How is Liz Cheney an Expert on Interrogations? Posted by Adam Blickstein

Dick's daughter Liz been all over MSNBC and the media after her interview with Norah O'Donnell where she vigorously defends her daddy's torture regime, but I can't find any instance in the past where she's been vocal on the issue. She was the Bush administration's Middle East Democracy expert at the State Department (remember when democracy was on the march there but then pretty much stopped in its tracks?), but after a thorough search, I can't find any interview previous to this one, either in print or TV, where she provided public commentary on interrogation methodology, the success or failures of various detainee policies, nor the efficacy of "enhanced interrogation."  The only way I can see that she qualifies as an authoritative voice on this issue is that she shares the same name and blood as the torture policy's architect. But her defending torture reminds me of a few other times where the Bush administration trotted out husbands, wives and siblings to defend or support tenuous situations, and provide a familial ladder to help them escape from deep political holes:

Former President George HW Bush defends his son's record:

George HW Bush: He's gonna come home with his head high, knowing he ran a clean operation and he kept this country strong and free after an unprecedented history attack of 9/11. He'll have a lot too be proud of and he can start by his mother and father being very proud of him...and we always will be.

Chris Wallace: You said there earlier there are some things he could fairly be criticized for. Would you like to tell me any of those?

Bush: "No. You can go back to your, what do you call it.... Your Google, and you figure all that out."

Lynne Cheney lashes out at CNN for airing terrorist propaganda:

LYNNE CHENEY: Well, you know, right there, Wolf, "BROKEN GOVERNMENT." Now, what kind of stance is that? Here we are. We're a country where we have been mightily challenged over the past six years. We've been through 9/11. We've been through Katrina. The president and the vice president inherited a recession. We're a country where the economy is healthy. That's not broken. This government has acted very well.

[...]

CHENEY: Well, right, but what is CNN doing running terrorist tapes of terrorists shooting Americans? I mean, I saw Duncan Hunter ask you a very good question and you didn't answer it. Do you want us to win?

BLITZER: The answer is, of course, we want the United States to win. We are Americans. There's no doubt about that. Do you think we want terrorists to win?

CHENEY: Then why are you running terrorist propaganda?

BLITZER: With all due respect -- with all due respect, this is not terrorist propaganda.

CHENEY: Oh, Wolf.

And then of course there's this from the 2000 election:

'Don't let him concede. It's not over yet. 'Five minutes later, Gore was on the telephone to Austin for a second time that night. 'Circumstances,' he said, once through to the Governor of Texas, 'have changed. I need to withdraw my concession until the situation is clear'. 'Let me make sure I understand, Mr Vice-President,' said Bush. 'You're calling me back to retract your concession'. 'There's no need to get snippy about it,' said Gore. Bush replied that his brother Jeb was the Governor in charge of the Florida ballot. Gore's voice retorted: 'It may surprise you but your younger brother is not the ultimate authority on this.' 'Mr Vice-President,' said Bush's voice, 'You need to do what you have to do.'

Why America Fights Posted by Michael Cohen

Matt Yglesias and Alex Massie have some curious posts up today about the justification that America uses for fighting wars. First Alex:

One of the odder elements of American thinking is the widespread belief that the United States never fights wars for itself, only on behalf of others. Iraq is a war fought "on behalf of" muslims and so, we are now told, is Afghanistan. Bosnia and Kosovo were wars "for" the "muslims" and the Kosovars and nothing to do with the need to find something for NATO to do or thrill an American president denied his place in history by the absence of any great conflict.

Matt takes this argument a step further:

The greatest example of that has to be America’s bizarre self-congratulatory narrative about World War II. It’s a narrative that’s all the more bizarre for the fact that the truth would still reflect well on us. But somehow the fact that the Soviet Union did more, objectively, to beat Hitler gets excised. As does the fact that it was Canada, Australia, and New Zealand rather than the United States that really did somewhat selflessly jump to throw in with the Allies at the earliest possible date. Somehow we’re supposed to believe that the United States single-handedly, and in a completely disinterested manner

First of all, perhaps the fact that the Soviet Union's decisive role in defeating Hitler has often been minimized has something to do with that whole Cold War thing, but it's really a bit overstated to argue that somehow this fact gets "excised." And for what it's worth, I've always thought that much of the national self-congratulation about America's role in the European theater has as much to do with freeing Western Europe from fascism (and possibly communism) then it does in defeating Hitler. (And I would also add the Allied air campaign and the Lend Lease program were not for nothing).

As for the role of Canada, Australia and NZ in World War II, it had as much to do with their membership in the British Commonwealth rather than some broad commitment to freedom. And to Alex's point about Kosovo, yes I'm sure that having something for NATO to do or giving a bored President a victorious war may have entered into consideration - but so too did protecting innocent civilians! Both Alex and Matt are making strawman-esque arguments; I'm not sure a lot of folks are seriously arguing that the United States sole reason for going to war is out of some sort of noblesse oblige.

But here's the part I find really odd about this whole line of argument; there's is no question that America fights wars that it believes to be in its self-interest. And there is no question that the United States has fought wars oriented around territorial expansion, just ask the Native Americans, Mexico and Spain.  There is nothing remarkable about that fact; that's the reason why the vast, vast majority of countries fight wars.

But the fact that America more than occasionally fights wars that provide great benefits to other countries, that uphold the cause of freedom and "make the world safe for democracy" (World War I), that free oppressed people from tyranny (Kosovo, WWII) and that support the international system (Korea and the Gulf War) is actually pretty unusual - and makes it quite different from other empires. There are not many countries who fight wars where self-interest and selflessness overlaps. There are few countries that fight wars not for territorial maximization but for less tangible global goals; but those are far from unusual occurrences in American history.

Now as Alex Massie suggests, "one of the prices of imperial protection, after all, is that the dominant power must sometimes sacrifice something himself." Absolutely true.

But that doesn't make the general US attitude toward the use of force both unusual and occasionally laudable. Even the most virulent critics of the Iraq War (a club that I include myself in) would have to admit that it says something positive about the uses of US imperial power that we have spent 6 years in Iraq not stealing its oil, but instead trying to seed democracy. I mean there aren't many countries that justify a vast expansion of national blood or treasure for the amorphous cause of freedom. (Perhaps of course this also speaks to American naivete and stubbornness so as in all the cases being discussed here, it's a mixed bag.) And while of course the notion of supporting "freedom" can have self-interested motivations better that than the normal imperial alternative.

Now Matt and Alex are correct that the exceptionalist view of the American military and America's role in the world may have informed the decision to go to war in Iraq - although I think that argument is vastly overstated. And Alex is certainly correct that conservatives like Pete Wehner who view any self-reflection about America's role in the world to be akin to "denigrating" the U.S.A or believe that we went to war in Iraq and and the Gulf in 1990 to "protect" Muslims are full of s**t.  As for the notion that somehow America is deserving of international gratitude for its selfless use of force, well that sounds like horses**t to me as well.

But at the same time, the ways in which America chooses to exercise its imperial dominance is unusual and occasionally laudable.

America has plenty of sins to answer for -- but just because some on the right are incapable of acknowledging that America is not perfect (and just because we've had a rather piss poor foreign policy over the past 8 years) doesn't mean we should be afraid to admit that America is occasionally pretty good.

Rebuilding America's Civilian Capacity Posted by Michael Cohen

So in recent weeks, I've been writing a lot about the need to rebuild America's civilian agencies (AID, State etc) and shift the national security balance away from the military.  Two recent pieces in the New York Times do a nice job of making my argument. First, there was this gem from Paul Kane on his idea for a new national service program:

Last, Mr. Gates should urge President Obama to confer with Congress and introduce national service at age 18 for all Americans. Under such a system, young people from all classes and backgrounds would either serve in the military or do other essential work like intelligence assessment, conservation, antipoverty projects, educational tutoring, firefighting, policing, border security, disaster relief or care for the elderly. The best qualified would be assigned to the military.

This of course makes perfect sense. It's not like the modern military has all kinds of ways of attracting the best and brightest. It's not as if political leaders from both sides of the aisle are calling for $110 billion to be spent to increase the military by 90,000 troops; and it's not as if the military doesn't have the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy and West Point (not to mention the ROTC system) to already attract top tier talent. And it's not as if AID has a mere 1000 officers and State Department is scrambling to get the money to bring in more FSOs.

Over the last decade or so we've seen our civilian agencies, particularly AID, almost completely degraded; to the point where AID (a development agency mind you) has about a dozen economists on staff and less than 10 engineers. Meanwhile, Washington is hemming and hawing over Secretary Gates cutting a few long hanging fruit out of the defense budget, all the while that he is increasing the overall amount spent on the military. But really what we need is another way for the military to soak up the best and brightest young talent in America.

Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall. Here's a crazy suggestion for Paul Kane: how about assigning the best qualified to the civilian agencies and maybe we won't have to send our young men and women into harm's way in the first place?

Just to further make my point, here's a piece from today's New York Times indicating that our civilian agencies are so short-staffed, we re going to use the military to make up President Obama's civilian surge in Afghanistan.

In announcing a new strategy last month, President Obama promised “a dramatic increase in our civilian effort” in Afghanistan, including “agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers” to augment the additional troops he is sending.

But senior Pentagon and administration officials now acknowledge that many of those new positions will be filled by military personnel — in particular by reservists, whose civilian jobs give them the required expertise — and by contractors.

The shortfall offers more evidence that the government’s civilian departments have not received enough money to hire and train people ready to take up assignments in combat zones

Senior officials said Wednesday that the president’s national security team had not determined exactly how many people would be required to carry out the reconstruction portion of the strategy, nor which departments and agencies would be required to supply the people. . .

But not enough of those civilians are readily available inside the government, officials said, forcing the administration to turn to the military, Pentagon civilians and private contractors, at least for the initial deployments.

If the article doesn't serve as a wake-up call about the desperate need to rebuild our civilian agencies I don't know what else will.  And it's not just in kinetic environments in Iraq and Afghanistan; AID is so short-staffed they have become almost completely dependent on contractors and NGOs to carry out America's development agenda.

Paul Kane argues that "now may be our best chance for decades to truly modernize America’s defense." I couldn't agree more. But what I might add is that America's best defense will not necessarily be found down the barrel of a gun.

The GOP's Torture Pivot Posted by Adam Blickstein

It's disconcertingly risible the same political party that staked its attempt to win the presidency based solely on a candidate whose central narrative was predicated on being a war hero and former POW who endured years of unimaginable torture now exalts the defense of torture as a central platform and talking point. The fact that in the course of 6 months, Republicans can so quickly pivot from politicizing the tortured past of a candidate's biography in order to retain power to politically defending the use of torture in order protect their failed legacy demonstrates that the GOP is really a party standing on its heels at the edge of the abyss, not merely one just getting caught flat on their feet. Remember what they were saying 8 months ago at the GOP convention about John McCain's time as a POW?:

Fred Thompson: The guards cracked ribs, broke teeth off at the gums. They cinched a rope around his arms and painfully drew his shoulders back....Over four days, every two to three hours, the beatings resumed. During one especially fierce beating, he fell, again breaking his arm...When his captors wanted the names of other pilots in his squadron, John gave them the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

Rudy Giuliani: He was tortured in a POW camp, but he refused his captors' offers of early release. Because this is a man who believes in serving a cause greater than self-interest. He came home a national hero.

Sarah Palin: As the story is told, "When McCain shuffled back from torturous interrogations, he would turn toward Moe's door and flash a grin and thumbs up" - as if to say, "We're going to pull through this." My fellow Americans, that is the kind of man America needs to see us through these next four years.

John McCain: A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.

And now, well, torture works! One of the reasons America used to follow the Geneva Conventions and did not torture was to prevent our own soldiers from facing the same tragic experience John McCain had in Vietnam. But George W. Bush and Dick Cheney cast those protections aside, essentially exposed our own soldiers to the possibility of torture, and for what? Probably to learn the names of the offensive line for the Green Bay Packers.

Flournoy Speaks, Everyone Listens Posted by Patrick Barry

Yesterday I caught Michele Flournoy, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, at CSIS, where she spoke about the Obama administration's Afghanistan & Pakistan.  There's a lot to go over, and I'm not going to wade into all of it at once, but here are some preliminary observations for those who didn't get a chance to go.

These Ain't Your Daddy's Benchmarks:
Flournoy touched on the infamous benchmarks, a topic widely discussed since the Administration unveiled its strategy review.  If Flournoy's comments were any indication, the Obama team still seems to be grappling with how to balance legitimate concerns over accountability and oversight with a framework that leaves them space to adjust to evolving circumstances in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  There were a few references to the 'lessons' learned from the last administration, whose experience with benchmarks in Iraq proved to be incendiary from a domestic political standpoint.  Flournoy's suggestion - that the Administration hopes to defuse a portion of controversy by exchanging the term 'benchmarks' for the less toxic "measures of progress" - drew some chuckles from the audience, but it was clear from her talk that she doesn't expect this issue to go away anytime soon.  Finally, according to Flournoy, the administration seems poised to deliver some kind of preliminary findings on the "measures for progress" to Congress in the next week or so.  How congress responds will say a lot about how politically salient this issue will be.

Reconcile This:
How the Obama administration plans to reconcile with the accidental Taliban has been another point of speculation. Some have suggested that reconciling with the Taliban is infeasible so long as the security situation remains in their favor.  Others, including yours truly, have wondered how reconciliation can be effective if it does not target the insurgency's leaders, ruthless as they may be, since these figures command huge followings.  Flournoy's presentation offered some clarification about the Obama team's plans in this area.  She appeared to embrace the former view, saying that while the administration is prepared to ween off the insurgents of necessity, reconciliation must come after an effort to reverse Afghanistan's slide into insecurity. But, as one audience member noted, attempts at reconciliation are happening (here, here, here) whether the Obama administration approves or not, so it seems like there's a bit of a disconnect here. 

Whither Pakistan
There was surprisingly little said about Pakistan.  Flournoy ran through the typical line-up of arguments for why it's a concern - terrorism, nuclear melt-down, threat is not just external but internal, not just regional but global, etc - but didn't really delve into the more difficult set of complexities.  No mention was made of the longstanding difficulties posed by Pakistan's ISI, and at first, Flournoy made only oblique references to Pakistan's volatile relationship with India.  I can understand why you would want to proceed delicately in this instance, but communicating a strategy without addressing big chunks of the problem seems insufficient. Of all the balancing acts facing the administration, communicating US expectations to Pakistan's leadership, in a manner that is both sensitive and forceful, will likely be among the most challenging. 

NSN Daily Update 4/22/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

Taliban forces claim control of Buner district near Islamabad.

The IMF says that the world faces a global recession for the first time since World War II.  Britain cut its economic forecast and announced a 50% income tax on the top bracket.

Fidel Castro says President Obama misinterpreted Raul Castro’s remarks on possible discussions with the United States to mean that policy changes were coming.

Senator John Kerry returned from a visit to Pakistan and said that the Obama administration’s plan for the region is not a real strategy.

Commentary of the Day

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says that President Obama has made excellent diplomatic opening steps but need to follow his vision with strategy.

Michael Putney observes that for the first time in fifty years, Cuba is on the defensive.

Scott MacLeod discusses Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the U.N. conference on racism.

NSN Daily Update 4/21/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete Daily Update here.

What We’re Reading

Pressure grows on President Obama to hold an investigation into the torture memos (even from some former Bush administration officials) and release further memos. 

An army takeover quells violence in Ciudad Juarez, formerly the epicenter of Mexico’s drug violence, but also prompting questions over civil liberties.

South Africa goes to the polls tomorrow in what has been billed as the most important election since the end of apartheid.

Commentary of the Day

Paul Kane advocates radical military reform: eliminating the Air Force, changing the promotion system, and instituting compulsory national service for all Americans once they turn 18.

William McGurn discusses President Obama’s decisions on detainee status at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Roula Khalaf examines how Arab states have a role in negotiations with Iran, and how Iran could be compelled to be a more constructive regional partner.

It Doesn't All Change in a Day Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Jackson Diehl has a silly column pointing out that Barack Obama's policies haven't miraculously repaired all that is wrong with the world in just three months.  He then points to a number of incredibly difficult problems to essentially make the point that Obama's policies aren't working.  Here is the thing.  Obama and most of his more sober supporters never claimed that his policies would somehow solve all of our problems in 100 days.  He never claimed that diplomatic negotiations would be some kind of panacea - just that there is little harm in engagement and that it's stupid to cut off potential opportunities for negotiation.  Moreover, it's also worth noting that in many cases Diehl is using highly selective data.  Let's break down the argument.

Diehl starts with a highly simplistic and disingenuous description of the criticism that Democrats leveled against George Bush in regards to North Korea:

The first wake-up call has come from North Korea -- a state that, according to established Democratic wisdom, would have given up its nuclear weapons years ago if it had not been labeled "evil" by Bush, denied bilateral talks with Washington and punished with sanctions.

That actually wasn't the argument.  The argument was that there was an agreement in place that had generally kept the North Koreans from continuing to move forward on their nuclear program.  But that in 2001 the Bush administration turned it's back on that agreement.  North Korea went on and built a few nuclear weapon.  After the North Koreans set off a test , the Bush administration came back to the negotiating table.  So, if you were going to go back to that policy option anyway and all other options had failed why spend six years refusing to talk while they built up a greater weapons capability? 

I also haven't seen anyone in the Obama administration somehow claiming that engagement with North Korea will make a dramatic impact.  Diehl would have us believe that Obama's team is obsessed with engagement and that they are naive enough to think that it could work in all cases.  But there may be a reason they haven't really touted it with North Korea and that while there has been a big outreach effort to Iran the same cannot be said of North Korea.  Perhaps it's because Obama and his team recognize that there are limits to diplomatic engagement.  And that this supposed "wake-up call" wasn't much of a wake up call at all.

Diehl then argues:

A second cold shower rained down last week on George Mitchell, Obama's special envoy to the Middle East... during last week's tour of the region he encountered a divided Palestinian movement seemingly incapable of agreeing on a stance toward Israel and a new Israeli government that doesn't accept the goal of Palestinian statehood

And how exactly did that situation come to be?  To be fair to Bush when he came into office the second intifada was well underway.  But there is little question that Bush's misguided policies made the situation worse.  Bush ignored the problem and refused to engage, pushed for democratic elections in the West Bank and Gaza and then refused to recognize the results, did nothing to encourage a swift resolution to either the Gaza War or the war with Hezbollah in 2006.   And again, Obama hasn't said that this would be easy or could be done instantaneously.  He and his team have been cautious and realistic about how quickly things can be achieved.  So again, I don't see the "cold shower" that is supposedly "raining down."

Diehl then argues that despite a "reset" in the relationship with Russia tensions with Georgia seem to be going up and it has deployed additional forces to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  But he ignores the fact that Medvedev and Obama have also agreed to negotiate a new treaty that would dramatically reduce nuclear stockpiles - an issue that in my mind ranks much higher than the two breakaway Georgian republics and has much more important direct implications for national security.

Diehl also uses Obama's Iraq policy to argue that his new diplomacy isn't working, writing

Obama told Iraqis that he would, as long promised, use troop withdrawals to pressure the government to take over responsibility for the country. Since he made that announcement, violence in Iraq has steadily increased.

As far as I'm concerned the argument for leaving Iraq was never about the fact that they would like us more and would do our bidding if we left.  Obama always argued that we needed to be "as careful getting out as we were careless getting in."  Getting out is about U.S. national interests and the fact that we couldn't continue to sacrifice all our interests all over the world to continue fighting a war that wasn't really making us safer.

So in the end what we have here is a situation where Diehl attributes to Obama a naive and simplistic foreign policy outlook, which the President never expressed.  Diehl then cherry-pricks the most intractable problems we face - problems that the Obama administration never claimed could be easily or magically solved through quick negotiations.  And finally he ignores any positive developments that have come out in the last 100 days such as the agreement to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Russia and some positive signals from Iran.  Based on all that he concludes that less than 100 days into the Obama presidency, we can already see that the policy isn't working. 

NSN Daily Update 4/20/2009 Posted by The National Security Network

See today's complete daily update here.

What We’re Reading

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmainejad urged a fair trial for Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi.  Following his statement, the head of Iran’s judiciary ordered a fair consideration of the appeal of her eight-year sentence for alleged spying.

A U.N. conference on racism began today, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a headline speaker and without delegations from Israel, the U.S. and others.  U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned against increased racism as a consequence of the economic crisis.

Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri warned Muslims not to be fooled by President Obama’s promises of change and outreach to the Muslim world.

Commentary of the Day

Clive Crook looks that the emergence of the Obama Doctrine and says that other world leaders will soon have to actually help President Obama.

The New York Times reacts to the release of the torture memos and calls for Congress to impeach federal judge and torture-memo author Jay Bybee.

CIA veteran Robert Baer applauds the release of the torture memos and says the Obama administration needs to reveal even more to the public.

Democracy Promotion in the Age of Obama - Event at New America Foundation Posted by Michael Cohen

For those of you who just can't get enough of talking about democracy promotion - and you live in Washington - come join us on Wednesday afternoon at New America Foundation to talk more about the issue with a start studded group of guests.

RSVP Here:

Democracy Promotion in the Age of Obama: Prospects for Reform

Over the past several years, democracy promotion has stood at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. The Bush administration's Freedom Agenda brought increased resources for promoting democracy overseas and created new programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation, geared toward spurring democracy and encouraging good governance.

Unfortunately, the Freedom Agenda has not only failed to fulfill its promise, it has likely set back America's democratization agenda. While the inauguration of Barack Obama has brought with it great hope of a new approach to democracy-related issues, signs so far are unclear.

To date there is still no head of USAID or an undersecretary for democracy, human rights and labor at the State Department and the rhetoric on democracy has been decidedly turned down. Is the country exhausted from trying to promote freedom overseas and will the cause of democratization take a back seat under an Obama Administration? Will the Congress have to take the lead by finally rewriting the Foreign Assistance Act and pushing the Administration to fix what has become an overly fragmented and unwieldy foreign assistance bureaucracy? And after the challenges of the past eight years, what principles and objectives of democratization should be influencing this policy debate?

Please join Michael A. Cohen and Maria Figueroa Küpçü authors of Revitalizing U.S. Democracy Promotion: A Comprehensive Plan for Reform as they discuss these and other issues with a panel of experts that will include Ted Piccone, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director for Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, Thomas Melia, Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House and Chris Homan, Foreign Policy Advisor to Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL).
 

Start: 04/22/2009 - 3:30pm

End: 04/22/2009 - 5:00pm

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