Great Moments in GOP Shamelessness Posted by Michael Cohen

Generally here at DA I have tried to shy away from getting too overly political in my blogging, but the response of some Republicans to the alleged al Qaeda Xmas attack has dragged me out of my partisan slumber.

First we have what Steve Benen (the nicest man in the liberal blogosphere) decries as the cravenness of Pete Hoekstra, who is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Apparently he is now using the attempted attack to raise campaign contributions for his gubernatorial run in Michigan. Steve sums it up well:

Just how pathetic does a politician have to be to try to raise money off the attempted murder of hundreds of innocent Americans? Just how desperate does that politician have to be to see a plot to blow up an airplane over American soil and think, "You know, maybe I can exploit this to pick up a few checks."

Remember when it was considered unseemly to run campaign ads that evoked 9/11? Not that any of this should be a surprise since manipulating the specter of international terrorism has been part of the GOP political palette for the past 8 years (See: 2002, 2004, 2006 elections).

Next we have Jim "Waterloo" Demint who has for several months now been blocking the appointment of Errol Southers to be the next TSA Administrator because . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . Demint is concerned that the TSA might allow their workers to unionize. Now keep in mind, two Senate committees have already pushed forward Southers nomination, in a bipartisan manner. But clearly that is not enough for Jim Demint. 

Now here's the funny thing about this. In 2002, Democrats held up passage of legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security for fear that workers there would not be able to unionize. The GOP then proceeded to run campaign ads in the 2002 election calling Democrats soft on security and unpatriotic because their stance was delaying creation of DHS. How is what Jim DeMint is doing today any different? It's not. But here's the difference, Jim DeMint has no shame whatsoever. Check out his comments this Sunday on the issue:

When we formed the airport security system, we realized we could not use collective bargaining because of that need to be flexible. Yet that appears now to be the top priority of the administration. And this whole thing should remind us, Chris, that the soft talk about engagement, closing Gitmo, these things are not gonna appease the terrorists. They’re gonna keep coming after us, and we can’t have politics as usual in Washington, and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve got right now with airport security.

So here we have it; the Administration is more focused on collective bargaining than stopping terrorism . . . thus putting American lives in danger. It's not the Senator who is preventing a new TSA chief from taking office because he doesn't like unions. And if you believe that "they're gonna keep coming after us" how can you possibly justify holding up the appointment of the head of the TSA?

And then we find out from Politico that Republicans are hardly dipped in gold when it comes to homeland security:

Republicans have cast votes against the key TSA funding measure that the 2010 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security contained, which included funding for the TSA, including for explosives detection systems and other aviation security measures. 

The conference bill included more than $4 billion for "screening operations," including $1.1 billion in funding for explosives detection systems, with $778 million for buying and installing the systems.

Among those voting against this bill - Pete Hoekstra.

Oh and now Pat Buchanan in debating Spencer channels Michael Goldfarb in arguing that Abdulmutallab should be denied pain medication in order to get intelligence information out of him. Keep in mind, even if we are at war with al Qaeda (as Buchanan suggests) we still wouldn't deny medical care to enemy soldiers.

I wonder though if Michael Goldfarb and Pat Buchanan were as outraged when Ahmed Ressam, Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui were prosecuted by the Bush Administration in federal court and given due process under the US criminal justice system. I suppose the fact that our criminal system convicted all three men and in some cases actually got actionable intelligence out of them is not relevant to the conversation. After all there is just another election ten months away.

On Second Thought . . . Posted by Michael Cohen

Perhaps I was being a bit too fatalistic yesterday about the attempted terrorist attack on that Northwest flight next week. Comes word from across the pond that the Brits were well aware of Abdulmutallab.

The British government said Monday that it rejected an application by the Nigerian man accused in the failed Detroit airliner bombing plot for a renewed student visa in May, and that he was placed on an official watch list to prevent him from re-entering Britain.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said Mr. Abdulmutallab’s application to renew his student visa was rejected in May after officials had determined that the academic course he gave as his reason for returning to Britain was fake. The secretary said the suspect was then placed on the watch list, a procedure that would normally involve informing American authorities of the action Britain had taken.

I got to say it's a bit hard to understand how if the British had banned Abdulmutallab from entering the country that information wasn't transmitted to US officials and acted on. It's one thing if the intelligence community picks up vague threats a mere few weeks ago. I understand that it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, but if an allied government is not letting this guy in the country how does that not set off alarm bells among US officials? Maybe he doesn't go on the no-fly list, but at the very least you'd think he would get an extra once-over before he boards a plane to the United States.

Why Democracy Matters Posted by Michael Cohen

Spencer is a bit upset about the argument by Fred Hiatt that Hillary Clinton's equating of political rights with economic and social rights is wrong:

Ms. Clinton’s lumping of economic and social “rights” with political and personal freedom was a standard doctrine of the Soviet Bloc, which used to argue at every East-West conference that human rights in Czechoslovakia were superior to those in the United States, because one provided government health care that the other lacked. In fact, as U.S. diplomats used to tirelessly respond, rights of liberty — for free expression and religion, for example — are unique in that they are both natural and universal; they will exist so long as governments do not suppress them. Health care, shelter and education are desirable social services, but they depend on resources that governments may or may not possess. These are fundamentally different goods, and one cannot substitute for another.

Spencer responds with this:

What Fred Hiatt’s band of merry mind finds unable to comprehend is that when we’re talking about addressing what Jefferson called the tyranny over the minds of men requires building a constituency for the meaningfulness of freedom.

This always makes for an interesting argument. Spencer is right that health care, education and social services are not, sniff-sniff, merely "desirable. And the notion that HRC is making a Soviet-style argument is, how shall we say, in bad form. But while I generally agree with Spencer's sentiment I actually think that unintentionally Hiatt makes a good point here. 

Hiatt is right that communist leaders used to point to their "success" in providing basic services as somehow akin to the political freedom provided for in the West - and that became a convenient excuse and cover for denying basic rights to their citizens. Indeed, there are a growing crop of authoritarian governments (and one big one named China) that are using these types of arguments to justify the denial of basic political rights to their citizens. 

But of course, political right and social rights are, on a practical level, not equal; because only with political freedom, transparency, a free press and the ability of citizens to petition or influence their leaders etc can citizens ensure that any social service is being provided fairly to citizens - or even provided at all. In other words, political freedom is the sine qua non of the sort of social and economic freedom that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights says are . . . universal. And basic political rights are the only guarantee that any citizen has to maintain these rights. Otherwise they are simply relying on the benevolence of their unelected and unaccountable leaders.

Spencer is right to quote Samantha Power when she says, "democracy does not fill stomachs, alleviate malaria, or protect neighborhoods from marauding bands of militiamen." True indeed. But then a lack of democracy doesn't do these things either. And as Power suggests, "Democracy is valuable to people insofar as it allows them first to meet their basic needs."  No doubt. For most people around the world (gross generalization alert) free and fair elections take a back seat to basic health care, food security and education. Economic development is important, but when you have political leaders who rule by fiat and have little interest in providing for their citizens it ain't going to amount to much in the end. (Of course mileage may vary - China and Singapore are not Egypt or Rwanda or Cuba.) Of course, this is a constant challenge for aid officials and how they use aid to help people and not feed the coffers of rapacious public officials. 

To get this issue back to US foreign policy it's great that Clinton said in a recent speech that US engagement with Islamic countries would focus on "education, science, technology and "entrepreneurship," but you can't really have these things - particularly the latter - if you don't have rule of law? The focus of the Bush Administration on elections as the end-all, be-all was mindless, simplistic and actually did more harm than good. Creating a democracy agenda that focuses on rule of law development, civil society promotion and support, and institution building would be much more effective and would, in the long run, probably help support movements geared toward the promotion of social services like education and health care. But to date that hasn't been the focus of the Obama Administration; instead they seem a bit afraid to talk directly about democracy and have in places like Egypt actually cut funding for civil society support.

I'm not sure if Fred Hiatt was trying to make this point, but it seems one worth making and a fair indictment of the Obama Administration's approach to democracy promotion to date. I'm all for promoting economic development - and fully resourcing AID, NED and the Millennium Challenge Corporation - but you can't have full economic rights without political rights (and that doesn't mean just elections). 

Michael Goldfarb Should Speak Less Posted by Michael Cohen

In discussing the recent alleged al Qaeda attack, Michael Goldfarb reminds me why no sentient person should ever read Michael Goldfarb:

If he (Abdulmutallab) were treated as an enemy combatant and transferred to military commission system, we could use Army Field Manual techniques without Miranda (not as effective as enhanced techniques, of course, but much better than standard police practice). We could use his non-Mirandized statements against him in military commissions, so long as the statements were not forcibly coerced and were otherwise reliable. Instead, it's three squares a day, the best legal defense the ACLU can provide, and maybe the chance for parole before the kids he was trying to kill on that plane even make it out of college.

Yeah, that criminal justice system and due process is really a bitch. Things would be so much easier if we didn't have to abide by the rule of law in this country. I suppose there is no point in mentioning here that this guy and this guy are both serving life sentences without any chance for parole for doing basically the same thing that Abdulmutallab is accused of doing. And this guy, Ahmed Ressam, who tried to blow up LAX, has a reduced sentence because he cooperated with law enforcement officials. No, instead we should rely on a constitutionally dubious approach to law enforcement that has not actually garnered a single conviction against an alleged terrorist. Good thinking Michael Goldfarb!

The Less Said the Better . . . Posted by Michael Cohen

To follow up on James smart point about not giving al Qaeda the media platform they desire, perhaps our elected officials could hold their tongue about the implication of last week's alleged al Qaeda attack on a Northwest flight until they have all the information . . . Ok, obviously I'm drunk, stoned or mentally incapacitated if I actually think that's going to happen. But you would think with how little we know about one Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab it might be better to withhold judgment.

For example, HHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is facing withering criticism for her department's failure to prevent this attempted attack. There has also been criticism that Abdulmutallab's name was not added to a no-fly list. After all, his father warned the US government of his radical views in November. But the father provided minimal information and there was little reason to believe that Abdulmutallab was a serious threat. I suppose there is a view that US intelligence agencies operate like they do in the movies but the fact is the USG simply lacks the resources to run down every possibly radicalized individual out there. As the Washington Post makes clear:

The lack of attention was not unusual, according to U.S. intelligence officials, who said that thousands of similar bits of information flow into the National Counterterrorism Center each week from around the world. Only those that indicate a specific threat, or add to an existing body of knowledge about an individual, are passed along for further investigation and possible posting on airline and border watch lists.

"It's got to be something that causes the information to sort of rise out of the noise level, because there is just so much out there," one intelligence official said.

I suppose some could argue that Abdulmutallab's name should have been added to the list as soon as his father showed up at the US Embassy in Abuja, but if we started doing that then we would begin to have a very long no-fly list. And as some may remember, the movement over the past few years has been to shrink, not expand the no-fly list.

Now of course, I fully recognize that this latest incident could be a giant screw-up (as I said earlier I don't know all the facts), but not to sound overly fatalistic, the United States is never going to be able to completely shut its doors to the world and prevent every lone bomber from wreaking havoc. It's the nature of terrorism and particularly suicide bombing. The fact that we haven't had a single airplane attack since 2001 suggests that we've been more successful than we think . . . or even that al Qaeda's capabilities are not quite what people would have us believe.  But above all it suggests that terrorism will remain a fact of life in this country for the foreseeable future. We should be vigilant, but realistic about the threat. In fact, it reminds me of some wise words spoken by a US politician five years ago:

''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance. We're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

Or dominating the foreign policy of your country . . .

What He Wants Posted by James Lamond

Reactions to yesterday`s attempted attack by Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab seem to be limited.  But there have been a few that stick out:

Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee:

This was the real deal... This could have been devastating.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Ranking Member of the Intelligence Commitee:

It's not surprising... People have got to start connecting the dots here, and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration.

And Daniel Foster, at the Corner :

So Abdulmutallab could turn out to be a lone actor who invented the connection from whole cloth, but he could also represent a troubling, if abortive, comeback in the form of the first Qaeda-sponsored attack on American soil since September 11, 2001

Is it me or is this exactly the kind of grandiosity that both this individual guy and the actual organization of al Qaeda want? This 23 year old wants to be seen as part of a the al Qaeda brand name, while the organization enjoys the idea that it is vast interconnected movement.  I am not trying to downplay the dangers of terrorism. But, it remains unclear what exactly this guy`s connection to any organization actually is, and impulsive reactions like those above simply play into his hands.  When someone runs out on the field during a baseball game, television stations have a policy of not showing the offenders on screen -depriving them of the attention they are seeking.  Certain congressman and commentators could learn a lesson from these stations.  As Yglesias rightly points out, "it does no favors to anyone to blow this sort of thing out of proportion."

Proud to Be an American, Detroit Edition Posted by Heather Hurlburt

There's going to be a lot of ink spilled about this apparent attempted terrorist attack on an Amsterdam-Detroit flight today.  I myself am going to wait to hear the facts of how the guy on a watchlist got on the flight with powder and liquid explosives -- not, apparently, a scruple that's troubling Peter King and Pete Hoekstra, who are already sure it's President Obama's fault.

But you might want to check out the Detroit Free Press/News' coverage -- on Christmas Day, by a newspaper that's so hard up it only delivers three days a week -- for these gems:

the child of a passenger who said hearing about how other passengers foiled the attacker made him "proud to be an American." Typically for Detroit, he was a Muslim whose dad was returning from visiting family in the Middle East. 

Within hours of the attack, a metro Detroit Muslim leader had taken time out of his day -- a joint Muslim-Jewish Christmas Day service project in needy parts of the city -- to make a statement:

 We want to do everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen," said Victor Begg, of Bloomfield Hills, head of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan. "We want to be on the front lines to help law enforcement."

Begg added that the Muslim community should partner with law enforcement "to stop these maniacs -- who in the name of religion -- pursue these political goals."

Begg said that he and family members have taken Northwest flights from Amsterdam to Detroit.

"We could have been on that flight," Begg said. "These guys kill indiscriminately."

I think this is a great statement.  I wish it neither seemed necessary for him to take time on a national holiday to make it, nor useful for me to take time on a national holiday to blog about it.

Merry Christmas, Mahmoud Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Christmas Eve brings Ahmedinejad the present that dictators all over the world are craving:  an op-ed in America's newspaper of record asserting not just that "military airstrikes could work" but that "Iran might need to be bombed more than once to persuade Tehran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons."  Yes, Christmas came early for Iranian hardliners and the Republican Guard, who desperately need evidence that the US intends to use force against their country no matter what to drown out and discredit the voices of democracy campaigners.

Matt Duss has already reminded us that we might not want to take our advice on military intervention from someone whose moral and strategic sense, as Matt put it, "has a history of providing intellectual cover for policy choices that result in huge numbers of deaths."  But Rwanda, Schmaranda, you say?  Let's see how his claims stack up against the views of bipartisan military and political leaders.

Kuperman:  "Incentives and sanctions will not work, but air strikes could degrade and deter Iran's bomb program at relatively little cost or risk, and therefore are worth a try."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, last year on FOX News: 

I'm fighting two wars, and I don't need a third one... I worry about the instability in that part of the world and, in fact, the possible unintended consequences of a strike like that and, in fact, having an impact throughout the region that would be difficult to both predict exactly what it would be and then the actions that we would have to take to contain it.

Kuperman:  "Yes, Iran could retaliate by aiding America's opponents in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it does that anyway. Iran's leaders are discouraged from taking more aggressive action against United States forces - and should continue to be - by the fear of provoking a stronger American counter-escalation."

Former Under Secretary of State and Bush Admin chief Iran negotiator Nicholas Burns, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last May:

 Air strikes would undoubtedly lead Iran to hit back asymmetrically against us in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider region, especially through its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. This reminds us of Churchill's maxim that, once a war starts, it is impossible to know how it will end.

And finally, what ought to be the coup de grace to any casual observer -- or, ahem, op-ed page editor.  What does the Secretary of Defense for the last two administrations think of this military proposal?  Kuperman insists that only the US can bomb Iran and should do it soon:

We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.

What say you, Secretary Gates?  What have you, in fact, said consistently, regardless of the political affiliation of your boss, the President?  He wrote in Parameters journal last year that, “Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need. In fact, I believe it would be disastrous on a number of levels.”

 

With Civilian Agencies Like These . . . Posted by Michael Cohen

I like the State Department; I really do. I used to work there in the 1990s and even though it has corridors that feel like you're in an intensive care unit, it's impossible to get to via public transportation, there are no good places to eat lunch or even get a good cup of coffee nearby and the people who worked there regularly wore short-sleeve dress shirts . . . I have a soft spot in my heart for old Foggy Bottom. But having said that, it's becoming increasingly clear that the State Department as an institution has become so beaten down that it's simply not serving the needs of the American people as effectively as it should. Case in point, this new report, courtesy of the New York Times, from the State Department Inspector General on the agency's failures in counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan:

“The department has not clarified an end state for counternarcotics efforts, engaged in long-term planning, or established performance measures,” 

Well that can't be good. But there's more:

Among other things, the report found that the military and civilian lacked clear delineation of roles; that civilian contracts for counternarcotics work were poorly written and supervised from thousands of miles and many time zones away; and that the United States embassies in Afghanistan and Pakistan did not coordinate well on the problem.

Poor contract supervision and oversight; lack of coordination between not only the military and civilian agencies, but even amongst civilian agencies. Jeez, where have I written that before. I don't mean this to be an indictment of the fine men and women who work at the State Department, but they simply lack the capacity and resources to take on a job as ambitious as the nation building exercise that we are trying to execute in Afghanistan.

For all of the President's glowing words at West Point we continue to see more and more evidence that the United States mission lacks the right partners, the right civilian resources and even the right approach for effectively fighting a counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. My only question is at what point will this reality become evident to policymakers; and by the time it does will we be able to change course?

 

Copenhagen and the Future of International Cooperation Posted by David Shorr

Over at RealClearWorld's The Compass blog, Greg Scoblete weaves together thoughts from Les Gelb, Walter Russell Mead, and himself to glean what the Copenhagen summit tells us about the prospects and limits of future international cooperation. While Gelb and Mead give astute analyses of the dynamics between different players and blocs at the summit itself, Scoblete's own piece from back in July does an especially good job at juxtaposing the hopes and ambitions of the Obama administration against the diplomatic messiness of trying to get things done:

Time and time again, the vision of America rallying the world to confront common dangers blurs into the less-than-thrilling reality of a world with more important things to do. This should not surprise anyone. During the Cold War, when U.S. leadership was arguably at its apex, even allied nations (most famously France) bucked America's will. While the Obama administration has sought to paint the 21st century's threats in menacing terms, climate change and nuclear proliferation haven't quite sharpened as many minds as the Red Army.

This, then, is the terminus of America's global leadership. If the U.S. proceeds along the course set by the Obama administration and defines leadership as the ability to bring other nations along its preferred path, then they should be prepared to define success down. "Solving" the world's problems, as Secretary Clinton suggested, is altogether a bridge too far. Instead, finding a globally acceptable, lowest-common-denominator outcome will be the order of the day (and even that won't be easy).

This captures the dynamic quite nicely. It's not that other nations necessarily have sharply divergent interests or are fundamentally at cross purposes with us. They're at least faintly aware of common global interests -- enough to be dragged along, if not serve as full problem-solving partners. Scoblete is correct that appeals to urgency have yet to concentrate the minds of others, and yet I'm reluctant to "define success down." On the one hand, the lowest common denominator could yield slow and steady progress, as Greg predicts; on the other hand, the price of watering down our collective responses could be steps that fall short of alleviating the problems at hand.