I long for peace

National security has long been a subject of my blogging.  One of my best resources has been a Homeland Security newsletter I receive, published by Congressional Quarterly.  It is called Behind the Lines.  It's wonderful author is David C. Morrison.  I quote from his most recent piece: 

The decade-long splurge on intelligence spending in the United States appears to have hit its high-water mark, with $54.6 billion expended on non-Pentagon spy agencies and programs in fiscal 2011, The Washington Post’s Greg Miller blogs.

From this information one would surmise that we are less and less secure, necessitating bigger spending.  That is not the case any more.  We are more secure, less threatened.  And we should be able to move out of this "all war on terror/all over the world" mentality.


I long for peace.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Related articles

• CIA, Other Spy Agencies Spent $54.6 Billion In Secret For 2011 (tipggita32.wordpress.com)
• The high cost of U.S. spying (carol-sandy1.blogspot.com)
• Homeland Security reviews social media guidelines (sfgate.com)

Assessing the threat of terrorism via overhead spycraft -

Image by Defence Images via Flickr

Spying on adversaries from above is one way the U.S. assesses the level of danger from terrorists.  There are many times when those assigned the role of providing protection from the sky go about it in a very big way.  Here's an interesting story about a craft destined for eventual surveillance use in Afghanistan.  It is from today's Wired Danger Room and describes a giant spy blimp that dwarfs an 18-wheeler.

In stark contrast, drones are also getting smaller.  Portability, cost containment, and minimum use of personnel also seem to be attractive to the military.  The DIY-Drone of the Future Is … a Flying Pogo Stick comes again from Wired Danger Room (10/6/11).  To quote:

Darpa is holding a contest to design the military’s next spy mini-drone. So far, the entrants include a flying pogo stick, a sail that lands on mosques, and an unmanned laser shooter.

Those are some of concept videos submitted to UAV Forge, a Pentagon experiment to crowdsource the development of unmanned aerial vehicles. DIY-drone hobbyists are encouraged to work together to create the flying spy-bot of the future. It has to fit in a rucksack and be operated by just one person without any help, guidelines say.

Remotely operated combat drones are not problem free, as it turns out.  Recently it was revealed that a Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet.  To quote from another Wired Danger Room article:

[10/7/11] A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

* * * * * * * * * * 

For my readers who follow the subject of national security, I am recommending "Behind the Lines" listed under Free Alerts / CQ Roll Call free newsletters.  To quote briefly from today's newsletter (always so well-done by David C. Morrison):

Holy Wars: Following last week’s CIA hit on U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, “the last terrorist left chatting in an American accent is a chubby former metalhead named Adam Gadahn,” Danger Room follows up. “It is possible that Awlaki was assassinated because he was an effective critic of the U.S. government,” Paul Craig Roberts wildly reaches in HoweStreet.com. A new e-book, “The Just Scale — On the Permissibility of Killing the Infidels’ Children and Women,” published by a jihadi forum, attempts to refute mainstream arguments against killing certain types of civilians, IPT News notes. If proven to have been carried out by right-wing extremists, Sunday’s attack against a mosque in the Galilee “will be just the latest sign that Jewish terrorism is gaining steam,” The Jerusalem Post reports. A new online journalism course on Islam appears to downplay the threat posed by global jihadism, suggesting reporters keep the death toll from Islamic terrorism in “context,” FOX News relates.

Given the recent killing of the terrorist al-Awlaki and others in Yemen, predator drone warfare will continue to be the subject of debate among concerned Americans.  Stay tuned.

[Post date: 10/7/11]

Related articles

• Panetta spills _ a little _ on secret CIA drones (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Drones that can see the difference in the faces of identical twins (nextbigfuture.com)
• As the West Celebrates Awlaki's Death, the Mideast Shrugs (nytimes.com)

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites.

Why civil liberties should still matter -

President Obama's Inauguration.  Image via Wikipedia

South by Southwest is an old political blog I began in 2005.  For whatever reason, I focused on the subject of constitutional civil liberties almost from the beginning.*  Perhaps it was my belief that the Republican Bush administration began riding roughshod over the Bill of Rights' First and Fourth Amendments almost immediately after the 9/11/01 attacks on the United States.

Fast forward to January 2009 when the current Democratic Barack Obama administration began.
It became apparent to me over time that not that much changed under our Constitutional Law professor president. 

The U.S. recently confirmed that Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a military drone strike.  And almost from when this news became known, there was a debate between civil libertarians and the rest of the country over the justification of the U.S. military action in northern Yemen.  In its news article today's New York Times points to the President's dilemma.  To quote,

The strike was the culmination of a desperate manhunt marked not only by near misses and dead ends, but also by a wrenching legal debate in Washington about the legality — and morality — of putting an American citizen on a list of top militants marked for death. It also represented the latest killing of a senior terrorist figure in an escalated campaign by the Obama administration.

. . . There had been an intense debate among lawyers in the months before the Obama administration decided to put Mr. Awlaki on a target list in early 2010, and officials said that Mr. Khan was never on the list. The decision to make Mr. Awlaki a priority to be sought and killed was controversial, given his American citizenship. The American Civil Liberties Union, which fought unsuccessfully in the American court system to challenge the decision to target Mr. Awlaki, condemned the killing. 

Commentators on television, the blogosphere and social media soon raised questions about the legality and morality of the "assassainations" or war combatant targeting of two United States citizens.  So I am not alone with my discomfort.  That view is not widely held beyond the members of the left. But it does give many of us pause. Michael J.W. Stickings, my longtime blog friend at The Reaction, wonders whether President Obama is "a disaster for civil liberties."  He mirrors my own ambivalence, saying:

Though I remain, for the most part, a supporter of the president, I cannot disagree 

[with legal scholar Jonathan Turley, whom Stickings quotes extensively].

While I would argue that he has done a lot of good thus far in office, this remains the major blot on his record.

Related current opinion articles:

• American Citizen Anwar al-Awlaki Assassinated in Yemen (news.firedoglake.com)
• Glenn Greenwald, Ron Paul and Jeremy Scahill on Obama authorizing the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• Anwar al-Awlaki's extrajudicial murder | Michael Ratner (guardian.co.uk)

*Just a  few of my previous posts related to civil liberties over the years:

• 9/7/11: A look at freedom and liberty in the US ten years after 9/11/01
• 9/2/09: Intelligence Bytes
• 12/18/05: NSA Surveillance of Americans: NYT
• 12/09/05: Patriot Act May Be Extended
• 10/20/05: Spy World

Civil liberties should still matter.  Even if I can understand or even argue for the killing-of-a-terrorist view, the next questions are the real ones.  What happens when another president (not so competent and trustworthy) is in charge?  Where is the line for him/her?  Does it make a difference where the killing happens?  Could it be legally done in the United States as well as Yemen?  How strong was the evidence?  Was there due process?  What does the law of war demand?  What qualifies as the "imminent threat" posed by the citizen/combatant?  What if innocent people are also killed?

Posted on 10/1/11 - from Texas:

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites.

House Republican Committee chairs will be feeling their oats in 2011, says ProPublica.

Their claim will be that they are acting on "mandates from the American people." Unfortunately they will be misreading any such mandates in the name of political gains of power for themselves. There will be no end of mischief made, attempts to de-legitimize President Obama, and roll back the major legislative gains made this year. We're in for some raw excitement, folks.

Amplify’d from www.propublica.org

Meet the Likely House Committee Chairs—Who Promise to Roll Back ‘Job-Killing’ Regs

by Marian Wang ProPublica, Nov. 4, 2010, 10:11 a.m.

Earlier this week, we highlighted a few ways [1] that midterm elections could affect some of the issues we’ve dogged in the past few months—the foreclosure scandal, financial reform, healthcare reform, among others.

Impending Republican control of the House means there will be new leaders on powerful House committees [2]. Those committees oversee a number of issues we’ve covered, including the investigation of federal agencies, the strength of financial reform, and the future of energy policy.

Here’s a quick introduction—or reintroduction—to some of the lawmakers who will likely win these important chairmanships. Many of them, you’ll note, have stated publicly their opposition to “job-killing” regulation of the financial community and energy industry—in line with the GOP’s Pledge to America [3].

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Remember Darrell Issa, the Republican lawmaker who a New York Times profile nicknamed “Obama’s Annoyer-in-Chief [4]” for his tendency to make a fuss on so-called “nuisance issues”? Assuming he becomes chairman, Issa will have subpoena authority, which means he’ll have the power to launch investigations into many of the suspicions he’s raised about the Obama administration [5].

Following the Republican gains in the House, Issa pushed back against fears that the investigations he initiates will be driven by partisan motivations.

“I want to prove the pundits wrong. My job is not to bring down the president [6]. My job is to make the president a success,” he told reporters. “I’m going to stick to my knitting, which is waste, fraud and abuse, whenever possible.”

Talking Points Memo flagged four likely issues for investigation [7], noting that Issa had more or less laid out his agenda [8] for oversight of the executive branch in an earlier report. That report noted “hearings requested by the Republican Minority but ignored by the Democratic Majority,” including investigations into Fannie and Freddie, failures at the SEC, and inadequate response to BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Issa has since told reporters [9] that he’d likely focus on earmark reform and investigate the President’s use of advisers, or “czars [10],” who don’t have to go through Senate confirmation. He has also said that he will “absolutely” advocate granting subpoena power to the primary 74 inspectors general [11] who serve as watchdogs at various federal agencies. Currently only the Defense Department’s inspector general has that authority.

House Financial Services Committee

With the shift of power to House Republicans, Rep. Barney Frank—whose name is on the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill—will be relinquishing his position as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

His most likely successor is Rep. Spencer Bachus, a Republican from Alabama who has previously issued the following statement [12] pertaining to the financial reform bill:

“The administration will no longer receive a pass when it comes to aggressive oversight of their failed economic policies, and that includes extensive review of all the job-killing provisions in [the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act].”

Some of those “job-killing provisions” include the new rules requiring derivatives [13] to be traded on exchanges and routed through clearinghouses, according to comments made Wednesday [14] by Bachus. Putting derivatives on open exchanges, he told CNBC [15], “is just one example of something that is going to dry up liquidity, that is going to impact the economy, and is going to cost jobs.”

As chairman, he would also be overseeing the overhaul—or, as it might be viewed, the privatization—of government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachus has said that severing government ties with the mortgage giants is necessary, though the “withdrawal process” may be painful for borrowers [16].

The House Republican Steering Committee has to vote to make Bachus’ chairmanship official. He faces a challenge for the position from Rep. Ed Royce, who announced on Wednesday that he is also vying for it [17].

Royce has posted on his website a recent article by American Banker [18] stating that he is “not looking to repeal outright the Dodd-Frank regulatory reform law” but is likely to “try and clip its wings.”

House Energy and Commerce Committee

Two Republican lawmakers, Reps. Joe Barton and Fred Upton, are facing off over chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to the Houston Chronicle’s FuelFix blog [19].

Rep. Barton, some may recall, is the lawmaker who famously apologized to BP’s then-CEO, Tony Hayward, for what he called a “$20 billion shakedown [20]” of the company by the Obama administration. (Obama had met with BP executives in June to discuss setting aside $20 billion in an escrow account, from which to pay out damages for Gulf residents affected by the spill [21].)

The apology to BP—which Barton retracted that same day [22]—is just one hurdle standing between Barton and the chairmanship. The other hurdle is technical.

Because Barton has served as chairman from 2004 to 2006 and then as ranking Republican, the GOP leadership appears to be interpreting its term-limit rules in such a way that would bar him from leading the committee for another term. The Chronicle explains:

To remain at the helm of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Barton would have to secure a waiver of the term limit rule. And, he would have to convince a GOP steering committee—and then a majority of the Republican party’s incoming House members—that he deserves the post.

Barton’s already started working on this. The Hill reported that he sent a letter to incoming GOP lawmakers [23] on Wednesday, touting his record of opposing cap-and-trade and healthcare reform:

“Over the past four years, as Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, I have led the charge against radical cap-and-trade legislation, fought the new entitlements and mandates that are the rotten core of President Obama’s health care law, and consistently applied free market principles to legislative decisions,” he wrote. “It’s been an uphill battle, and I’m grateful that, thanks to your votes, the cavalry is riding to the rescue.”

If his efforts don’t succeed, Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, is next in line. His positions on energy issues are outlined in this recent op-ed [24] he wrote for the Washington Times. In it, he argues that regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, and other agencies are “smothering the economy.”

“The government cannot buy or regulate its way out of this mess,” Upton wrote. “It's time for a new approach.”

Several other Republicans on the committee are also reportedly eyeing the chairmanship [25] but are not expected to win over Upton. A power company lobbyist, however, told the Chronicle that the committee’s leadership may not matter much—both top contenders “have worked closely with the industry.”

“Whether it’s Mr. Barton or Mr. Upton,” said Scott Segal of Bracewell & Giuliani, “the Energy and Commerce Committee is going to be friendlier to the business community, more attentive to industrial jobs (and) more balanced in its approach to energy policy.” Read more at www.propublica.org

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ep32

via Amplify.com

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Krugman hits the political nail on its head, for the most part

Economic genius Paul Krugman, who writes for the New York Times, writes an excellent opinion piece regarding why the Democrats will do badly in today's midterm elections.
My one point of contention with this favorite of mine is his failure to take Republicans' blind, unfair opposition and ability to shape a very untruthful message, into account. Over time it must be very debilitating for the President and the White House.
There was a tremendous amount of good legislation signed into law that is now changing America. But the administration was never successful in broadcasting the fact. It is is a sad thing for the country. Today's election will make it clear how such an innocent mistake can exact a heavy political price.

Amplify’d from krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

November 2, 2010, 9:28 am

Pre-Mortem

Obviously, Democrats are going to do badly today, the only question being how badly. And we’ll be drenched in punditry, most of it about how Obama overreached, etc..

But the point is that he didn’t try.

To the extent that Democrats do worse even than the economy explains, one can point to a number of factors. Given that the stimulus was inadequate — which was obvious early on — Obama could have tried to warn Americans of a long hard road ahead, and placed blame on Republicans; instead, the WH kept pretending that things were going swimmingly, never once acknowledging that the original plan wasn’t sufficient (they still haven’t). Remember the Summer of Recovery?

Policy on other fronts seemed almost designed to cede populist sentiments to the right: not even a hint of tough positioning against Wall Street, totally limp policy toward China, and more.

So again: it was mainly the economy, with the effects of a bad economy reinforced by Obama’s consistent policy of undercutting both messages and movements that might have helped Democrats weather the economic storm. Read more at krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/efsh

via Amplify.com

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Afghans vote amid rocket attacks, violence

via feeds.reuters.com

We hope this is progress, but it is ever so slow with this fragile country.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

National Security Issues Spotlighted

The Obama administration continues to make national security decisions with which I might not agree.  For example, Obama attorneys incorrectly argued for warrantless cell phone tracking, according to a Raw Story - 2/14 post.  Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com (1/8/10) put his own disagreement even more strongly: "The backfiring of the surveillance state" is how he characterized the failure. To quote:

Every debate over expanded government surveillance power is invariably framed as one of "security v. privacy and civil liberties" -- as though it's a given that increasing the Government's surveillance authorities will "make us safer." But it has long been clear that the opposite is true. As numerous experts (such as Rep. Rush Holt) have attempted, with futility, to explain, expanding the scope of raw intelligence data collected by our national security agencies invariably impedes rather than bolsters efforts to detect terrorist plots. This is true for two reasons:(1) eliminating strict content limits on what can be surveilled (along with enforcement safeguards, such as judicial warrants) means that government agents spend substantial time scrutinizing and sorting through communications and other information that have nothing to do with terrorism; and (2) increasing the quantity of what is collected makes it more difficult to find information relevant to actual terrorism plots. As Rep. Holt put it when arguing against the obliteration of FISA safeguards and massive expansion of warrantless eavesdropping power which a bipartisan Congress effectuated last year:

It has been demonstrated that when officials must establish before a court that they have reason to intercept communications -- that is, that they know what they are doing -- we get better intelligence than through indiscriminate collection and fishing expeditions.

Intelligence gathering is a very hard business in any administration, including that of President Obama.  Explaining the failure of the Intel community to detect the Christmas Eve attempt to blow up an airplane over Detroit, a new study financed by Congress,  according to the New York Times (2/22/10), has found that hurdles stymie the National Counterterrorism Center. To quote:

. . . the study concludes, is a lack of coordination and communication among the agencies that are supposed to take the lead in planning the fight against terrorism, . . The findings come just weeks after the National Counterterrorism Center was criticized for missing clear warning signs that a 23-year-old Nigerian man was said to be plotting to blow up a Detroit-bound commercial airliner on Dec. 25.

. . . The report found that the center’s planning arm struggled with “systemic impediments” like overlapping statutes, culture clashes with different agencies and tensions with two formidable players: the State Department’s counterterrorism office and the C.I.A.

. . . The study called on Mr. Obama to issue an executive order to define the nation’s counterterrorism architecture in order to address some of the problems and improve coordination. It also recommended giving the center’s director, currently Michael E. Leiter, a say in the choice of counterterrorism officials at other federal agencies, a step the 9/11 Commission had recommended but was not adopted.

With all that, the current intelligence community is willing to try such completely unconventional methods as MCClatchy's (3/29/10) headline revealed: "Feds are thinking outside the box to plug intelligence gaps."  Congress will be asked to appropriate funds for this project, as well as oversee it on behalf of the citizens they represent.

We all should be very grateful that intelligence oversight in Congress is no longer in the hands of former House Intelligence Committee chairman, Peter Hoekstra.  Read the following little gem by David C. Morrison from CQ Behind the Lines (3/30/10).  To quote:

Yemen, brother:  “ ‘I’ll lead a preemptive strike on Yemen,’ Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., vows, publicly stating his plans for the Michigan National Guard if he wins election as governor this fall,” Glossy News notes. ‘I’ve been leading on national security for the last nine years in Congress, trying to drive this administration in a policy direction that keeps America safe,’ Hoekstra said on ABC’s This Week. ‘Obama hasn’t shown interest in my concerns here, so I intend to strike with the reconstituted Michigan National Guard in Yemen. As the leading national expert, it’s certainly appropriate for me to promote this strike in Yemen. The leaders of that little speck of earth need to see what a ball buster a Michigan strike can be. They won’t know what hit them. I think the unemployed people of the fine state of Michigan can be of help to the safety of the citizens of the United States of America . . . Unemployed Michigan folks can come to the rescue of our dire situation here. And so say all of us.’”

Representative Hoekstra appears to have been completely serious in his above statement.  I note that Michigan is where the FBI recently arrested and charged with sedition a group of militant militia members who were allegedly plotting to kill police.  This gubernatorial candidate needs to be much more careful with his proposal to take up arms in his own "war on terror."  His is a long history of ignoring the rule of law.  For example, torture did not seem to bother him when he learned of it from the CIA.  But we'll never know for sure because the CIA failed to keep accurate records of Congressional briefings.

The CIA has no idea what it briefed Congress on torture reported "emptywheel" at Firedoglake (3/16/10). The CIA did not keep adequate records of what was briefed to members of Congress in 2003 and 2004 regarding torture.  To quote:

The CIA documents released in the latest FOIA batch prove that all the claims that CIA (and Crazy Pete Hoekstra) have made about briefings Congress received on torture are, at best, reconstructions based on years old memors, if not outright fabrications.

The documents appear to have been a summary of torture briefings CIA Office of Congressional Affairs put together on July 11, 2004 in anticipation of CIA’s Congressional briefing in July 2004.

The summary shows that:

CIA OCA didn’t even write up the briefings it gave Porter Goss and Jane Harman in February 2003 or the Gang of Four in September 2003 by July 2004. . . any claims they make about the content of those briefings cannot be said to be accurate. . .

The only MFR that OCA seemed to have completed in July 2004 is the February 4, 2003 briefing, at which Pat Roberts apparently unequivocally approved of destroying the torture tapes (and at which he also agreed to end nascent Congressional attempts at oversight).

In other words, the claims that CIA had detailed records about what Nancy Pelosi or Jane Harman or Jay Rockefeller said about destroying the torture tapes? They appear to be completely fabricated.

There is a related story regarding additional lawmakers'involvement coming out of this month's release of the CIA  records, "Ex-Intel Committee Chair Blasts GOP Successor for Killing Torture Probe" is by David Corn from Mother Jones (3/3/10). Former Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee until January of 2003, when he was replaced by Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas.  To quote:

. . at the start of the US government's campaign against Al Qaeda [Graham] tells Mother Jones he cannot fathom why his Republican replacement squashed his request for an independent review of the interrogation techniques then being used by the CIA. . .  he believes Sen. Roberts  neglected his obligations as head of the intel panel by smothering Graham's proposal for a committee assessment of so-called enhanced interrogation practices.

On February 4, 2003, according to a CIA memo released last week, . . . a classified briefing [was presented] . . . to Roberts and an aide to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the committee. Over the course of nearly two hours, the briefers covered the CIA's brutal interrogation (or torture)—including waterboarding—of two detained terrorist suspects, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and told Roberts of the agency's plan to destroy videotapes of the Zubaydah sessions. The memo noted that Roberts "posed no objection to what he had heard" and "supported the interrogation effort."

. . . [CIA briefer] Moskowitz told Roberts and the others that the CIA would not allow any additional committee staffers to be briefed on the interrogation program. Nor would the spy service permit any committee staffer to review the interrogations in real time or visit the secret site where these sessions were occurring. Roberts didn't protest. In fact, at that point, according to the CIA memo, Roberts "interjected that he saw no reason for the committee to pursue [Graham's] request and could think of 'ten reasons right off why it is a terrible idea' for the committee to do any such thing as had been proposed." No committee investigation ensued.

That is not the case in 2010.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) held a  Judiciary Committee hearing in late February regarding the Justice Department's recently released Office of Professional Responsibility report, which he has condemned.  The Hill - 2/22/10 - had the story on the disappointing report that Senator Leahy investigated. To quote:

. . . a report that allowed two Bush administration officials to escape any formal punishment regarding their role in drafting the legal justification for the harsh interrogations of detainees.

Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two former high-level Bush administration officials who drafted the legal basis for the Bush administration’s treatment of overseas terror suspects, escaped any formal punishment . . .

The new report, written by Deputy Associate Attorney General David Margolis, reversed the recommendations of ethics officials within the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which earlier had concluded the state bar committees should decide whether Bybee’s and Yoo’s law licenses should be revoked.

As the previous year has shown, the current administration has not worked to restore privacy and civil liberties, trampled by the Bush administration.  The Intel community still has too many elements that cannot analyze and communicate effectively.  Few in the previous administration have been held accountable for transgressions of the rule of law.  Congress failed to exercise adequate national security oversight, and remains weak in their responsibilities.  And many Democrats and Republicans have completely different views of what constitutes adequate national security that operates well within the rule of law.

Additional references from CQ Behind the Lines by David C. Morrison (3/30/10). To quote:

Ways and means: The 2002 death of a suspected Afghan militant in the so-called Salt Pit — the only fatality known to have occurred inside the secret post-9/11 CIA prison network — is a cautionary tale, The Associated Press’s Adam Goldman investigates. “I believe that there is a discrepancy between what most Americans believe is legal and what the government is actually doing under the Patriot Act,” Secrecy News’s Steven Aftergood quotes Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “How does being watched affect the quality of our lives? You can argue that only terrorists and criminals would protest, but the reality is that none of us has the same privacy we had before,” Jay Fidell argues in The Honolulu Advertiser. “If, God forbid, Americans are ever rounded up in large numbers during a natural or man made disaster, where could they be detained?” Mark Anderson asks in The American Free Press, answering that FEMA surely has it figured out.

Trend analysis: is from a current news roundup by David C. Morrison at CQ Behind the Lines (3/30/10):

“The latest wave of jihadists traveling to Pakistan and elsewhere for training may have been motivated by a sense of jihadi cool*,” NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston leads. “A researcher has found that many terrorist organizations, including Hamas, are using their children’s Web sites in order to recruit girls for terrorist activities,” ANI leads.

*Jihadi Cool is from Newsweek Magazine (4/15/2008).  Here is the link to the PDF version: newsweek_jihadi_cool_150408.pdf (application/pdf Object

Peace in the Middle East: What Are the Possibilities

Israel-Palestine -- 

In my opinion, there is no possibility to settle this generational struggle as long as a conservative hawk heads the government in Israel.  It will not matter what any Palestinian leader does, or what progress Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza make.  The two sides are not even talking to each other right now because of Israel's continuation of settlement activity. Our diplomatic man in the Middle East, former Senator George Mitchell, will be attempting to reinvent Henry Kissinger's style of shuttle diplomacy, going back and forth between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  But he is not the only big gun in the region.

Vice President Joe Biden has also gone to Israel to work on restarting the Middle East peace process, it is well reported by Steve Clemons at the Washington Note.  Just to show the United States not to get too cocky about its chances, Israel announced 1600 more buildings in the nation's continued settlement of occupied east Jerusalem disputed territory. Then Israel apologized for embarrassing Biden, according to Yahoo! News. 

Iraq --

The chances for peace seem a bit better in Iraq, though it is still a long shot.  Most of the major differences have yet to be settled.  Sunday was election day in Iraq.  Over 60% of the people turned out to vote for members of the new parliament.  Current Prime Minister Malak, a Shiia,  will probably win the most votes, though not a majority.  This election the Sunnis did not boycott voting, and will gather a lot of votes.  It will, thus, take some months for the PM candidate with the most votes to form a new coalition government.  What will happen in the meantime?

The big question is whether Iraq will descend into civil war when the U.S. withdraws its combat forces.  Will an insurgency begin to gather steam again?  Or will the Shiia, Sunni and Kurdish sectors be able to work out their differences peacefully?  Will all the years of the United States waging a counterinsurgency war in Iraq bear any fruit whatsoever?  For background on our "Counterinsurgency Operations in Iraq," see the video of this fine conference broadcast on C-SPAN  March 5, 2010.  The excellent panel included Patrick Cronin, Andrew Exum, Thomas Ricks and Linda Robinson.

Possibilities for peace in the Middle East were never good under the previous Bush administration, populated as it was by neocons.  It is becoming more apparent that not peace, but domination, was the goal.  A new book by "Bush's brain," Karl Rove is causing a great deal of consternation as he tries to rewrite the last 10  years of history of the region.  Karl Rove's book is about the wrong person, according to a recent guest post by Lawrence Wilkerson at The Washington Note.  Wilkerson's theory is that Vice President Dick Cheney was in charge, and that the war in Iraq was always about the oil needs of the United States.  Cheney's behavior since leaving office bears that out.  He has never been a peaceful man and seems incapable of change.


Possibilities for peace in the Middle East are better under the Obama administration, in my opinion.  They are smarter and more pragmatic.  Its leaders are less troubled by hubris, and less beholden to the military-industrial complex.  I leave you with a great new website for following President Obama's peace processes, when and if they happen:


Reference -- The Middle East Channel on Twitter.


[Post date: March 10, 2010]



See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.
Blogs: My general purpose/southwest focus blog is at Southwest Progressive. My creative website is at Making Good Mondays. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.
Technorati tags: [tagname]

Reaction to the upcoming 9/11 trials, announced by AG Eric Holder

There was strong reaction to the announcement of the 9/11 trial to be held in a New York court. Liberals and civil libertarians were approving and Republican Right-Wingers were deeply disapproving.

What are we to call the widespread upset among Republicans? Today's post is a digest of opinion from writers whom I regularly follow as well as my own conclusions.

Fear Mongering -- Tom Andrews, writing late Friday night for The Huffington Post, said that, ". . . we all know that Right Wing critics will be out, en masse, using their favorite tactic of fear-mongering while relying on ignorance to manipulate the public." Read the whole thing: Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, others to finally face justice in NYC.

Surrender -- Other nations have trials of high level terrorists within their systems of normal justice. But since 9/11/01 we in the U.S. have not. I think Glenn Greenwald put his finger on the problem in his Saturday post. He minced no words, calling it "The Right's textbook 'surrender to the terrorists'." His intro line said, " 'We're too scared to have real trials in our country' is a level of cowardice unmatched in the world." And Greenwald closed with this straight up opinion:

. . . it's hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate -- it's too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists -- is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.

Cowardice -- At emptywheel Marcy Wheeler wrote a pungent little piece that asked, "Why is it that Republicans are such scardey-cats?" I love what Gregg Levine said in "Elephants on Parade" on Friday at Firedoglake, about the difference between Democratic and Republican reaction to the announcement of upcoming 9/11 trials. To quote Levine:

Cowards. Cowards. And again, cowards.

I can’t say that word enough because no one else seems to say it at all.

Contrast what a sampling of Republicans (and Republican wannabe) have to say about today’s decision . . .

Guilt -- Guilt and anxiety/fear are first cousins in the world of emotional motivation. Daily Kos' "thereisnospoon," thinks he has figured out why Republicans are having such a fear mongering fit. The author concluded:

There's a reason Republicans are pissing in their pants. . . they're afraid that their own policies of torture and indefinite detention will get the terrorists acquitted. So, like a stupid criminal, they're upping the ante by doubling down on their original criminal idiocy.

Un-American Demagoguery -- Leaders who make use of popular prejudices or false claims in order to gain power does not deserve followers. Representative Jim Moran used even stronger words than fearfulness in a post by Evan McMorris-Santoro at TPMDC. To quote from the story Friday:

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) has strong words for the Republicans opposing Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to bring five 9/11 suspects to New York City to face trial.

"They see this as an opportunity to demagogue," he said. "They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they'll even take a stand that's un-American."

"It's un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial," Moran added. "It's against our principles as a nation."

Medieval Romanticism -- These are probably the kindest words I found in my little news survey. Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment defined the Republican reaction to AG Eric Holder's decision to prosecute as "medieval romanticism." To quote:

Predictably, Republican critics vowed to fight the decision, since they much prefer to hold people forever without trial while torturing them, sort of the way some English kings did in North America before there was that pesky American constitution. . . . its fascination with arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and with torture more recalls the star chambers of yore than the deliberations at Philadelphia over 200 years ago.

Fear is a natural and normal reaction to accurately perceived danger. But the key is using one's whole brain to ascertain just what constitutes a real danger. The terrorists acts in 2001 were very dangerous. Over three thousand people lost their lives as a result. This is 2009, however, and it is important to make distinctions that today's realities warrant. Wiser people than knee-jerk reactionaries are now in charge, thank goodness. The United States government must continue to act out of calculation toward confidence-building, out of justice and healing, out of intelligence and courage, and out of genuine patriotism. It is time.

Related articles by Zemanta:

• 9/11 Suspects Could Be Moved to New York for Trial
• New York's 9/11 trial justice | Ken Gude
• "New York is not afraid of terrorists"
• Do Conservatives Trust Our Criminal Justice System?

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Something happened on the way to the post I had planned for yesterday.

I did not write the post I had intended for yesterday, "A fine day for surfing."* Terrible events intervened. An Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage at a deployment center at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others. Very little information was available and the base went into complete lock down. From when the shooting spree occurred at about 1:30 PM and thereafter there had been only one short news conference, so there was a lot of TV anchor and guest expert speculation.

For some time it was thought that the assailant had been killed and that there may have been more than one person doing the shooting. The next news conference was not until well into the evening. But it was learned that during the shootings he was brought down by a female police guard. She had surgery for her wounds and is also alive. "Major Nidal Malik Hasan" is in the hospital, on a ventilator, unconscious and (last night) reportedly in stable condition. It was reported from early on that Major Hasan had experienced problems with his professional performance ratings and that he had expressed great reservations about his upcoming deployment to the Middle East. A family member said "he thought it was the worst that could happen to him." It was also reported that he was known to have expressed some inflammatory opinions on the Internet about suicide bombers.

Everyone is trying to figure out his motivation for such terrible actions. And like millions of others, my husband and I did our own speculating about the psychiatrist's motivations, based on all the little pieces of information that emerged. It was a major shock for me, a retired psychotherapist, to hear that the shooter was a mental health practitioner who was a specialist in working with PTSD. It was hard to believe. These are the ideas we talked about: Could it be secondary PTSD resulting from years of listening to others' trauma stories? Could he be a "homegrown terrorist?" Could the psychiatrist have terribly intractable ambivalence about his national identity - though he was born in the United States - seeing himself neither as a Jordanian nor an American? Could it be that Major Hasan have has sexual preference issues around the military's "don't ask; don't tell" policy? We wondered who his victims were, random or known to him?

The tragic events happened not too far down the road from where we live. It makes us sad. It is unnerving, confusing and shocking that it could have happen the way it did. Much more information has come out in the interim. We hope to find out more answers to these troubling questions soon.

**********

* Returning to the subject of my planned post of yesterday -- I had been on the computer since very early in the morning. I was doing routine tasks, reading Email, cleaning and clearing files and reading TweetDeck. Of particular interest were a series of tweets by Mark Knoller documenting President Obama's at conference of representatives of over 500 Native American tribal nations. I also learned from the tweet stream that Senator Barbara Boxer had discharged a climate change bill without amendment from her committee, following Republican members' boycott of the markup sessions. The vote was 12-1, with two Democratic senators absent. (My posted about that event is here).

At midday I closed out my web surfing, got dressed and turned on the television to C-SPAN, the Senate channel. On the agenda was the second try at passing the appropriation bill for Commerce, Science and Technology, which includes the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Before getting to the bill, however, the Senate had to vote on a cloture motion. Democrats were successful in getting the 60 necessary votes. Debate on the bill began. Florida's Senator Nelson made an excellent speech about the future of NASA. He laid out three things he would like to see happen: 1) The administration and Congress should allocate the amount of money needed based on the Augustine Commission report. 2) Based on the Augustine reports' set of options, the President should instruct NASA to decide upon the appropriate architecture for future space exploration. 3) The government should take care of NASA's work force during the process.

Flipping to the NASA channel, I joined a live broadcast of an event at NASA's Washington headquarters. Four members of the STS-128 crew were making a public appearance. The centerpiece of the event was a wonderful video of their recent flight to the ISS and back to a successful landing in California. Following a lively Q and A with delightful questions from young children, my husband interrupted me by saying that there had been a horrific big shooting at Fort Hood. My day for good news surfing was at its terrible conclusion. Now much has changed for the worse.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Related articles by Zemanta

• Democrats push climate bill through a key committee (ctv.ca)

Middle East and Military -- This and That

Israel and Palestinian territories -- Headlined, "House resolution to condemn U.N. Investigator's Israeli/Hamas war crimes report," the story comes from The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman. Reflecting on this news, Matt Yglesias said, "Very last sentence of this Goldstone resolution could be an endorsement of a possible Israeli attack on Iran:" Yglesias added, "Nice assessment of Goldstone resolution: "some valid points...riddled with inaccuracies and misleading statements." To quote TWI:

TWI has acquired the text of a congressional resolution that may be introduced in the next few days condemning the findings of U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone’s report into war crimes during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza this past winter.

The resolution — drafted by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.) — which condemns Goldstone’s work in very harsh terms, is sure to generate controversy in Congress, within the Obama administration and among peace watchers.

This headline followed the publication of the congressional resolution article. It is another story by Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent (10/30/09): "J street is unable to support the Congressional Goldstone resolution." To quote from the story:

In a statement to be sent to supporters, J Street, the pro-Israel-pro-peace American Jewish lobby group, is urging members of Congress not to pass to significantly modify a resolution condemning U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone’s report into war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during last year’s conflict. That resolution, strongly supported by other American Jewish organizations, fails to call for, among other things, “independent investigations by both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Iraq war fallout -- The Washington Independent's Daphne Aviatar reported that, "Al-Qaeda Assistant [was] Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison." To quote: "Depending on who you ask, the sentencing yesterday of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri to eight years in prison is either evidence that the civilian federal judicial system can successfully handle terror cases, or evidence that it’s a dismal failure." Daily Kos liked what Adam Server said about the issue:

RT @AdamSerwer: Former Al Qaeda member sentenced in civilian court, somehow, America survives.

Iran -- TWI News posted this: "Iran Has Reportedly Rejected the Vienna Nuke Deal." And The Nation Magazine posted this: "Why Obama's Iran Policy Will Fail." And it posted this: "Iran Split on Nukes."

Defense spending -- Marc Ambinder made a wry observation regarding the availability of a couple of jobs at the prison at GTMO BAY: "Not closing down too soon, I guess. RT @defensejobs: Arabic Linguist II - Chenega Corporation."

References saved from recent weeks on Twitter:

"Tehran Plans to Execute 3 Protesters of Election http://bit.ly/2De1FE," is from the New York Times (10/10/09).

"Palestinians' anger mounts over Gaza report http://bit.ly/pqxGj," is from The Huffington Post (10/9/09).

"Senate approves $636B Pentagon bill: The Senate on Tuesday approved a $636 billion Pentagon spending bill after.. http://bit.ly/Te52p," is from The Hill (10/6/09).

"Iraqis, Americans seeking a new relationship http://bit.ly/DWj0d," is from McClatchy (10/5/09).

"For U.S. combat soldiers, new role in Iraq is frustrating http://bit.ly/1eKlle," is from McClatchy (10/5/09).

"Military Memo: Clear Voice of Bush’s Pentagon Becomes Harder to Hear http://bit.ly/PRhv5," is from the New York Times (10/4/09).

"Israel Agrees to Release Prisoners in Return for Information on Soldier http://bit.ly/10XgvE," is from the New York Times (9/30/09)

"Senior administration official says US and Russia preparing joint intelligence assessment of Iran's ballistc missile capabilities," is from Marc Ambinder (9/17/09).

Informed Comment: Afghanistan Election Run-Off, Italian Scandal, Lahore Attacks on Eve of Obama Decision

President Obama is now said to have completed his policy review of Afghanistan and now to be moving toward making a decision about whether he will pursue a wide-ranging counter-insurgency strategy that implies substantial investment in state-building (as recommended by Gen. Stanley McChrystal and apparently by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton), or whether he will adopt the much more modest counter-terrorism strategy proposed by Vice President Joe Biden.

It now seems increasingly likely that there will be a run-off in the Afghanistan presidential contest between incumbent Hamid Karzai and his chief rival Abdullah Abdullah. As fraudulent ballots have been tossed out, Karzai's margin of victory has apparently fallen below the 50% threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a run-off. Since, however, Abdullah Abdullah's support largely comes from the Tajik (Dari Persian-speaking Sunnis) ethnic group, and Karzai's strongest support comes from anti-Taliban Pashtuns, there are fears that the run-off might produce increased ethnic tensions and even violence. On the other hand, had Karzai been declared the victor on the basis of clearly fraudulent ballots, it would have fatally undermined the legitimacy of his government.

via juancole.com

Dr. Juan Cole is among the most trustworthy of Middle Ease experts. He has amazing contacts and speaks who knows how many of the languages.
The thing about the run-off election is the timing. It has to happen very rapidly before winter shuts down everything. It is not certain that President Karzai will certify the UN election panel's findings, either. President Obama has no good or easy options for his long awaited Afghanistan strategy.

Posted via web from Southwest Postings

High profile journalists weigh in on the Afghanistan plan --

There are a number of good reasons for the Obama administration to review the plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The election of an Afghan president has yet to be settled; a runoff may be necessary.The strength of the Taliban insurgency has nearly quadrupled since 2006.  Reuters reported that, "A U.S. intelligence assessment, showing the number of fighters in the insurgency has reached an estimated 25,000 from 7,000 in 2006, spotlights Taliban gains and the tough choices facing President Barack Obama in trying to reverse the trend."  Senators are beginning to take one side or the other in the debate.  Senator Levin, chair of the Armed Services Committee, came out early as opposed to sending any more troops.  More recently Senator Inouye, heading the Appropriations Committee, is supporting General McChrystal's plan.  Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon.com, on Tuesday effectively analyzed what is at stake in this for Democrats.

Arianna Huffington led the political news headline lists on Wednesday with her provocative piece titled, "Why Joe Biden Should Resign."  Like so many other readers, my first thought was, "my goodness, what has he done now?"  And I immediately clicked on the HuffPo article.  Well, the Vice President's only transgression was to do what the man who chose him expected.  Joe Biden staked out the other end of the spectrum of the escalate-now view.  And Huffington's article calls upon Vice President Biden to resign in protest if the military's escalate-first view becomes the centerpiece of the administration's strategic plan.

Politico.com published an excellent article about who might have leaked General McChystal's Afghanistan assessment to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward.  Ben Smith offers a wide range of plausible possibilities, but no conclusions, except that the leak highlights the divisions within the Obama administration  over a future Afghanistan strategy.  And it really does not matter who leaked the information, because the administration has no plans to focus on finding the culprit or hero, depending on your point of view.

George Will wrote a column for the Washington Post on September 1 that recommended "Reduce troops and revamp Afghan strategy."  He concludes unequivocally:

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000 to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen's, is squandered.

Roger Simon, also of Politico, wrote an excellent and very clear-eyed piece last month that discussed the evolution of the United States mission in Afghanistan over the years.  The terms used were "mission creep to mission gallop."  The pace or destination is central to the administration's current strategic planning project.  Simon's stark conclusion is one with which I tend to agree.:

So send more troops, or lose the whole shooting match. It is easy to see why the memo was leaked. The Pentagon does not want Obama to go wobbly on Afghanistan. It wants him to stay and fight. And stay and stay and stay.

“I don’t have a deadline for withdrawal,” Obama told David Gregory on “Meet the Press” Sunday, “but I’m certainly not somebody who believes in indefinite occupations of other countries.”

But if Iraq was George W. Bush’s war — and it certainly was — Afghanistan has now become Barack Obama’s war. He wasn’t the president who started it, but he can be the president who finishes it.

Or he can be the president who stays there indefinitely.

Because I am not one of the high profile journalists featured in today's post, I am a bit reluctant to weigh in myself.  But I will.  My vote for President Obama was predicated upon his commitment to get out of Iraq and go after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  I believed that the U.S. needs to finish the job ignored by the Bush administration.  That does not mean replay Iraq in Afghanistan.  It is time to get back on point -- pursuit of Al Qaeda.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings