Global War On Terror

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Syber War

The new Sy Hersh piece is up at the New Yorker and -- with the caveat that it might be time to coin a term along the lines of a "Friedman Unit" to describe Hersh's Iran reporting -- to the extent that his account of the Bush administration's covert operations against Iran is accurate, the operations are misguided for all the obvious reasons. Hersh identifies most of them, but leaves unmentioned the fact that encouraging ethno-sectarian faultlines as a means of undermining the Iranian regime is logically inconsistent with the Western strategic consensus that identifies the effects of ethno-sectarian conflict as one of the principle threats to regional and global stability, and repairing them as the emerging justification and goal of military intervention. It's reassuring to note that Vali Nasr, in the piece, dismisses the effectiveness of applying such a tactic to Iran due to the country's well-established national identity, but I remember hearing the same logic used to explain why Iraq's Shiite community would be resistant to Iranian influence in Iraqi internal politics.

Another point that Hersh treats obliquely is that the groups we're supporting covertly, in particular PJAK but to a lesser degree Jundullah, represent threats to our friends as well as to Iran. Hersh mentions the tension this might cause us with Turkey and Afghanistan respectively, but it's worth noting that, as Turkey's security cooperation with Iran regarding Kurdish guerillas in northern Iraq illustrates, our covert Iran policy is also working at cross purposes with our overt Iran policy, namely to isolate Tehran from its neighbors.

But to my mind, the greatest risk of these covert operations is not so much the threat they pose to our Middle East policy, so much as the threat they pose to the health and integrity of our domestic political institutions. The degree of secrecy in which the current administration's covert operations are shrouded is all the more worrying given the Bush administration's willingness, according to Hersh, to keep not only Congress but to a large degree the uniformed military chain of command in the dark about covert operations as well.

That takes on added significance in the context of the upcoming presidential transition. Most of the discusion of that transition has focused on the conduct of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the need for institutional and operational continuity. But with so much of the Bush administration's counterterror and now Middle East policy taking place off the books and being arguably illegal, there's reason to worry about whether or not we'll ever really track all of it down. And that raises the very real risk of these operations becoming rogue operations directed by a private chain of command, if they're directed at all.

A lot of this has to do with executive overreach, and both Barack Obama and John McCain have discussed ways in which they would return the executive branch to the Constitutional framework largely ignored by President Bush. But the guiding logic of all of the operations discussed by Hersh is the War on Terror, which the Bush administration has used to justify the Commander-in-Chief override of the oversight process. The next president should declare the War on Terror over in a legal sense, even while pursuing it operationally. It would send the right message to Americans, to American agents and to the region that we're ready to shine some light into the shadows, instead of operating in them.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iran   

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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Swedish FISA

It's not easy, but with a little imagination you could probably come up with some sort of category that groups together America, Saudi Arabia and China. Consolation pool for the soccer World Cup, for instance, or a snarky "Friends of the Ozone Layer" award. But toss Sweden in there, and the exercise becomes a bit more challenging. Until you consider that yesterday, Sweden's parliament passed an aggressive surveillance bill that allows its national intelligence agency to scan all telephone and electronic communications that cross the country's borders for key words without a court order:

"By introducing these new measures, the Swedish government is following the examples set by governments ranging from China and Saudi Arabia to the U.S. government's widely criticized eavesdropping program," Google's global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer said.

Proponents justify the measure, which passed by a very close margin, by the terrorist threat. Which brought to mind a remark made by Yves Boyer (one of the analysts I interviewed for last week's Livre Blanc series) on a TV program the other night. He referred to other European countries that have become too lazy to think for themselves strategically, instead adopting the American posture by default. He suggested that might be the case with regards to France's Livre Blanc, and it would be easy to say that's what's going on here with Sweden.

I agree to a certain extent, but I'd also argue that American doctrine is moving towards the French-European position as well, both in terms of military interventions and for domestic counter-terrorism police work. French counter-terrorism measures, for instance, are more muscular than America's, as are England's. (I'm talking about domestic measures, not those carried out in offshore black sites to our great national shame.) So it's possible to argue that Sweden is following that trend as much as our own example.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  European Union   Global War On Terror   

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Thursday, May 15, 2008

The Big Picture on the Long War

Amidst the signs of progress in Iraq, two cautionary notes: despite the Maliki government's solidification of its hold on power by military means, very few of the major political challenges to national reconciliation have been addressed, let alone solved; and the security gains of the past year have now exerted a "push me-pull you" pressure on Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their homes, which have either been appropriated or walled off behind sectarian lines. In other words, having returned the security situation to what resembles a frozen civil war (or a tenuous and sporadically violated ceasefire), we're now confronted with the difficult, costly and lengthy challenges of nation-building.

Which brings us to Andrew Bacevich's LA Times op-ed (via AM's Dr. iRack), which calls into question the broader context of the "Long War." In essence, Bacevich argues that in setting out to change the world, we've weakened ourselves from within. Now, if we don't rein in our own profligacy and hubris, we'll no longer have the luxury to engage in nation-building abroad. It's a convincing argument, if only for the fact that we're better at national renewal than we are at international transformation. And it's one worth considering, given that somehow the Iraq War seems to have had little impact on the instinctive reflex in some circles to reach for American military power when faced with a thorny problem, whether it be Iran's nuclear program or humanitarian crises in Burma and Darfur. Add to that the fact that the U.S. Army is retooling in the image of a counterinsurgency force adapted to stabilization and reconstruction operations, and the implications of Bacevich's assessment become pretty dire.

In the aftermath of 9/11, America understandably confused a security threat with a national security threat; a threat to Americans was mistaken for a threat to America. But it also confused the calculus of the terrorist threat for a zero sum game. The impact of the Iraq War (which having been wrongly folded into the "Long War" narrative must now be included in its assessment) has demonstrated that America can both weaken al-Qaida and itself at the same time. That is, in the War on Terrorism, both we and the terrorists can lose.

That Iraq also demonstrates the limits of America's ability to mold societies in our own image is even more reason for a sober reassessment of the interventionist urge. The way things are shaping up around the world, there will be plenty of situations where we'll be tempted (perhaps even required) to apply the military lessons we've learned in Iraq in other countries, under other circumstances. But unless we integrate the political lessons we've learned in Iraq first, we're likely to meet with the same frustrating results.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Failure of the Al-Qaida Model

Funny how for months we've been picking apart the Anbar Awakening from a tactical point of view, all the while failing to take into account its single most significant strategic implication. Namely, that al-Qaida's blueprint for Islamic revolution does not work.

The Military Review article I wrote up in an earlier post offered more evidence of what's become the consensus explanation for the turning of the Sunni tribes: their disgust with al-Qaida Iraq's murderous tactics and their resentment at the AQI "foreigners" trying to impose an internationalist jihadi ideology on what was essentially a nationalist insurgency. But al-Qaida, as a globalized, multi-national suicide bombing outfit, has no other operational doctrine and no native land to call its own. Which means its experience in Iraq is almost certain to be reproduced everywhere it goes.

Think about that for a second. At a time when eighty percent of the Arab world views America unfavorably, and in a war that a majority of Americans (let alone Iraqis) disapprove of, al-Qaida failed to establish a sustainable bridgehead. That's not the mark of an organization that represents a strategic, existential threat to the United States.

By their nature, Al-Qaida in particular and terrorism in general pose very real threats to the lives and safety of American civilians, threats that need to be addressed firmly, resolutely and effectively. But anyone claiming they are anything more than that has not been paying close enough attention to the evidence of the Iraq War, of which they are usually the most vocal supporters.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Kristol Klear

I have to admit, I never really understood why so many liberal bloggers bother to go after William Kristol. It always seemed like wasted effort, since the people who are going to fall for his nonsense are not susceptible to liberal arguments in the first place. But in glancing through his new Weekly Standard column that explains why the Pentagon review that found no direct links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda actually found direct links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, I finally got it: Taking Kristol apart is actually fun.

Take this tortured passage about documents linking Saddam Hussein to the Egyptian Islamic Jihad:

...Apparently whoever wrote the executive summary didn't consider the link between Saddam and al Zawahiri a "direct connection" because Egyptian Islamic Jihad had not yet, in the early 1990s, fully been incorporated into al Qaeda. Of course, by that standard, evidence of support provided to Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s might not be deemed a "direct connection" because al Qaeda as we know it today did not yet exist.

Apparently it never occurred to Mr. Kristol that by the standard he's proposing as an alternative, evidence of support provided to Osama bin Laden in the 1980s (say by, I don't know... CIA proxies?) would be deemed a "direct connection" to al Qaeda as well.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Surge as Pyrrhic Victory

On the heels of the release of the Pentagon's definitive study demonstrating that there was no pre-Iraq War link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, comes this WPR feature from Bernard Finel arguing that recent progress in Iraq should not be confused with progress against the global terrorist threat:

We are slowly digging ourselves out of the hole of the Iraq war. Al-Qaida has increasingly been marginalized in Iraq, and the success of American counterinsurgency efforts has diminished the perception that we can be defeated quickly or easily. And yet, Iraq remains a net negative in the overall struggle. . . Al-Qaida is on the run in Iraq, but continues to use the war as a potent and effective recruiting tool throughout the Muslim world.

Worse, six and half years after Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida is stronger than ever. It has a safe haven in Pakistan. It has replaced revenue lost through better financial monitoring with increased ties to the drug trade. It has tightened its institutional links to jihadist organizations around the world, making deep inroads in Southeast Asia and North Africa, as well as maintaining its core of support in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Finel is the author of the American Security Project's report Are We Winning?, which last September measured progress in the fight against extremist violence based on a variety of metrics. The ASP just issued a six-month update to the report today, and the results are discouraging.

To be sure, the threat of Iraq becoming a vector for the spread of radicalized and trained al-Qaida operatives can't be dismissed. Matthew Levitt, for instance, points to the similarities between a recently de-classified State Dept. assessment from 1993 of the threat posed by radicalized Afghan mujahidin and today's Iraq to make that case. And that's probably the most compelling argument as far as American public opinion goes against a precipitous withdrawal from (or a continued presence in) Iraq. (Strategically, the collapse of Iraq is probably more of a threat to our regional interests.)

Still, I can't help but wonder whether, with al-Qaida Iraq's recent reversals of fortune, the most seasoned and hardcore operatives haven't already left the burning ship to sink and begun to fan out into the other theaters of operation that have already been identified. (Western Europe and the Maghreb, for instance.) In many ways, the idea that AQI ever harbored a serious ambition to somehow conquer and govern Iraq is farfetched. More than a territory to be conquered, Iraq represented a convenient host for the extremist virus to nourish itself and spread. In that sense, it has long since served its purpose, which means that AQI can now shed the "I" with little impact on its broader strategic goals.

Which in turn means that our "victory" over the AQI threat might end up being a pyrrhic one. Metrics such as body counts are tricky when it comes to an enemy that uses suicide as a tactic. And going by the ones the ASP has come up with, the broader war is far from over.

Cross-posted to World Politics Review.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Friday, January 18, 2008

The New Black

Last week I mentioned that Baitullah Mahsud is one Taliban worth watching. Over the past year, he's increasingly shown up on the South Waziristan scouting report radar, but a steady proliferation of recent articles about him seemed to strongly suggest that he was about to have something of a breakout season. That suspicion is only reinforced by the news that the CIA has now concurred with the Pakistani government and identified Mahsud as the prime suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

In addition to his stellar rise through the Taliban ranks and his reported links to people reportedly linked to Al Qaeda, Mahsud has something else to recommend him to take over the role of chief terrorist bogeyman and principle fallguy for all things nefarious. Namely that he shuns publicity and has almost never been seen in public. This guy is like the Clear of badguys: He only shows up in the statistics.

With Osama Bin Laden's marquee value largely tarnished by six years of spotty video production values and his ability to strike fear into the hearts of the nation on the wane, I think Mahsud's time has come.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Pakistan   

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Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Class Warfare

One of the puzzling contradictions of suicide bombings is that, despite the common wisdom linking it to poverty and economic development, the actual bombers themselves are disproportionately middle class. In a fascinating essay about the dynamics of face-to-face violence over at Foreign Policy, sociologist Randall Collins explains why that is:

Clandestine, confrontation-avoiding violence such as suicide bombing is a fourth pathway around confrontational tension. It succeeds only because the attacker is good at pretending that he or she is not threatening at all. People accustomed to the typical macho forms of violence are not good at this; gang members would make lousy suicide bombers. But mild-mannered middle-class people are ideal for it. Since they are not confrontational by nature, they do not have to control a blustering or threatening demeanor that would warn their victims. Self-directed introverts, they do not need to hear cheering as they stalk their prey. Middle-class culture is especially accommodative, adept at maintaining a smooth surface of conventionality. Whatever our private feelings, we learn not to express them on the job, in social situations, or in public. This is good training for carrying a bomb under one’s clothing until the target is so close that massive damage is certain.

Richard Posner adds, in a rebuttal to a Gary Becker premise that terrorism is susceptible to economic development, that terrorism is grievance-driven, and that the grievances are predominantly political rather than economic. Which makes it the domain of the intelligentsia, who according to Posner, "...have the leisure and the education to think big thoughts, like overthrowing a government, which rarely brings material improvements." He also notes that terrorist operations demand a very small number of highly reliable and semi-skilled operatives, as opposed to the cannon fodder of conventional militaries, which leads to targeted recruiting.

Combine that with the historic alienation of the middle class (especially in the third world), throw in a pinch of nostalgia for a lost golden age of moral clarity and purity, and you've got a pretty lethal cocktail.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

Viral Video

In reading through Steve Benen's guest post over at Washington Monthly about why the CIA recorded the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and then erased the tapes, it suddenly occurred to me that there's got to be a copy of those tapes somewhere. An unauthorized copy, an edited copy, a low resolution copy, whatever. In the age of digital files, it just doesn't seem plausible to me that they managed to erase every last byte. Hell, it wouldn't even surprise me if some of it's been uploaded to YouTube. But somewhere a copy of that footage exists.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Friday, December 28, 2007

Benazir Bhutto

I'd been adding a grain or two of salt to media coverage of Benazir Bhutto's return to Pakistan, given the darling status she enjoys in the Western press and her corruption-tarnished past. Needless to say, the news of her assassination put all that in perspective. Whatever her flaws, she was a courageous woman who refused to let cowards intimidate her into silence. And in so doing, she denied her murderers any possible claim to victory in the battle of images that goes hand in hand with terrorist violence.

Ultimately, it's up to the Pakistani people now to decide just how much and what kind of an impact her murder has on the future of their country. I've read some dire forecasts of chaos and violence. Hopefully it becomes a catalyst for unity and cohesion. But whatever meaning Pakistan ultimately takes from Bhutto's life and death, the rest of us would do well to remember her for her fearlessness in this metaphorical age of terror.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Pakistan   

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

The Shifting Burden

Le Figaro is reporting what a French intelligence source called one of the "most important operations of 2007": the arrest of at least eight men suspected of furnishing logistical and material support to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. From the report, it seems the network operated as an IT support cell, providing computer and telecommunications equipment. Seven of the suspects are Algerian, one French.

The arrest contrasts with American counter-terrorism arrests of the past few years, or at least the ones we've heard about. No outlandish plots, no comic twists, no high-profile grandstanding, and above all, no fear-mongering. The intelligence sources all emphasized that they'd intervened for operational reasons, downplaying the threat of any imminent attack. Still, as one of the article's sources put it in a typically French way, "We got into the hard wood."

The arrest, as well as others like it in Denmark and Germany earlier this year, also serves to demonstrate the real impact of America's hysterical response to the attacks of 9/11: to shift the burden of the terrorist threat to Europe.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Friday, November 23, 2007

Open Source Chaos

In addition to a wave of Stateside optimism, the Anbar Awakening in Iraq has also given rise to a gathering new meme about how to address counterinsurgency, the War on Terror, and the challenges facing failed states in a globalized world. According to this new line of thinking, exemplified by this John Robb post and this Robert Kaplan essay, nation-building -- characterized by establishing democratic institutions and top-down political reconciliation -- doesn't work, especially in quasi-autonomous tribal societies like Anbar province in Iraq and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan.

According to Robb, "Politics and populations in our new global environment fragment faster than they can be assembled into cohesive entities." Robb's answer to "temporary autonomous zones and open-source insurgency"? What he calls "open source militias": Spontaneous, local militia movements that arise in reaction to the inevitable excesses of the initial insurgencies. These militias we do little to shape, supporting them only once they've taken form.

Kaplan limits his argument to the Iraq and Pakistan theatres, but it's easy to see how easily it might be generalized to apply to any location where kinship bonds trump national identity and local tribal loyalties take precedence over allegiance to a distant central government. In such areas, pragmatic opportunism dictates that we align counterinsurgency efforts with local tribal power structures, regardless of the implications for a broader democratizing agenda. For Kaplan, "Progress...means erecting not a parliamentary system, but a balance of fear among tribes and sectarian groups."

Now I don't think either Robb or Kaplan is necessarily wrong here, although it's ironic that Kaplan uses a principle of progressive social science (cultural relativism) to justify a principle of reactionary colonial rule (divide and conquer). But what's significant about their approach, which is sure to gain traction, is that it represents a sort of glum, post-9/11 pessimistic version of the euphoric, post-Cold War optimism that heralded the end of the nation-state and the coming of a harmonic global order. In Robb and Kaplan's vision, instead of being surpassed through supra-national agglomeration or reconfigured on the molecular level through direct NGO action, the state has been effectively put out of reach through a process of controlled atomization. Here's Robb:

The use of a plethora of militias to fight a global open source insurgency from Nigeria to Mexico to Iraq to Pakistan is effective within a grand strategy of delay (it holds disorder at bay while allowing globalization to work). Most beneficially, it eliminates the need for nation-building, massive conventional troop deployments, and other forms of excess.

That's about it in a nutshell: a grand strategy of delay. Needless to say, Robb's oblique reference to "allowing globalization to work" is the key to understanding the argument.

As I said, I don't think either Robb or Kaplan is necessarily wrong. To begin with, there are areas in the world where the writ of the national government is a legal fiction. Beyond that, their vision corresponds to the practical necessities of American foreign policy in its current interventionist formulation. But it's important to remember that the two counterinsurgency wars we're currently fighting, in Iraq and in Afghanistan/Pakistan, are wars that we created. In Iraq, as a direct consequence of removing a non-democratic but functioning state, and in Afghanistan/Pakistan as an indirect consequence of our Soviet-era Afghanistan policy, which instigated the very sort of contained chaos that gave rise to Al Qaeda and which both Robb and Kaplan now suggest we try to manage. (To his credit, Robb does raise the caveat of whether we'll be able to manage "something this complex or this messy".)

As importantly, local populations delivered up to globalization are very often exploited like just another raw commodity. In the absence of nation states to defend their interests, that's how globalization "works". Which is why I'd argue for a middle ground between euphoric post-nation state utopianism and Machiavellian failed nation state pragmatism, one that defends the centrality of the nation state, reinforces its effectiveness, equips it to provide the basic needs and services for its constituents, and encourages it (as much as is reasonably possible) to respond to their grievances and reflect their aspirations.

All of these interventions take enormous effort, strong and effective mult-lateral institutions, and time -- in short, the "forms of excess" that Robb seeks to avoid. But in the long run, they offer a better chance for building a sustainable international order, capable of dealing with the existential, strategic and ethical challenges we have no choice but to overcome if we as a species are to survive.

Posted by Judah in:  Foreign Policy   Global War On Terror   Iraq   Pakistan   

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Friday, November 16, 2007

Dangerous Nostalgia

I was belatedly going through Hillary Clinton's Foreign Affairs essay, and scattered amid the pretty decent boilerplate about correcting the Bush administration's mess I found this:

In the cities of Europe and Asia -- such as Hamburg and Kuala Lumpur, which were the springboards for 9/11 -- terrorist cells are preparing for future attacks. We must understand not only their methods but their motives: a rejection of modernity, women's rights, and democracy, as well as a dangerous nostalgia for a mythical past. We must develop a comprehensive strategy focusing on education, intelligence, and law enforcement to counter not only the terrorists themselves but also the larger forces fueling support for their extremism. (Emphasis mine.)

That pretty much echoes what I was arguing here. (Or I suppose I echo Clinton, seeing as how her (staff's) essay has been online for weeks, even if I just got around to it.) I haven't seen it formulated in this way very often, but it's an approach that should get more attention.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

When Anthropologists Attack

I guess it's not surprising that an anthropologist that's accepted an Army invitation to teach the officer corps how to use cultural awareness to finetune American counterinsurgency doctrine will end up having a positive view of the Army's inviting anthropologists to teach the officer corps how to use cultural awareness to finetune American counterinsurgency doctrine. But I have to admit, I find this surprising:

Since the military's mission is to execute the policies of our democratically elected officials, can...anthropologists really deny commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan the cultural knowledge they need to wage a war they were charged by their political leaders with fighting? Is it ethically more correct for them to retreat from the world and leave others to do the fighting? Is the moral response to cynicism about politics and military power to do nothing, or...to censure those who choose to do something? (p. 17)

Those are the questions that Sheila Miyoshi Jager feels are begged by her colleagues' criticism of the cooptation of anthropology for military use. The idea that war, once declared, gives the military a moral claim on academic knowledge seems like a stretch even within the logic of the Bush administration's wartime imperial presidency. But Jager's an eager participant, as is obvious from her rapturous descriptions of Gen. David Petraeus' overhaul of the Army's counterinsurgency manual, the celebrated FM 3-24:

FM 3-24 has been described as "radical" and "revolutionary" by Time Magazine, and it has received rave reviews in the New York Times. Understanding the cause for FM 3-24's enthusiastic reception is itself noteworthy, notes Sarah Sewell, "because it seems to point to the overwhelming feeling of a majority of Americans that the United States is adrift in the world with no foreign policy to guide it in Iraq and elsewhere." Americans are "simply confused about the nation’s strategic purpose in wake of September 11, 2001..." Once again, Americans are wrestling with a "disillusionment about politics and military power, and the debacle in Iraq has reinforced a familiar cynicism that risks disengaging Americans from their government and America from the rest of the world." In an attempt to understand America's new role in the world and also to stem the growing disillusionment about politics at home, they have looked to FM 3-24 for answers: "The doctrine's most important insight is that even -- perhaps especially -- in counterinsurgency, America must align its ethical principles with the nation's strategic requirements." (pp. 13-14)

You got that right, folks. Adrift, confused, disillusioned and disengaged, America is looking to the FM 3-24 for answers. I guess if nothing else pans out, Gen. Petraeus has a promising future on the self-help circuit.

And perhaps I'm misreading that last sentence, but it seems to me that it's gotten the equation frighteningly backwards: It's our strategic requirements that we must measure against our principles. To do the reverse reduces our principles to the level of mere window dressing. It is, nevertheless, ironic to see that the War On Terror, if it accomplished nothing else, did manage to make moral relativism more palatable to the right.

Jager seems to have fallen prey to the anthropologist's worst enemy, namely losing one's academic objectivity and identifying with the host culture. Here's her admiring citation of Petraeus' warm and fuzzy appeal for more culturally sensitive... Wait a minute, what's that word I'm looking for? Oh, yeah. I know. Propaganda:

In chapter 5, "Executing Counterinsurgency Operations," the manual encourages the development of counternarratives "which provide a more compelling alternative to the insurgent ideology and narrative. Intimate cultural familiarity and knowledge of insurgent myths, narratives and culture are a prerequisite to accomplishing this." (p.13)

Jager's monograph also contains some eye-openers of the purely absurd variety. The following passage would be sidesplittingly funny for its deadpan lack of self-awareness if it didn't reveal that such a major shortcoming in the American military's strategic thinking was addressed only last year:

As part of the "cultural turn" within the DoD, new lessons on National Cultures in the standard Strategic Thinking course and a new series of Regional Studies courses were introduced into the curriculum in 2006-07. The aim of these courses is to teach students about the importance of cultural awareness and understanding of "how other regions, nations, and societies view themselves and others" and the effect of this awareness on policy and strategy formulations and outcome. This is a significant shift away from the traditional focus on American interest and policy in foreign areas... (p. 6)

Or this:

Every dimension of the framework must be appreciated as both a cumulative and revisionist process of not only the actual historical experience, but also memory of that history for memory often distorts history for contemporary purposes. (pp. 6-7; Emphasis definitely all mine.)

It's a shame, because Jager's principle policy proposal is insightful. Instead of lumping all of our enemies together in an "Us against them" approach that serves to magnify their power, we should be using our cultural understanding of our various adversaries to emphasize the differences among them. The anthropologist's version of divide and conquer. But it's lost amid the unquestioning cheerleading that surrounds it.

Finally, there was a point just after the invasion of Iraq that President Bush was fond of evoking occupied post-War Japan. So this passage about how we used an understanding of Japanese culture to advance the implantation of democracy there got me thinking:

Hirohito was miraculously transformed from Japan's preeminent military leader who oversaw a brutal 15-year war against Asia and the United States to an innocent Japanese victim and political symbol duped by evil Japanese militarists. The surprising and rapid transition from Japanese militarism to Japanese democracy was made not through the imposition of American democratic values and norms, but by a not-so-subtle manipulation of Japanese cultural symbols and meanings, including a rather blatant manipulation of history. (p. 8)

If only we'd framed the invasion of Iraq as an effort not to liberate the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein, but to liberate Saddam Hussein from the inner circle of evil Baathists who had used him as a puppet for the past thirty years. It would have been a not-so-subtle manipulation of Iraqi cultural sympbols and meanings, including a rather blatant manipulation of history. But it might have worked.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Lunch Money And A Ticket Home

To give you an idea of just what kind of insurgency is taking place in Pakistan's Swat region, militants captured a "Frontier Constabulary fort" on Thursday, capturing 60 members of a paramilitary government militia who surrendered when their supplies ran out. Pakistan daily Dawn picks up the story from there:

About 60 paramilitary soldiers taken hostage by militants on Thursday were released...

The militiamen captured in Daroshkhela area were also given Rs1,000 each by the militants so that they could reach their areas...

"We had given our word to the militiamen that they would remain unharmed in our custody and be released. We have kept our promise," said Mohammad Alam, a militant commander.

Mr Alam told journalists that the militants would not leave Madyan town which they had taken over.

The militants had earlier left Bahrain and Kalam towns on the request of local elders.

The militant commander said the elders in the two areas were united and they could look after the law and order situation themselves.

"We believe that the people of Madyan are not in a position to control law and order, therefore, we will stay in the town," he said.

Local people said the militants had set up their office in the police centre in Madyan and hoisted their white and black flags in the area. (Weird single-sentence paragraphs in original.)

Things aren't always so rosy over there, of course. The same story mentioned two killed and fourteen wounded in a roadside bombing incident Friday. But the Pakistani militants seem to have grasped at least two things that the Bush administration would do well to take to heart. Namely, when you treat the enemies you capture on the battlefield humanely, they're more liable to think twice before they decide to fight you to the death. And when folks don't want you to stick around, you're better off leaving.

Oh, and by the way, I'm liking the white and black flags.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Pakistan   

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Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Mystic Martyr

I've been developing an argument over the past week or so that militant jihadism and the cult of the suicide martyr represent a rearguard pre-modern resistance to the incomplete attempts to introduce modernism in the Islamic world. The obvious counterargument, what I'll call the Mohamed Atta exception, occurred to me today. Namely, that while the Taliban and the tribal militants in the Pakistani badlands are certainly the products of a pre-modern (or hybrid "post-pre-modern") culture, the men who actually represent the greatest terrorist threat to the West largely come from urban, educated and modern backgrounds.

But the distinction between the two, while significant, actually strengthens my argument. Western attempts to understand what motivates guys like Mohamed Atta have focused on political aspirations and Arab nationalism as the source of their extremism. According to this line of thought, repressive regimes propped up by American support drive young, alienated, urban Muslims to the only movement they feel is taking concrete steps to resist, or avenge, America's presence in the Arab world: Al Qaeda. All of that might be true, but it's only part of what drives them.

Because if this modern rejection of the West's policies marks the first steps of the trajectory that eventually produces the Mohamed Atta brand of terrorist, its later stages is dominated by a nostalgia for a simpler, more authentic, more "whole" pre-modern existence that is common to urban modernites of all backgrounds. One need only consider the journey of young, urban, "Westernized" Muslim men from the streets of the European and Arab capitals, where they studied and grew up, to the Al Qaeda training camps in the hills of Afghanistan, where they put the finishing touches on their indoctrination, to get a sense of it. Once in place, that nostalgia is welded to a mystical ascetism that uses a reading of religious texts to encourage a spiritual cleansing, of both self and the world, through the sacrifice of the flesh.

The same nostalgia has driven the New Age, "back to the land" awakening in the West that over the course of two generations has popularized Yoga, Eastern and Native American philosophies, wholistic approaches to health and healing, and Paganism, including some of the more ascetic aspects of those disciplines. Where the cult of the suicide martyr differs is not in its refusal to spare judgment of the "less enlightened" for the evils of modernism, a practice shared by many New Age schools of thought. It differs in its refusal to spare them the sentence -- a sacrificial death -- embraced by the ascetic mystic.

That a large part of this nostalgia is driven by the attractive reassurance of traditional gender roles, and in particular male privilege, is obvious when one considers women's place in fundamentalist Islamic society. But in this, as well, it's the expression rather than the fundamental motivation of the urge that differentiates it from Western versions. The hippie ideal of the Earth mother, for instance, under the guise of softening gender roles only serves to reinforce them. That the Pagan influence of Western pre-modernism has allowed for an acceptance of the "wild woman" and her sexuality does nothing to undermine the argument. What is celebrated under the light of the full moon in Santa Cruz is hidden under the burka in Afghanistan. The difference is enormous, but both responses spring from a common source, namely traditional pre-modern interpretations of gender.

By no means am I minimizing the differences between Western expressions of nostalgia for pre-modern ways of life and the jihadi suicide cult's version. I'm simply suggesting that we can use one to better understand the underlying psycho-socio-cultural dynamics of the other. In particular, it bears mentioning that these critiques of modernism draw many valid conclusions about the alienation and atomised social structures of modern life. More centrally, they point to a fundamental flaw of modernism, namely its failure to adequately address humankind's (innate?) need for a core metaphysics of meaning.

The jihadi terrorist has mistakenly been accused of nihilism. But he is no more nihilist than the medieval Christian mystic mortifying the flesh to repent for the sins of humankind or, for that matter, the well-meaning BoBo who covers the carbon tracks of his 4x4 by subsidizing the planting of forests. His ascetic mysticism has simply been perverted into a murderous purging of modernism. We haven't paid enough attention to this aspect of his revolt. It's time we did.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Sunday, November 4, 2007

The Logic Of National Security

Josh Marshall muses about the odd hybrid form of government that is Pakistan's constitutional military dictatorship. All proportions guarded, it's interesting to note the similarities between the logic that drove Musharraf to place the Pakistani constitution "in abeyance" and the logic used by the Bush administration to justify its vision of broadened executive powers (specifically the use of extra-Constitutional measures) in time of war. Namely, that the exigencies of national security trump the Constitutional restraints of separation of powers, in particular as regards judicial oversight. Here are the relevant passages from Musharraf's declaration of a State of Emergency:

Whereas some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive and legislature in the fight against terrorism and extremism, thereby weakening the government and the nation's resolve and diluting the efficacy of its actions to control this menace;...

Whereas constant interference in executive function, including but not limited to the control of terrorist activity... has weakened the writ of the government; the police force has been completely demoralized and is fast losing its efficacy to fight terrorism and Intelligence Agencies have been thwarted in their activities and prevented from pursuing terrorists;

Whereas some hard core militants, extremists, terrorists and suicide bombers, who were arrested and being investigated were ordered to be released. The persons so released have subsequently been involved in heinous terrorist activities, resulting in loss of human life an property. Militants across the country have, thus, been encouraged while law enforcement agencies subdued;

Whereas some judges by overstepping the limits of judicial authority have taken over the executive and legislative functions;

Whereas the law and order situation in the country as well as the economy have been adversely affected and trichotomy of powers eroded;

Whereas a situation has thus arisen where the government of the country cannot be carried on in accordance with the constitution and as the constitution provides no solution for this situation, there is no way out except through emergent and extraordinary measures;

If there's a difference between the two, it's that Musharraf admits that the Pakistani constitution offers no method to arbitrate the conflict, leaving him no choice but to abrogate it temporarily, whereas the Bush administration bases its claims of extra-Constitutional power in its peculiar and self-serving reading of the Constitution itself.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no apologist for the Pakistani regime. But consider how the Bush administration responded to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Now imagine those attacks multiplied throughout the country on an ongoing basis, with Al Gore still in the process of challenging the 2000 presidential election, and you've got an idea of what's going on in Pakistan right now. Under those circumstances, I'm not sure we'd have made out any better than the Pakistanis.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Pakistan   

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Friday, November 2, 2007

Two Generations On Alert

You might have seen that retired Gen. John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander who oversaw Iraq operations, predicted that American troops would be deployed in the Middle East for the next 25 to 50 years. Here's the direct quote:

Over time, we will have to shift the burden of the military fight from our forces directly to regional forces, and we will have to play an indirect role, but we shouldn’t assume for even a minute that in the next 25 to 50 years, the American military might be able to come home, relax and take it easy, because the strategic situation in the region doesn’t seem to show that as being possible.

Which got me to thinking about how things used to look in the Middle East -- before 9/11, before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in short, before it became a foregone conclusion that American forces belonged there. That thought, after a few google searches, led me to this Heritage Foundation report on year-by-year American troop deployments by country. The actual data, fom 1950-2005, is here, in an Excel file.

There are some surprises. For instance, I was unaware that through the 1970's, the primary American deployment in the Middle East was in Morocco, with a peak of 15,000 troops in 1954, followed by a sharp drop which steadily tapers off before all but disappearing in the Eighties. But after that, with the exception of the brief spike of the First Gulf War, we basically had no deployment to speak of for most of the Nineties.

That starts to change towards the end of the Clinton years. By 2000, we had roughly 11,000 troops deployed between Saudi Arabia (7k) and Kuwait (4k). A number that actually decreases in 2001, before eventually going off the charts in 2002 and 2003.

In other words, we managed to navigate the height of the Cold War, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, and the aftermath of the First Gulf War with basically no significant force deployment in the Middle East. Now as a result of one successful terrorist attack and a failed war, we're being told that two generations of American soldiers will be deployed on high alert in the region. And anyone who challenges that orthodoxy is accused of being soft on national security. 

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   The Middle East   

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Monday, October 29, 2007

Slow Motion Suffocation

Malcolm Nance is a SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) master instructor who has worked in counter-terrorism for 20 years. Here's his bio over at Small Wars Journal, which gives you an idea of his commitment to national security. And here's his long and forceful denunciation of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques". His conclusion is in the title: Waterboarding is torture... Period.

Nance is no softie. Unlike the guys talking tough from the comfort of Washington offices, television studios and campaign podiums, he's personally experienced every technique under discussion, interviewed survivors of torture, and studied all the taped and written debriefings available. And here's what he has to say about what he's witnessed:

Most people can not stand to watch a high intensity kinetic interrogation. One has to overcome basic human decency to endure watching or causing the effects. The brutality would force you into a personal moral dilemma between humanity and hatred. It would leave you to question the meaning of what it is to be an American.

If you can, read the whole thing. If not, keep this in mind the next time someone dismisses waterboarding as a little bit of water in the detainee's face:

Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again. (Emphasis in original.)

And here's a question for the GOP 'roid ragers. Would any one of them agree to be waterboarded? Not as part of a hypothetical scenario to prevent a terrorist attack. Just to know what they're talking about? If it's as benign as they say it is, their hands should go up as quickly as when they're asked if they'd authorize it.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   Politics   

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Casting Light Into The Shadows

When Gitanjali Gutierrez met with Majid Khan on Monday, it marked the first time a lawyer was able to visit one of the "high value detainees" transferred from the CIA "black sites" to Gitmo last September. Gutierrez is an attorney for The Center for Constitutional Rights who is representing Khan on a pro bono basis. I have no way of knowing whether Khan is innocent or guilty (he's been charged with researching attacks within the US on water supplies and gas stations). I do know that he deserves legal representation and the chance to defend himself against those charges. That's why I've put the CCR's banner at the top of the right sidebar. Click through and find out a bit more about them. And if you can, support what they're doing. Equal justice under the law applies to everyone, without exception. Otherwise it applies to no one.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Friday, October 12, 2007

The Court Of Public Opinion

The latest military commission proceedings get to the heart of just how flawed the cost-to-benefit analysis that went into building Gitmo really was:

The U.S. military has filed an attempted murder charge against a Guantanamo Bay detainee who allegedly threw a hand grenade into a vehicle carrying two American soldiers and an interpreter in Afghanistan, according to documents released Thursday...

At a hearing last year at Guantanamo, Jawad said he falsely confessed to local Afghan police who had arrested him because they tortured him.

The fundamental question being, Who really wins this one in the global court of public opinion? Let's even assume for the sake of argument that the charges are true. What we've got is a guy who tossed a grenade at a couple of soldiers in a war zone. Was he an enemy? Yes. An unlawful combatant? Sure, why not. Was he a dangerous terrorist? Seems like a stretch. But most importantly, was he worth giving the entire world the impression that we're rounding up innocent goatherds and torturing them in a gulag under the Cuban sun? Decidedly not. 

I don't see how a good old-fashioned POW camp wouldn't have done the trick here. Unless it has something to do with this. 

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Friday, October 12, 2007

You're Either With Us Or Against Us

It always pays to be skeptical of accusations made by someone trying to avoid the inside of a jail cell. But according to redacted court documents just unsealed from former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio's insider trading trial, the NSA pulled the plug on a $100 million deal for Qwest to build them a "private" fibre optics network in retaliation for the company's refusal to go along with what is clearly a reference to the NSA telecom surveillance program:

Nacchio planned to demonstrate at trial that he had a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Md., to discuss a $100 million project. According to the documents, another topic also was discussed at that meeting, one with which Nacchio refused to comply.

The topic itself is redacted each time it appears in the hundreds of pages of documents, but there is mention of Nacchio believing the request was both inappropriate and illegal, and repeatedly refusing to go along with it.

The NSA contract was awarded in July 2001 to companies other than Qwest.

Nacchio was prevented by the first trial judge from presenting the evidence due to its classified nature. He's currently free pending appeal.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Markets & Finance   

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Friday, October 5, 2007

The Radical Transformation Of Self

I just got back from a brilliant lecture at the Université Paris Descartes titled "Islamism Today". The speaker was Hamit Bozarslan, who gave a brief history of the Islamist movement from the Muslim Brotherhood through Osama Bin Laden. He avoided stereotypes and clichés, instead focusing on the historic continuities -- and discontinuities -- in the evolution of this movement. In the process, he completely changed the way I understand the current expression of radical Islam and its violent confrontation with the West.

According to Bozarslan, the initial phase of radical Islamism (which arose in the late-Seventies in response to the failure of leftist/nationalist Arab liberation movements) had run out of steam and was largely in decline by the year 2000. Unable to re-generate itself, and finding its violent methods rejected by mainstream Muslim opinion, Islamism was in retreat before authoritarian states that represented order and stability for an increasingly cosmopolitan Arab world.

But at roughly the same time that Islamic scholars were anticipating the disappearance of jihad, a new form of Islamism appeared that, in Bozarslan's words, introduced a new "subjectivity": That is, a new way of understanding the self in the world. This new subjectivity centers around the body and its singular role as locus of both corruption and salvation: Corruption through its participation in an imperfect world; salvation through its sacrifice in jihad.

To illustrate this dramatic shift, Bozarslan compared Yasser Arafat's body with that of Hamas founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The one, portly, corporal, pugnacious. The other, feeble, paralysed, almost blind. When the goal is national autonomy, the physical body is an end in itself. When the goal is spiritual salvation through martyrdom, the body is a only a means to an end.

The new wave of Islamism advocated by Yassin and Osama Bin Laden represents a rupture: with worldly society, with classical Islamism, with the Western tradition. Its struggle is an eschatological battle between good and evil, with little attachment to the physical body or the material world. The individual becomes responsible for both the decline of Islam and the deliverance of the world, and self-martyrdom becomes the central if not determinant act of devotion.

I've had an intuition for a while now that suicide bombings, if not radical Islam itself, will eventually just peter out on their own, if only we just do our best to prevent them from happening and carry on with our lives as normally as possible. And Bozarslan's lecture just convinces me that there's something to that intuition. Because the metaphysical subjectivity he describes is just not that appealing. Especially in the long run. But it's one that is reinforced by frontal engagement with its bi-polar imagination: The more its enemy attacks it as evil, the more convinced it becomes of its saintliness.

It's often been said that Levi's and rock 'n roll played as big a role in the fall of the Soviet Union as any military or political measures taken during the Cold War. Because the West, with all of its shortcomings and contradictions, was able to combine the elements that led to the emergence of a new subjectivity (modern, liberated, expressive) that ultimately proved more appealing than that proposed by Communist society.

The same goes for the current struggle with radical Islam. Our most potent weapon isn't a better bomb. It's a better alternative.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   The Middle East   

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Monday, October 1, 2007

Dreams And Nightmares

I admit that for a while now, I've taken Hugo Chavez seriously. Ever since the price of oil started skyrocketing, to be exact, and neo-Bolivarian candidates won elections in Ecuador and Bolivia, to be even more exact. I also admit that for a while now, I've felt like something of an idiot for taking Hugo Chavez seriously. Because, for me, Hugo Chavez represents everything that, in an ideal world, ought not be taken seriously.

So I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed, or both, to learn that Max Manwaring, in a National War College monograph, takes Hugo Chavez very seriously:

President Chavez is pursuing a Super Insurgency with a confrontational, defensive, populist, and nationalistic agenda that is intended eventually to liberate Latin America from U.S. economic dependency and political domination. That is a Herculean task, but he appears to be prepared to take his time, let his enemies become accustomed to a given purposeful action, and then slowly move toward new stages of the revolution in a deliberate, slow, and phased manner. Thus, by staying under his opponents’ “threshold of concern,” Chavez says that he expects to “put his enemies to sleep—to later wake up dead.”

This is not the rhetoric of a “nut case.” It is, importantly, the rhetoric of an individual who is performing the traditional and universal Leninist Maoist function of providing a strategic vision and the operational plan for gaining revolutionary power. (pp. 32-33)

Not good. Fortunately, Manwaring (as I) believes that Chavez is unlikely to succeed in his effort to unify all of Latin America into a grand counterweight to the United States. But that's not the point. The point is that Chavez is willing to de-stabilize targeted governments in order to do so. In fact, it's part of his grand strategy. And failed states, as breeding grounds of violence, crime and non-state bad actors, might be even worse than a grand Latin American counterweight to the United States:

However, if misguided political dreams were to come true, Osama bin Laden would see the artificial boundaries of the Muslim Middle East and North Africa turn into caliphates reminiscent of the glory days of the 12th and 13th centuries. And Hugo Chavez would witness the metamorphosis of 15 or 20 Latin American republics into one great American nation. Experience demonstrates, however, that most of these political dreams never come true. Ultimately, the international community must pay the indirect social, economic, and political costs of state failure. Accordingly, the current threat environment in the Western Hemisphere is not a traditional security problem, but it is no less dangerous. (p. 8)

The comparison between Chavez and Bin Laden is no coincidence, because Manwaring sees them as two sides of the same asymmetrical warfare coin: Osama goes in for the high-profile attack; Hugo's more of a stealth provocateur. But they've both got pan-nationalistic goals, they've both identified the limitations of conventional conceptions of power, and they've both developed their strategic visions accordingly.

That's more than Manwaring can say for America, which is still locked into obsolete concepts and stultified organizational structures that hinder our ability to respond to tactical challenges to the full extent of our abilities.

Take deterrence, for instance. With the advent of 4th generation warfare (4GW), the battlefield is no longer (exclusively) a physical space where armies meet. War now takes place anywhere and everywhere that the conflict's center of gravity -- public opinion and leadership -- can be influenced: In the media, in the marketplace, and in the halls of the UN, to name but a few. Freed from the restrictive role of threatening a largely obsolete use of force, deterrence could be re-invented more broadly as prevention:

Deterrence is not necessarily military—although that is important. It is not necessarily negative or directly coercive, although that, too, is important. Deterrence is much broader than any of these elements. Deterrence can be direct and/or indirect, political-diplomatic, socioeconomic, psychological-moral, and/or militarily coercive. In its various forms and combinations of forms, it is an attempt to influence how and what an enemy or potential enemy thinks and does. That is, deterrence is the creation of a state of mind that either discourages one thing or encourages something else. Motive and culture, thus, become crucial. In this context, political-military communication and preventive diplomacy become a vital part of the deterrence equation. (pp.42-43)

But as our missile-rattling handling of the Iranian crisis shows, this multi-hued approach to deterrence has yet to emerge from its cocoon.

Manwaring's analysis does more than just rehabilitate Chavez from a certified loony to a legitimate psychopath, though. It calls into question the very nature of the security challenges America faces in the 21st century. In mobilizing America for an unnecessary war against Iraq, President Bush reduced the threat we face to a "War Against Terrorism", later re-labelled as a "War Against Islamo-Fascism".

But the real threat to American global interests is much broader than that. It lies in the limitations of conventional power in the face of asymmetric conflict, and the resulting vulnerability of already-fragile nation-states to non-conventional methods of de-stabilization. Neither of which are to be found exclusively in the Islamo-Fascist hinterlands of the Middle East.

It should come as no surprise that a world confronted with a solitary super-power should attempt to re-configure itself in ways that might counterbalance such immense unilateral power. Osama Bin Laden's dream of a Caliphate and Chavez's dream of a unified Latin American state are not very different from China's dream of a peaceful rise, or Russia's dream of a return to form, even if the methods differ.

By squandering our military strength and international influence where the enemy wasn't, instead of articulating a broad strategy that can help us outsmart them where they increasingly are, President Bush has brought all of those dreams one step closer to coming true.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   International Relations   Las Americas   The Middle East   

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Friday, September 28, 2007

Deja Vu All Over Again

The question, it seems to me, is, How many more times do we need to read this headline before we win? Or alternatively, How many more second-in-commands does Al Qaeda Iraq have?

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Monday, September 24, 2007

Canary In The Mine

This post isn't really inspired by any single major news item as much as by a whole slew of smaller ones. The thought was triggered by a blurb about Turkey opening its yearly fall offensive against the PKK a month earlier than normal this year, gathered steam with the news that Blackwater (or two of its employees) are the subject of an FBI investigation for illegally smuggling weapons to the PKK in Iraq, and culminated in an article about the US urging Turkey to find alternatives sources of natural gas instead of developing Iranian reserves as planned.

And the thought is that somehow, in pursuing a generation-defining war against Islamic extremism, we've managed to push the one democratic, secular, dependable Islamic ally we have in the region into the arms of our worst enemies.

Iran is a sexy story right now, and rightfully so. But when the dust of history settles on the Iraq War, I'm not sure that the unleashing of Iran will rate as its most significant adverse outcome. That honor might very well go to the deterioration of the American-Turkish strategic alliance. Because unlike Iraq or Iran, which we never really stood a chance of winning over, Turkey was already on our side. And we're in the process of losing it, at the very moment when religious Muslims have begun to dominate the Turkish political scene.

For the time being, the Turkish military and cultural elites serve as guarantors of secularism. But if Turkey ever does wind up sliding into theocracy, it will be a major strategic setback for American regional interests. And it will be in many ways traceable to bi-lateral tensions caused by our intervention in Iraq.

Iran is important. But the future of Turkey, it seems to me, will determine the future of the region.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iran   Iraq   Turkey   

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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Be Ready. Be Very Ready.

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm perfectly willing to accept the possibility that I'm way off base on this. But it strikes me that the Dept. of Homeland Security's disaster preparedness camp for ten year-olds represents all the worst aspects of our country's reaction to the traumas of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina:

...The Be Ready Camp curriculum includes an introduction to survival and first aid, disaster psychology and terrorism awareness, as well as instruction on creating a family emergency plan and an emergency supply kit.

Be Ready Camp culminates in a disaster exercise, with kids stepping into the shoes of public safety professionals, such as police officers, firefighters, dive teams, doctors, soldiers and first responder volunteers.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think kids shouldn't be prepared to respond to individual emergency situations, both emotionally and also (to whatever degree they're capable of) technically. It just seems inappropriate to not only inculcate them with a mass disaster mentality at such a young age, but also with a sense of responsibility to respond to one.

After all, the emergency response failures to both 9/11 and Katrina weren't due to kids not knowing how to respond. They were due to grown ups not knowing how to respond. And if a disaster ever results in there being no adults available to respond, then I don't think this kind of camp is going to make much of a difference for the kids that are left.

There's a certain comic aspect to this, sort of like the "Duck & Cover" drills of the 1950's. But those drills, as silly as they were, managed to psychologically mark a generation with a foreboding of impending doom. Which isn't such a laughing matter.

Also, I'm a bit curious as to what the "Terrorism Awareness" component of the curriculum consists of. Are the little tikes learning how to racially profile potential terrorists? Or spy on their parents? Just how ready is ready, anyway?

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Saturday, September 15, 2007

Reverse Stockholm Syndrome?

In what may prove to be the next front in the War on Terror, Gitmo officials are investigating how two detainees managed to obtain contraband... underwears. That's right. Two detainees were found with non-regulation skivvies and one of them was also in possession of a pair of Speedos. The Pentagon suspects the men's lawyers had something to do with it, since they're both represented by the same English advocacy group, Reprieve. A lawyer for Reprieve rejected the charge, calling it unlikely that anything could be smuggled in to Gitmo, and pointing out that the brand of underwear in question, Under Armour, is popular among the US military.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Say What?   

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Friday, September 7, 2007

Hare Allah

In a monograph for the Army War College titled "Deprogramming an Ideology", Lt. Col. Johnathon French draws a parallel between jihadist terrorist organizations and religious cults. This seems about right to me, and underscores a major drawback of our approach to counter-terrorism. Namely that in reducing the options to military vs. police tactics (which is in and of itself silly, since both are necessary), we've excluded any consideration of the psychological component of the struggle. (By some odd coincidence, I just deleted a whole folder of articles on this subject while cleaning up my Bookmarks last night.)

Admittedly, there is no accepted psychological profile for identifying the potential terrorist, although my review of the literature suggested some convergences. But it's always struck me that terrorist organizations operate along the same lines (and depend upon the same qualities in their recruits) as religious cults. Indoctrination in moral absolutism, isolation from the pre-existing social context, and substitution of the group's ideology for the individual's moral compass are all time-tested ways to "convert" vulnerable subjects. (They also resemble the psychological principles behind the "enhanced interrogation techniques" designed to break detainees.)

Lt. Col. French calls it Thought Control, and he advocates a global effort to "deprogram" the terrorists and their pool of recruits, similar to interventions designed to emancipate cult members from the influence of the brainwashing they've experienced. Here's a chart of some concrete proposals (click on it for a larger readable version):

Some seem more practical and potentially effective than others. (For instance, I'm not sure how exactly Lt. Col. French intends to "De-nuclearize Israel", which you'll find under "Decisive Points" in the footnote box.) But at least it's a step towards the kind of creative thinking we'll need if we're actually going to defuse terrorism as a global threat.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Know Your Enemy

Greg Djerejian of The Belgravia Dispacth has a long post identifying the source of the real threat we face with regard to terrorism. In a nutshell, he poses the following the question:

...Put differently, how did the attack on downtown Manhattan lead us to become involved in ostensibly decades long nation building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and perhaps to come, a bombing campaign that would likely lead to a full-blown conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran?

In my view, the greatest threat we face in the post 9/11 era are radicalized Islamists of mostly lower to middle class background who have grown up or emigrated to cities like Madrid, London, Paris, Hamburg, Milan... The radical Islamists who threaten us the most are those who have become technologically sophisticated, who perhaps speak our language, who can more easily appear ‘Westernized’, and meantime have become highly alienated by the West, basically the Mohammed Atta type. Which is to say, not rural peasants in the environs of Kandahar or impoverished Shi'a slum-dwellers south of Baghdad...

Greg's point is on the money, but for one thing: Looks like we'll have to add Copenhagen to the list. Because the Danish police have just arrested a cell of eight suspected bomb plotters who all match Greg's description to a tee. And initial reports suggest that at least several of them have direct links to al-Qaeda's top leadership.

Americans have a tendency to minimize the target value of "minor" countries like Denmark, while getting unnerved by every Moe, Curly and Larry nabbed by the FBI and DHS stateside. But these arrests confirm the pattern of the London and Madrid bombings, as well as recent intelligence reports that suggest that Islamic terrorists are increasingly turning their sights on Western Europe as a second "front".

But while it's important to take these threats seriously, it's also important not to lose sight of the kinds of distinctions that Greg makes. This kind of analysis seems like an opportunity for Democrats to turn their perceived weakness on National Security into a strength. Because there's really no way we can defeat our enemy if we can't even identify him.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Psychological Torture

The American Psychological Association has scrapped a blanket ban on psychologists taking part in military interrogations "...in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights..." in favor of one that prohibits them from participating in interrogations that use any of more than a dozen specified practices. The reasoning was that psychologists served as a moderating influence on the interrogators' conduct:

"If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die," said Army Col. Larry James, who serves as a psychologist at Guantanamo Bay.

Which strikes me as pretty strong confirmation that whatever's going on in those interrogations is illegal. As one psychologist quoted in the article put it:

"If psychologists have to be there so detainees don't get killed, those conditions are so horrendous that the only moral and ethical thing is to leave."

And alert the media, the judiciary, or both.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Friday, August 17, 2007

The Insecurity Council

According to Le Monde, Dick Marty, the investigator for the Council of Europe who issued a report on the CIA's European black hole prisons this past June, is set to issue another one this autumn which is sure to grab some attention. This time he's shining the spotlight on the UN Security Council's anti-terrorism "blacklist", specifically:

...the "Kafka-esque" practices and "flagrant injustice" of a committee of the UN Security Council which manages a list of 362 people and 125 organizations, sanctioned for their alleged connections with al-Qaeda or the Taliban...

For someone to be added to the list, all it takes is just one of the fifteen members of the Council to request it and provide a summary of the acts in question, often based on classified intelligence. If none of the other members objects in the next five days, the name is added and published on the UN website.

The activities subject to sanction, such as "facilitating" activities related to al-Qaeda or "the support, in any other way" of the jihadist movement, remain vague. And when people are sanctioned, it's often based "on vague, even very vague, suspicions", according to Mr. Marty, without being informed of them, nor having access to incriminating evidence. (Translated from the French.)

Sanctions handed down by the committee have included everything from freezing of assets to house arrest, so the fact that there's really no judicial process involved is pretty significant. Changes have already been made in the list's administration, allowing those sanctioned to request their removal from it. But their request still needs unanimous consent from the Council (ie. the agreement of whichever country put them on it in the first place) to be approved. More recently, revisions proposed in 2006 included:

...the adoption of more precise definitions, re-examination every six months so that the sanctions remain temporary and preventative, as well as the introduction of judicial oversight and a right to appeal.

Something tells me the publicity surrounding Mr. Marty's report might turn the heat up enough to get them pushed through.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Friday, August 17, 2007

The Memory Hole

The Dept. of Defense has re-designed its website and one of the casualties is the handy "Detainee Affairs" link that used to be on the leftside navbar. The link was a payload of information, with everything from program descriptions to CSRT transcripts. After digging around a bit, I finally found it on the Press Resources page.

But I think this reflects the Bush administration's desire to downplay this aspect of the GWOT. Gitmo is a disaster, and after six years they finally realize that. Not because they think there's anything wrong with it. It's just that now they realize they can get away with doing the mass detentions under the radar in the "black hole" network. No more links. No more transcripts. 

Every now and then, when it suits their purpose, they'll transfer a high value detainee or two to Gitmo. But Gitmo as we understand it (ie. a largescale detention center) is on its way out.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   

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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Hard Place, Tough Talk

I'm thinking this kind of analysis might not make it into the GOP's YouTube debate. Or the Democrats', for that matter. From "Beyond Iraq: Lessons Of A Hard Place", by Anton K. Smith:

Muslim extremist terrorism is not wanton. It has political purpose, is based on warped but attractive religious precepts, and is built around the cause of confronting Western oppression and restoring Islamic dignity. It constitutes an insurgency against the global order. To employ the tools we have by attacking states is counterproductive, since an implicit target of the Muslim insurgency is the system of states itself, at least insofar as it can be forcibly altered to permit reestablishment of the caliphate... (p. 3)

Good thing the monograph is published by the Army War College, otherwise Smith might be accused of rooting for the enemy. Actually, he'll probably be accused of that anyway, seeing as how he works for the State Department. But what, in fact, he's arguing for is a reshoring of the nation-state system, namely through the United States re-assuming its traditional role of guarantor of the global stability:

Our response to 9/11 may have done more to further the interests of our jihadist opponents than our own, in that we have weakened an international system they view as illegitimate and destabilized the Middle East in a manner they now seek to exploit... Perception of the inability of the United States to deliver global security (and unwilling to be constrained by international opinion and cooperative arrangements) will erode global confidence, contribute to economic and political instability, and encourage non-state insurgents. Within the Middle East region, our natural allies in this fight are strong, moderate states, even if some of those states espouse views that run counter to our own. To restore vitality to the system we must begin to reconcile with proto-democratic Iran and secular Syria... (p. 6)

...Promoting the primacy of economic over political development is as crucial to stability in the Middle East today as it was in our own history. In the end, encouraging the growth of strong, vibrant and moderate states in the Middle East is our best hedge against the global jihadist threat. (p.7)

Note the primacy of economic over political development, because that's the thrust of Smith's argument. The problem he has with the Bush doctrine was its emphasis on free elections instead of free markets:

...Strong and economically vibrant middle classes will do more to support our goals than all the military power we can muster. (p. 7)

And while the establishment of socially dispersed economic freedom depends upon security and order, we also need to be realistic:

Our own history tells us states are most often forged in the crucible of violence. If we wish to see mature states in the Middle East, we must make way for violence there, reserving the exercise of force and subversion to those instances when vital U.S. interests are truly at stake... This clash of Islam is internal, reflecting a division within a religion. We have seen something like this in our own history. The bloody battle is on, but it is not ours. Our best hope is to contain and shape the conflict in ways that support the modern states system. Despite the fact states maturing in the Middle East diverge from our conceptual framework, we should avoid undermining upstart republics as the system develops. We have accepted a nuclear-armed religious state wrapped around democratic principles in Israel. We may have to accommodate one in Iran... (p. 7)

It's a sharp analysis, although the Milton Friedman worship makes me a bit uncomfortable. But I'm willing to forgive that to anyone who manages to cite Clausewitz and Kurt Vonnegut in the same article. 

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Iraq   

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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Drumroll, Please

I didn't see much coverage of this while I was on vacation, although I wasn't looking too hard either. But apparently the Dept. of Defense has officially concluded the Combatant Status Review Tribunals for the 14 high-value detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, whose transfer to Gitmo last fall officially confirmed the CIA's black-hole interrogation network. Surprise, surprise, they've all been determined to be enemy combatants. A finding that is still clouded in some legal confusion, since the Military Commissions Act requires they be found "unlawful" enemy combatants. The change in status will give them the right to civilian counsel, though, as well as to challenge the findings in court.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Brush-Off

A new report from the UK's security and intelligence committee indicates that the CIA was so gung ho about its extraordinary rendition program that it disregarded 20 years of precedent by ignoring British "caveats" placed on shared intelligence:

Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna were flown by the CIA first to Afghanistan and then Guantanamo Bay, where el-Banna is still being held.

The committee said the UK services "used caveats specifically prohibiting any action being taken" when they handed over the intelligence on the men.

It says the UK security services did not foresee that the US authorities would disregard the caveats, given that they had honoured the caveat system for the past 20 years.

Then there's this, which is so dryly British that it's hard to keep a straight face when reading it:

"Although the US may take note of UK protests and concerns, it does not appear materially to affect their strategy..." the report warned.

Less amusing are the report's conclusions, which recommend overseeing intelligence cooperation at the ministerial level as long as there is even the suspicion that it might result in rendition. Yet another way in which Bush's conduct of the War on Terror has damaged America's interests.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Monday, July 23, 2007

Surprise, Surprise

Regardless of what Frances Townsend might have to say about the matter, Pakistan remains resolutely opposed to an American attack against al-Qaeda on Pakistani territority.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   International Relations   

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Friday, July 20, 2007

Black Hole Rules

As required by the Military Commissions Act, President Bush has just signed an Executive Order interpreting the Geneva Conventions prohibition of torture. A quick reading of the Order leaves me guardedly optimistic that the CIA interrogation program has now been officially prohibited from using torture as most sane people understand that term.

To begin with, it clearly locates the definition of torture in the context of the US Constitution, with all the rights and protections it guarantees:

"Cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Later, it prohibits torture as defined by the US Code, as well as a long list of other practices, including anything "...so serious that any reasonable person, considering the circumstances, would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency..."

There remain, however, a number of troubling aspects. While use of the detainee program is limited to members of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associates who are likely to have information about terrorist attacks or the whereabouts of terrorist leaders, the Order leaves it up to the Director of the CIA to identify just who that refers to. Also, nowhere does the Order extend habeas corpus rights to detainees.

And since it always pays to be somewhat skeptical of the Bush administration's sincerity, the actual Constitutional amendments it cites could conceivably provide some loophole wiggle room. The 8th Amendment very clearly prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments".

But the 5th Amendment, which guarantees due process, makes an exception for "... cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger..." And the 14th Amendment refers to equal protection under the law across State jurisdictions, which I can't imagine will apply to non-nationals held in a Soviet-era Polish dungeon.

On the whole, good news. But the Devil will be in the details of the codified instructions delivered to actual CIA interrogators in the field.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Psychic Demolition

It's widely known that the enhanced interrogation techniques used at Gitmo and in the CIA's black site prisons were reverse-engineered from the military's Cold War-era training programs for resisting torture at the hands of Communist interrogators. Now in a must-read article in Vanity Fair, Katherine Eban reveals that two CIA-contracted psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, have been central to the development of the techniques, which are likened to a "psychic demolition" designed to get a detainee "... to reveal everything by severing his sense of personality and scaring him almost to death":

According to a person familiar with the methods, the basic approach was to "break down [the detainees] through isolation, white noise, completely take away their ability to predict the future, create dependence on interrogators."

But the Communist interrogation tactics on which the new methods are based were designed to generate useful propaganda (ie. false confessions and anti-American declarations), not useful intelligence. Why, then, were the new methods adopted so wholeheartedly? Eban traces the explanation to the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the al-Qaeda lieutenant who under interrogation revealed the identities of Sheikh Khalid Mohammed and José Padilla, among others:

While it was the F.B.I.'s rapport-building that had prompted Zubaydah to talk, the C.I.A. would go on to claim credit for breaking Zubaydah, and celebrate Mitchell as a psychological wizard who held the key to getting hardened terrorists to talk. Word soon spread that Mitchell and Jessen had been awarded a medal by the C.I.A. for their advanced interrogation techniques. While the claim is impossible to confirm, what matters is that others believed it. The reputed success of the tactics was "absolutely in the ether," says one Pentagon civilian who worked on detainee policy.

Since then, Mitchell and Jessen have set up a series of private consultant companies that provide training for interrogators. And according to Eban, business ain't bad:

The principals of Mitchell, Jessen & Associates are raking in money. According to people familiar with their compensation, they get paid more than $1,000 per day plus expenses, tax free, for their overseas work. It beats military pay. Mitchell has built his dream house in Florida. He also purchased a BMW through one of his companies. "Taxpayers are paying at least half a million dollars a year for these two knuckleheads to do voodoo," says one of the people familiar with their pay arrangements.

The fact that psychologists are getting rich off of a method designed to demolish psyches is chilling. The fact that it's the United States government writing the checks is glacial.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Monday, July 16, 2007

Heads They Win, Tails We Lose

What exactly does this prove? According to the Dept. of Defense, at least 30 former Gitmo detainees have "returned to the fight" after their release:

These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years. Many detainees later identified as having returned to fight against the U.S. with terrorists falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-scale merchants, or low-level combatants.

Other common cover stories include going to Afghanistan to buy medicines, to teach the Koran, or to find a wife. Many of these stories appear so often, and are subsequently proven false that we can only conclude they are part of their terrorist training.

Now it could be as the DoD says, and the former detainees did, in fact, lie their way out of Gitmo. Of course, another possible explanation is that the detainees were telling the truth in Gitmo, and their experiences there so embittered them that upon their release they went and joined the folks gunning for American GI's.

Either way, the implication is that the coercive interrogation techniques employed there don't actually work. And that it's a safe bet, given what we know about who's actually joining Al Qaeda in Iraq, that at least some of the sixteen Gitmo detainees transferred to Saudi Arabia today will soon be setting off IED's in Baghdad.

Posted by Judah in:  Global War On Terror   Human Rights   

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Tuesday, July 3, 2007

The Terrorist Pro-Am Circuit

In the aftermath of the London-Glasgow failed attacks, a lot of counter-terrorism experts have been ridiculing the wannabe terrorists' incompetence, leading Noah Shachtman over at Danger Room to pose the question, "Were these bombers Beavises?  Or