First of all tensions have gotten so bad between the military in the White House that now bad sides are freely leaking their dirty laundry to the New York Times. When you have administration officials telling the Times that the brass misled the White House . . . well that's a pretty serious and damning accusation.

And clearly someone is not being completely honest. Consider this quote from a senior administration official. "Gates and Mullen made a clear statement that this (deployment of 30,000 more troops) would be achieved by summer's end." And then this from the Pentagon, "military officials acknowledged that they were taken aback by the president's initial insistence that the troops be in place within six months. Last fall, military officials repeatedly said that it would take as long as a year to 18 months for all the troops to be in place."

So we have one of two possibilities here: that the Pentagon basically exaggerated its ability to get 30,000 troops into Afghanistan and misled the White House about how quickly it could be done OR the White House misled the American people about the quickness of troop deployments to Afghanistan in what has to be considered an effort to minimize the political price of increasing US military engagement there. 

You know, I was under the impression that the President's speech in December was supposed to clear up all the confusion around US-Afghan policy and ensure that the military and civilian leadership were all on the same page.

Guess not.

"Enemy Combatant" is an Enemy to Justice Posted by Adam Blickstein

It's been nearly 3 weeks since the underwear bomber tried to blow up Flight 253 and instead incinerated his own manhood. And while Abdulmutallab's self immolation thankfully failed to cause any mass casualties, it has inflamed the Republican hysteria that actually emboldens al Qaeda's central goal of inciting American panic and terror. But crucial to GOP histrionics is the notion that America's constitution and legal system are not an adequate means for detaining and prosecuting Abdulmutallab. The common refrain as inanely elucidated by Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Liz Cheney is that by detaining and trying Abdulmutallab through America's judicial system, we are giving him the same rights as Americans, and therefore cannot decipher the crucial intelligence that will keep America safe. Never mind the fact that we have already received "useable, actionable intelligence” from Abdulmutallab and that abrogating our legal system further plays into al Qaeda's hands, but their declarations that he must be named an "enemy combatant" does not comport with the actual history of naming terror suspects "enemy combatants." Their logic is simple but horribly flawed: designate Abdulmutallab an enemy combatant, use whatever means necessary to get information out of him (whether or not that information is actually usable and actionable seems secondary) then try him in a military tribunal, not civilian court. Here's what John McCain said yesterday:

Second of all, I don't think the president's action matched his rhetoric when we send this individual to a civilian court. That person should be tried as an enemy combatant, he's a terrorist. And if we are at war, then we certainly should not be trying that individual in a court other than a military trial. To have a person be able to get lawyered up when we need that information very badly, I think betrays or contradicts the president's view that we are at war.

This doesn't betray the President's stance on going after al Qaeda; it betrays history. Only three terrorists designated as enemy combatants have been convicted and sentenced using military commissions, all at Guantanamo: Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was subsequently released to Yemen, David Hicks who was subsequently released to his native Australia, and Ali al-Bahlul, who is now serving a life sentence at Guantanamo Bay. Meanwhile, nearly 200 terrorists have been tried, convicted and imprisoned using American courts.

But more importantly, the two men who have previously been charged and detained as enemy combatants on America soil, José Padilla and Ali al-Marri were later transferred to the civilian judicial system and tried, convicted and sentenced using American courts. Not only were the "enemy combatants" Padilla and al-Marri not tried in military commissions but rather civilian courts, but they were also the last terrorists detained in America to be designated as enemy combatants. And that was in June of 2003. So Republicans who clamor for Abdulmutallab to be named an "enemy combatant" want him to enter a flawed system that even the Bush administration couldn't successfully use, that currently only has one convicted, imprisoned terrorist, that hasn't been utilized since 2003, and has never been used to bring a terrorist detained on American soil to justice.. Following Cheney and McCain's callous and partisan desire to do so wouldn't just be unprecedented, it would also be dangerously incompetent.

The bottom line is out of all the hundreds of terrorists designated an "enemy combatant" only one is currently being imprisoned under the hollow framework as envisioned by the Republican Party. It's really telling that when it comes to bringing terrorists to justice, they advocate a system that is not only defective, but simply statistically has nearly the worst track record possible when it comes to actually convicting terrorists. Makes you think that convicting terrorists isn't really their first priority, but that defending the severely flawed system, dangerous to our security, that they instituted is more important than keeping America safe.

A Bit More on the Flynn Report Posted by Michael Cohen

I noticed today that Secretary of Defense Gates endorses the conclusions of the recent report by Maj General Michael Flynn criticizing the way the military gathers intelligence in Afghanistan. 

For what it's worth, this now means the chief of military intelligence in Afghanistan, the commander of US and ISAF forces and the Secretary of Defense all think that the military does a poor job of understanding the "people" in Afghanistan . . . several weeks and months after pushing for a counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan that focuses on those same "people." Hmm.

In other news, I wanted to pass along some rather insightful comments about the Flynn report from a colleague, who will remain anonymous. While I understand it is helpful to judge such comments with the author's identity in mind, the best I can do here is attest to his sterling reputation as a soldier and scholar who served in Afghanistan (in other words, trust me):

There are some good suggestions in the paper, but I was left wondering whether MG Flynn understands what variables have changed in the months since he (and the rest of GEN McChrystal's hand-picked, well-resourced group along with thousands of troops) have arrived in country.

His argument - that "eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy" - is inaccurately based on two rolling markers: first, what the strategy/goals have been; and second, what the "intel community" has been doing and why.

The first is how we went from a punitive expedition to creating and stabilizing a nation-state. 

It's the second that I believe MG Flynn either misses or consciously discounts - not understanding that it isn't that folks have been doing it wrong, but that the resources just have not been there to ensure security for either the troops or the population.  Brigades and battalions have definitely been thinking about all sorts of different ways to do things over the years - but they simply have not had the luxury of considering his tweaks and recommendations.

Consider his "grassroots" vignette - the situation in Nawa, Helmand province.  He notes that in June 2009 "...a small number of Marines and British soldiers were the only foreign forces...the troops could not venture a kilometer from their cramped base without confronting machine gun and rocket fire from insurgents."

But in July, 800 additional Marines arrived and began "sweeping across the district.” He then jumps to five months later, when things are great - and proceeds to detail the different way the intel officers and analysts did things.  But he skips over a big part - the fighting that had to go on before Nawa became such an oasis.  He makes passing reference - "...with few shots fired by Marines after their initial operation..."

That "initial operation" was a few months of the Marines taking it to the enemy - with a cost in friendly killed and wounded.  Yet MG Flynn hones in on what the analysts and intel officers were able to do after the security was established.  Could the S-2 from that "small group" in the "cramped base" have done something similar?  Was it just because he wasn't enlightened, or guided correctly from his battalion or brigade?  Nope.

To me, this is the huge point that MG Flynn misses - as he disparagingly notes how we've been "doing it wrong" for the past eight years.  I disagree - and it's important, I think, because it goes to the central question:  are training and institutions organizationally broken, or have troops been holding on in a dangerous environment with insufficient numbers and an ever-changing "strategy" that veers from "can't commute to work" to "securing the population" to...whatever comes next.

Leadership has constantly been searching for ways to do much of what MG Flynn discusses - different ways to measure stability, working with agriculture development teams, human terrain teams to strengthen the other means of information gathering, restructuring intel support to give commanders and troops the best perspective - but it was all overshadowed by security concerns.  When the overriding issue is that COPs and OPs would be overrun by the enemy, or that polling stations, bridges and district centers would be blown up or burned down - and a too-small amount of force or analytic power is available to do it all - lots of that other stuff drops by the wayside.

The addition of the extra brigade into RC-East in spring 2009 had an immediate effect - as did the addition of the Marines into RC-South in the summer.  But none of this is noted or acknowledged by MG Flynn.  His argument is about why we just need to *think* differently, be creative, be *better*.  I'm sorry, but there's another key part - if we're going to do this whole "build a country to deny a safehaven" thing - lots of troops and lots of fighting to get that security needed (yes, we should be encouraging the Afghans to fight as well - but if we want an immediate effect, more U.S. brigades helps). 

At the same time, USFOR-A has been completely revamped - a strong well-staffed structure, new 3-star command to ease the span of control issues, new joint ops centers, more bandwidth...all of this has come into play since this summer.  But MG Flynn again doesn't acknowledge how this - and all the additional troops - have enabled folks to (perhaps) think about doing different things besides tracking "insurgents" or "IED cells."

His implication that focusing on the enemy is an "understandable" but ultimately emotional response by commanders is, to put it politely, insulting...as if commanders in years past had a choice where to place their ample resources, and they simply misused them.

I'm glad that - given our expansive goals in Afghanistan - more troops are there and USFOR-A is injected with energy and resources to guide the effort.  But MG Flynn gets it wrong when he asserts we've simply "overemphasized detailed information about the enemy at the expense of political, economic, and cultural environment."

His argument - and much of the COIN/population-centric thesis - glosses over the cost of the security that is necessary as a foundation to these efforts.  Simply calling for "COIN analysts" or "stability operations information centers" doesn't cut it.  

Does Afghanistan Need a Big Army? Posted by Michael Cohen

A couple of days ago I highlighted a recent Pentagon report about the weakness of the Afghan Army; and a few DA readers e-mailed me off-line to suggest that things were a bit more nuanced than that otherwise desultory report suggested. As one person put it to me, "Are they a competent, First World force? Hell, no. But they don't have to be. There's a small--very small--ray of hope there, but the ANSF isn't quite as disastrous as many reports make them seem." Point taken. 

But it raised for me another issue that perhaps doesn't get enough attention.  Everyone (this blogger included) seems to take for granted the notion that we need to build up the Afghan Army and police force. General McChrystal has talked about a force of 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police; in congressional testimony last month General Mullen slightly trimmed those sails with a call for a force of 170,000 ANSF by July 2011. 

The issue here is that, as I pointed out the other day, these numbers are completely insane. Even my offline interlocutors agree that these numbers are utterly unrealistic - and what's worse police training lags even further behind army training (even though from the perspective of fighting a counter-insurgency, police training is probably more important). 

Afghanistan is a country with staggeringly high levels of illiteracy; it's the second most corrupt country in the world; it has little tradition of a professionalized military and most important the Afghan government doesn't have close to the revenue to pay for a military of the size being considered. The current ANSF is approximately 90,000 - and there lots of problems with them like they've been unable to in any significant way support US operations in Southern Afghanistan. What makes anyone think that we can easily double the size of the force . . . or more important that we even should?

Does Afghanistan really need a 170,000 man army or a 240,000 man army or a 400,000 army - or do they perhaps need a better trained 90,000 man army that can protect the country from an enemy that seems to be no bigger than 20,000 fighters? If the US and ISAF are going to rely more on local militias than what is the strategic rationale for a big, centralized Afghan Army? Granted those big numbers look rather sexy, but one can't help but fear that we are building a paper tiger military with potentially unreliable units that will be unable to protect the country once we leave.

And let me ask another question to which I don't really know the answer - how does Pakistan feel about the idea of a 170,000 man army on their Western border possibly commanded by a government that many in Islamabad seem to think is an Indian stooge? I haven't really seen any serious commentary on this issue, but I can't imagine this makes the Pakistanis very happy or terribly inclined to crack down on the Afghan Taliban safe havens in their country.

 

In the end this gets back to the issue of what we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan; is our goal to stabilize all of Afghanistan? Is it to defeat the Taliban insurgency? Or is it to leave a central government in Kabul that can maintain a semblance of authority and hold off a Taliban take-over of the country?

It seems to me that if the latter is your goal, a smaller, more competent army is what Afghanistan needs. But if you have ambitious goals, then you want a big army with gaudy six figure numbers. But then how would you square those ambitious goals with a political leadership (the White House) that wants to send no more troops and wants to start handing over responsibilities to the Afghan military in 18 months? You can't . . . and that is the problem.

Once again it seems that we have a crucial disconnect between ends and means with well-worn military tactics driving strategy. The White House seems focused on a more restrained mission and the military - as is its wont - wants to go big with ambitious goals for Afghanistan's future. And so the strategic incoherence continues.  

Peter King is a Genius .. . A Genius I Tell You! Posted by Michael Cohen

I'm a bit late to this story, but Peter King voiced such an ingenious idea for combating terrorism the other day on Good Morning America that I would be remiss if didn't mention it here on DA (H/T to Steve Benen):

"You are saying someone should be held accountable. Name one other specific recommendation the president could implement right now to fix this," host George Stephanopoulos said to King.

"I think one main thing would be to -- just himself to use the word terrorism more often," said King, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.

You know I think Peter King makes a brilliant point here. Think about it for a second. In the nine months before September 11th, George Bush never mentioned terrorism; his Administration was barely focused on the issue and basically disregarded intel warnings in the summer of 2001 about an impending attack. And then 9/11 happened.  But after that, George Bush never stopped talking about terrorism - and guess what, America was terror free. 

Clearly Barack Obama needs to mention terrorism every day; that's the only way he can truly protect the country. Just to be on the safe side though he might want to also invade a medium-sized Arab country, illegally wiretap his fellow citizens and destroy the US economy. 

After all, you never can be too careful!

Thank you Peter King! Will you be my Senator?

To My Conservative Friends (or 'Dear Shadow Government') Posted by David Shorr

Now is the political season of our disappointment. So many in the pundit class feeling let down after the high hopes of a year ago. Me too. You see, I actually believed in -- and still hope for -- the possibility of post-politics. I expected that our conservative policy wonk counterparts would work with us on the basis of at least a shared diagnosis of the problems. But as much as I believe in bipartisanship, I also believe in the facts. Blaming the governing party for the partisan tenor of our political discourse is about as accurate as claiming the economy would be better off without the stimulus or that our system of private health insurance is peachy keen. So I feel really let down that our politics are still mired in petty bickering instead of rising to the formidable challenges of our times.

It was the debate over "declinism" that got me started on this today, particularly the juxtaposition of a Dan Twining post on Shadow Government and an Orville Schell op-ed in the LA Times -- with Twining telling America to cheer up and recognize its strengths and Schell giving a balanced but sobering accounting of our strengths and weaknesses. I have genuine sympathy for a lot of Twining's argument; he's right that we shouldn't lose sight of the United States strong strategic 'fundamentals.' But he gives a cursory look at the negatives, and echoes the ubiquitous talking point that the fiscal deficit is our chief problem:

We have plenty of problems at home, from inadequate infrastructure to an underperforming educational system and, perhaps most disturbingly, a growing burden of national debt that, if not corrected, will increasingly undermine our welfare at home and our leadership abroad.

Strategic about the strengths, off-handed about the challenges. So here's my question to my conservative friends, after you've read Schell's piece, can you tell me we've spent the last year debating the real challenges to the country's position in today's world?

The 'Us' and 'Them' of Counterterrorism Posted by David Shorr

This passage of the president's remarks today is about the security - liberty balance, but for me the implied contrast with conservative hyperventilation is more interesting:

Here at home, we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans, because great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.  That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am President, we will never hand them that victory.  We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children.

The policy questions have to do with the dangers of making ourselves a garrison state; as a matter of political worldview, it has to do with how the terrorists ("THEM") loom in our consciousness. When it comes down to it, the essence of Cheneyism is that you can never overstate the threat from the terrorists, never be too dark in your assmptions, never do too much to counter them.

President Obama is saying that if we make these murderous glory-seekers our nation's main focus, we only build them up and diminish ourselves.

The Ever Exhausting Michael Steele Posted by Michael Cohen

Michael Steele responding to President Obama's announcement about the investigation into the attempted terrorist attack on Flight 253:

Too often President Obama and Democrats disregard the fact that terrorists are at war with us, which is dangerous thinking in this post-9/11 era.

President Obama on December 1, 2009:

And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.  

. . .I do not make this decision lightly.  I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda.  It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak.  This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. 

But there's more from Steele:

International terrorists are not common criminals; treating them as such and granting them the same protections as United States citizens compromises our national security and denies U.S. intelligence services valuable information.

Sigh. According to my favorite news source

Richard Reid was immediately taken into custody after the incident. Three days later he was charged in U.S. federal court at Boston, Massachusetts in a criminal complaint with "interfering with the performance of duties of flight crew members by assault or intimidation." The crime was reported as carrying a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The judge ordered Reid to be held in jail pending trial due to the seriousness of the charges and the high risk that Reid would attempt to flee.The prosecutor proceeded to obtain a grand jury indictment and on January 16, 2002, Reid was charged with eight criminal counts related to his acts of terrorism, namely: attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, placing an explosive device on an aircraft, attempted murder, interference with flight crew members and attendants, attempted destruction of an aircraft, using a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence and attempted wrecking of a mass transportation vehicle. Reid pled guilty to all eight counts on October 4, 2002. On January 31, 2003, he was sentenced by Judge William Young to life in prison with no possibility of parole with three life sentences to be served consecutively.

 George W Bush - why did you hate America so much? 

Giuliani Wrong on How to Prosecute Terrorists, Again Posted by Adam Blickstein

Last night on Larry King Live, Rudy Giuliani spewed half-truths and falsehoods on how America should detain and prosecute terrorists, proving again why he in no way should be considered an expert on how to protect Americans:

Well, I don't think it's really a question of trying him so much as the opportunity that was lost. I think the president made a very big mistake in not making him an enemy combatant because the minute you make him a criminal justice defendant, you cut off the ability to really question him. In fact, as far as I know, I don't know the inside story here, he went talking until he went out and got him a lawyer, cut him off from talking.

You want to talk to this guy for about a month. You want to keep him an enemy combatant for about a month or two to get all the intelligence he is willing to give you because that intelligence could be about other possible attacks on the United States.

Besides the fact that Abdulmutallab provided "useable, actionable intelligence” upon initial interrogation, which occurred at the hands of FBI agents without reading him Miranda rights and without having a lawyer present, Giuliani is simply wrong about the notion and utility of naming someone an enemy combatant. As the inimitable Mike Isikoff asserts below, we actually haven't named anyone arrested in America an enemy combatant since June of 2003. Since then both the Bush and Obama administrations have detained and prosecuted terrorists arrested in America using the U.S. criminal justice system. This has resulted in the successful prosecution of several hundred terrorists. Using Giuliani's preferred enemy combatant, military tribunal system found at Guantanamo Bay? We have only had three successful prosecutions since 9/11. But Giuliani prefers beating his chest to actually bringing terrorists to justice.