Arms and influence

Big and little crusaders

I was agreeing with most of what I read in Andrew Bacevich's recent Atlantic Monthly article until I got to this section:

Embedded within this argument over military matters is a more fundamental and ideologically charged argument about basic policy. By calling for an Army configured mostly to wage stability operations, Nagl is effectively affirming the Long War as the organizing principle of post-9/11 national-security strategy, with U.S. forces called upon to bring light to those dark corners of the world where terrorists flourish. Observers differ on whether the Long War’s underlying purpose is democratic transformation or imperial domination: Did the Bush administration invade Iraq to liberate that country or to control it? Yet there is no disputing that the Long War implies a vast military enterprise undertaken on a global scale and likely to last decades. In this sense, Nagl’s reform agenda, if implemented, will serve to validate—and perpetuate—the course set by President Bush in the aftermath of 9/11.

Nagl, in Bacevich's terminology, is a "crusader." Crusaders believe that counterinsurgency wars are winnable, so the US government should reorganize its national security apparatus, including the military, to go forth and win them.

In contrast, "conservatives" believe we should stick to the old Powell Doctrine, and just avoid those long, messy wars with less than glamorous victory conditions:

Gentile understands this. Implicit in his critique of Nagl is a critique of the Bush administration, for which John Nagl serves as a proxy. Gentile’s objection to what he calls Nagl’s “breathtaking” assumption about “the efficacy of American military power to shape events” expresses a larger dissatisfaction with similar assumptions held by the senior officials who concocted the Iraq War in the first place. When Gentile charges Nagl with believing that there are “no limits to what American military power … can accomplish,” his real gripe is with the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

And here's where Bacevich's simple distinction between crusaders and conservatives proves to be oversimplified. In reality, there are at least three categories of opinion about wars like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq:

• Big crusaders, who see "the Long War" as a single overarching conflict, or a set of intertwined wars that need to be addressed in some common fashion. Big crusaders invent terms like GWOT to describe their belief system.
• Little crusaders, who think that some of these wars are worth fighting, but there's no bigger meta-conflict at work. A little crusader might think that the war in Afghanistan or Iraq is winnable, but there's no "vast military enterprise undertaken on a global scale and likely to last decades" that we're compelled to fight.
• Conservatives, who want to push these little wars, low-intensity conflicts, or whatever the term du jour is, down the list of priorities. Whether we're not capable of doing a good job at fighting these wars, or the costs outweight the benefits, they're just not worth re-engineering the US defense apparatus to fight them.

You might slice the philosophical or doctrinal distinctions even more finely, but you get the point. I'd classify myself as a little crusader, who believes passionately in taking these conflicts seriously. Creating some bigger story arc, however, isn't necessary to justify the changes needed to fight these conflicts better. 

In fact, the story arc of "big crusaders" creates dangerous misconceptions about connections that don't really exist. Back in the 1980s, people spoke about "global terror networks" as if SMERSH or SPECTRE were running the show behind the scenes. However, revolutionary groups that use similar methods don't necessarily belong to some larger network. (And, in fact, revolutionaries in the same country, using roughly the same methods, often compete with each other.) The occasional collaboration among them, such as sharing technical information about bomb-making or psychological warfare, is also not evidence of some greater network that only a "Long War" can ultimately defeat.

Therefore, we're not just arguing semantics here. The notion that, if you're not a "conservative," you are thick as thieves with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, is just ludicrous.

[Thanks to Mark Grimsley for pointing out Bacevich's article.]

 

New rules for DOJ ball

Whether or not the Obama Administration closes down Guantanamo Bay soon after Inauguration Day, the Department of Justice's role in counterterrorism is going to change:

• The cases against many detainees, at Guantanamo Bay and other facilities, have already been falling apart.
• The Obama Administration will likely not pursue cases as vigorously as its predecessor. For example, by choosing not to contest federal court rulings, such as the recent one concerning the treatment of the Uighur prisoners, Guantanamo will begin to depopulate. In other situations where the Bush DOJ contested decisions, an Obama DOJ is less likely to make the same legal challenges.
• The DOJ is likely to be one of the main targets of the Obama team's planned "personnel review." If you're working for the DOJ, and you're a graduate of Patrick Henry University, you might want to polish up your resume.
• On top of the existing Guantanamo-inspired Supreme Court rulings, more potential cases before the Court are in the works. Again, the Obama Administration can choose not to put up a fight, in which case, the depopulation of Guantanamo will acelerate that much more.

The only thing that might make this situation better is the comic spectacle of some who supported for the bogus "unitary executive" theory now arguing against Obama's presidential discretion in handling these cases. Don't discount the possibility.

World of Wankcraft

Note to future applicants for high-security DoD jobs: you might want to re-consider your membership in a World of Warcraft clan. You might also want to stop reading this blog right now. The part of the DoD that screens applicants for these jobs suspects that your online behavior indicates whether you're a security risk.

In my day job, I do a fair amount of research covering life in the Internet age. Not surprisingly, Web 2.0 (Wikis, blogs, social networking, etc.) has re-invigorated interest in what people do while they're on the web. Many companies are trying to figure out how to use any new technologies, such as massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs), to attract the attention, contribution, and loyalty of people who fit these different profiles.

Therefore, I can speak with a little authority on the topic of whether online behavior is a good indicator of whether someone is a good security risk. I'm not aware of any data pointing to whether someone who contributes Wikipedia articles is more or less likely to leak secret information to Iran than, say, someone who comments on the same Wikipedia articles, or just occasionally reads them.

Nor am I aware of any indication that the question is worth pursuing. Some people like to play World of Warcraft, and other people are just plain bored by it. Some people write blogs, other people comment on them. Some people use Delicious to maintain hundreds of bookmarks, and some people don't bookmark much of anything.

There's no reason to assume one group is more or less dangerous than the other--unless, of course, you're a defense contractor or government agency looking for budget-enhancing projects. (In this case, the price tag is $800,000, paid to two contractors, neither of whom are exactly luminaries in understanding online behavior.) As Drew Conway notes, the unjustifiably paranoid assumption behind this study is "likely lead to standards that disqualify the exact people the U.S. military needs to recruit in order to reclaim dominance of cyberspace."

In other words, do you want to recruit people for the 'information battlefield" who don't really use the Internet, with the possible exception of Overstock.com and eBay? I thought not.

¿Donde esta el uranio?

Armchair Generalist notes the latest "Everyone panic!" notification from the Department of Homeland Security. This time, a DHS official murmurs ominously about a possible alliance between Latin American drug traffickers and Al Qaeda. The modern-day Escobars have the infiltration routes; Al Qaeda might someday have nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. This dark alliance of swarthy people might happen someday. Maybe.

Sure, there might be a "potpurri of scum" who do business with each other. After all, Al Qaeda members might need the occasional source for weapons and fake passports from somewhere. Opium from Afghanistan has to get into the US through some route.

But does that mean that Latin American drug smugglers have any interest in helping Al Qaeda infiltrate unconventional weapons into the United States? Um, assuming that Al Qaeda even had them, probably not. Look at how the Uribe government escalated its counterinsurgency campaign, once it found out the Venezuelan government was providing money and technical assistance to the FARC. Now imagine what might happen if either a local government or the US government discovered any collusion between drug traffickers and foreign terrorists.

Smugglers are businesspeople that exercise extreme caution, given the number of law enforcement agencies are constantly trying to monitor or infiltrate their organizations. Even if Al Qaeda agents did not have NUKE AMERICA tattooed on their foreheads, the smugglers would have reasons to turn down anyone they don't completely trust. Smugglers sneak drugs into the United States, not people, and certainly not people from the Middle East.

Just because something is imaginable doesn't mean it's a real concern--particularly when the US government is already spending billions of dollars to track suspected drug smugglers. The DHS should not be getting ideas for "public service announcements" from the technothrillers sold in the supermarket check-out line.

UPDATE: Maybe this is all a prank designed to publicize the planned remake of Red Dawn. We can only hope so.

Grenades OK, as long as they're in a plastic bag

Please, please, please, whoever is the next President of the United States, order an immediate review of TSA regulations. We still take off our shoes in the security line, but it's OK for someone to take hand grenades on an airplane.

Who cares if "TSA specialists then determined that the explosives were inert"? Let's not even get into who t how qualified the TSA's Bomb Assessment Officer was to deem the grenades "inert." Someone threatening to blow up a plane with fake grenades is more of a threat than me getting on the plane without someone looking at my shoes.

And, of course, there's the continued erosion of the TSA's credibility, when it's willing to do something as symbolically stupid as this. But maybe they deserve it.

Good news devolves into bad

I shouldn't write posts like this one. Celebrating the news that a federal judge ordered the release of the 17 Uighurs held at Guantanamo Bay just jinxed it for them. A circuit court judge ordered the Uighurs' continued imprisonment until the court had a chance to consider the DOJ's plea.

Even more repulsive, the DOJ argued that imprisonment was in the interest of the Uighurs:

The Uighurs had been cleared for release in 2004 but the US says they may face persecution if returned to China.

The White House said if they were released it could set a precedent that would allow "sworn enemies" to seek US entry.

The government says the 17 also pose a security risk if released into the US.

No word yet on whether the same "logic" will apply to Native Americans flying to Canada, Kurds traveling to Turkey, or Sikhs traveling to India.

Here's a link to the SCOTUS Blog's summary of the case so far. It's worth taking a look at Judge Urbina's decision (now in limbo) to order the release of the Uighurs.

Enough with the Uighurs

One piece of good news on an otherwise dreary day: a federal judge has ordered the release of the 17 Uighurs whom the US government has imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for the last seven years.

At a hearing packed with Uighurs who live in the Washington area, Urbina rejected government arguments that he had no authority to order the men's release. He said he had such authority because the men were being held indefinitely and it was the only remedy available. He cited a June decision by an appellate court that found evidence against the Uighurs to be unreliable.

Urbina said in court that he ordered the release "because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause." He added, "The separation of powers do not trump" the prohibition against holding people indefinitely without trial.

And if you were curious how broken the Justice Department still is, wonder no more. The DoJ attorney, John O'Quinn, who had been making the argument for holding the Uighurs until the stars fell from the skies, intimated that, upon release, the US government might detain them again. In other words, having failed to produce any evidence that the Uighurs were terrorists bent on killing Americans, the Justice Department asserted that it would hold the Uighurs again because the US government accused them of belonging to a terrorist organization.

Maybe the US government is trying hard to keep the Uighurs in prison to keep Chinese leaders happy. However, I suspect that the DoJ's "assert executive fictional executive powers with maximum effort" policies, created and perfected during the Bush Administration, have as much or more to do with the continued effort to keep these 17 Uighurs in one prison or another. If you find that hard to believe, listen to this podcast before jumping to any conclusions. Ashcroft and Gonzales may be gone, but most of the people that the DoJ hired or promoted in the last several years are still there. Many are stalwart public servants with great respect for the Constitution and the laws...And some have different ideas.

Stalking bin Laden

In case you missed it, here's the 60 Minutes piece in which a Delta Force officer describes the hunt for bin Laden in 2001. It's an important part of the story of what happened in the early phase of the post-9/11 war against Al Qaeda and US intervention in Afghanistan. (And I still maintain that Not A Good Day To Die should be on everyone's reading list.)

The focus of the piece is the decision from somewhere in the chain of command to cancel Delta's planned attack on bin Laden. Who knows, there may have been good reasons. Perhaps the information about bin Laden's location wasn't as completely solid. Maybe there were fears about extracting the Delta team, once angry Al Qaeda fighters started hunting for bin Laden's killers. Or maybe the reasons were bad.

Nevertheless, it's worth remembering this small piece of the much bigger history of American counterterrorism--especially when we need to judge other risky missions that we assign to special operations forces (SOFs) like Delta. Not every decision to pull the plug is an outrage--as long as there's continued effort to reach the same objective.

On the front lines of trivia

Proof positive that the 9/11 attacks did not change everything: this argument between a customer and a Comcast support representative over whether said customer should provide his Social Security Number to get cable service. Through the relatively insecure medium of Internet chat. Because the PATRIOT Act says so.

Baptism of excrement

With each passing month, we learn about more executive branch employees complicit in the Bush Administration's worst policies. The latest inductee is Richard Myers, former Air Force general and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman:

In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics. The chief of the Army's international law division, for example, said in a memo that some of the tactics, such as stress positions and sensory deprivation, "cross the line of 'humane treatment'" and "may violate the torture statute."

Myers, however, agreed to scuttle a plan for further legal review of the tactics, in response to pressure from a top Pentagon attorney helping to set up the interrogation program for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Apparently, to work in the higher echelons of the Bush national security team, you had to accept the baptism of excrement. Once you show that you're willing to participate in things you know to be wrong, you're a made man (or woman, such as Condoleeza Rice, Karen Hughes, or Harriet Miers). Not only have your superiors learned exactly how compliant you're willing to be, but they also have the power over to you that  the secret knowledge of shameful actions can grant.

I suspect that the baptism of excrement was a consideration in setting up the meetings among Bush's top advisers to approve the CIA's handling of prisoners. You didn't need Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, Rice, and Ashcroft in the same room, just to determine which tender mercies the CIA could use on someone who might have a real connection to Al Qaeda. Some other motive was at work.

Similarly, Myers knew that people in the Defense Department were raising reasonable concerns. Had he listened to them fully, he might have had to deliver an unwanted message to the civilian leadership. Therefore, he didn't listen to them. Myers also knew that the few in uniform who did manage to voice their objections, such as General Tony Taguba, were not isolated crackpots.

In April of 2003, the DoD held a press briefing featuring experts on the treatment of enemy prisoners. At the time, the concern was how the US military would handle irregulars like the Saddam Fedayeen, or any other soldier who tried to fade into the civilian population. Here's a quote from W. Hay Parks, an assistant to the Army's Judge Advocate General:

PARKS: When someone is captured, they go through a process of being taken from the capturing unit back to a collection unit and ultimately to the higher-level theater prisoner-of-war camps. And Article V of the Prisoner of War Convention, it specifies that if there is any doubt as to the status of a person, that person is entitled to prisoner-of-war protection until his or her status has been determined. That determination can be done by an Article 5 tribunal, which is a tribunal, set up by the military to look at the facts and circumstances of the capture and any other information. They then make a determination or recommendation. Our past practice, in Vietnam as well as in the first Gulf War, was that if at any time there remains any doubt, that person will be entitled to prisoner-of- war status.

Had Myers wanted to hear, he could have listened to his own employees--but, of course, it would have made his own role untenable.