terrorism

After all, they must be wondering how we can be leaders of the free world -- a nation others look up to -- if we don't torture people we don't like?

Via Raw Story: The Blotter: CIA Bans Water-Boarding in Terror Interrogations:

The officials say the decision was made sometime last year but has never been publicly disclosed.

One U.S. intelligence official said, "It would be wrong to assume that the program of the past moved into the future unchanged."

A CIA spokesman said, as a matter of policy, he would decline to comment on interrogation techniques, "which have been and continue to be lawful," he said.

So said David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel and chief of staff.

Redstate notes that "Cheney Warned Of Iraq 'Quagmire'":

I don't know what to say. Maybe something like I hate it when he's right? I don't think Iraq is a quagmire. Progress is being made. So much so that even the New York Times had to acknowledged it and there is talk of some Democrats being worried about facing a voter backlash for pandering to the left wing defeatists.

I was speaking with a Marine Master Sargent last week. He was getting ready for his second deployment to Iraq. Asked what he thought of our efforts he said He has 25 years in the Corps, looking to make it 30, he expects he will have three more Iraq tours. He thought for a moment and said 'we just need more time. You have to give us more time.'

The problem with Cheney's use of the q-word is that ever since we gave up in Vietnam, quagmire equates to failure in our political lexicon. We have not failed in Iraq, not yet, regardless of what the Democrats and the main stream media say. Another problem is that we can't look at the post-9/11 world through pre-9/11 lenses. September 11th changed everything.

Did September 11th change anything but the level of fear-mongering by the right? I'm still waiting for someone to explain how 9/11 changed anything fundamental about our strategic security. Yeah it was scary, but was it "throw out the Constitution" scary? Blitzkrieg in Poland changed everything. Pearl Harbor changed everything. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand changed everything. The "shot heard 'round the world" changed everything.

But did the mass-murderous fanaticism of 19 criminal skyjackers change everything? Or did it just change us?

Karl Rove's departure announcement comes while we as a country wrestle with the utter debacle that he helped create: the violent occupation of Iraq. It was our ill-intentioned, ill-conceived and woefully ineptly executed invasion and occupation of Iraq, not 9/11, that changed everything. It was our polarization of the world by an administration hell-bent on destroying Saddam Hussein, the man who betrayed the oil men (and let's all now remember all those photos of Saddam shaking hands with American "statesmen"), that changed everything.

It is the continuing state of the State of Iraq that has changed everything. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. (Hello? Is anyone on the right keeping their ears unplugged?)

This isn't about party. Most of the Democrats in Washington are culpable in enabling the worst foreign policy blunder in America's history, too. This is about bringing America back to the good fight, the smart play, the leadership role in the world -- leading by example, not by sending our finest fighting men and women into neighborhoods to establish democracy at the point of a gun, not by keeping our soldiers and Marines (and as many, if not more, private "contractors") in those neighborhoods with the impossible mission of policing a civil war.

Meanwhile the guy behind the attacks that supposedly "changed everything" -- Osama bin Laden, remember him? -- where is he? "Oh, don't talk about him. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq!" the right cries a cappella. Yeah, some of them are. I wonder why.

The right seems to be obsessed with appearing strong rather than being strong. While the mission of the war on Iraq and the definition of "victory" remain terribly vague, what's becoming quite clear is that this war has become a point of pride for the fragile ego of the modern American conservative.

Conservatism once stood for small government and balanced budgets. Conservatism once opposed "nation building." Conservatism once fought for civil liberties. No longer.

The takeover of the Republican Party by the neocons and "holy rollers" (as Victor Gold calls them) -- that changed everything.

Insight from the man at PC magazine:

Nastiness is an earmark of many bloggers, podcasters, and members of
the herd; a few insane people; and those who feel that being an
out-and-out mean and profane presence on the Internet is cool or funny.
The level of nastiness that floats around the Net in various forms,
forums, and Web sites is incredible. When O'Reilly first proposed his
rules of the road for bloggers, I thought it was silly at worst and
wishful thinking at best. Nothing would come of it except a debate and
various columns like this one and the one from Tennant. The thinking is
that once all this is brought to light, maybe people will rethink the
way they act online.—next: It's Hopeless >

It's hopeless. Nothing will come of it. After the Kathy Sierra thing
blows over, the meanness will continue unabated, with all sorts of
dispossessed and borderline psychopaths blowing off steam online in one
way or another—usually by calling people names or being hypercritical.
This seems to be a reflection more of society as a whole than of the
psychological problems of a few individuals. There are too many people
who go online searching for validation of their life choices. Anytime
they run across anything that questions or counters their decisions,
they see it as a personal attack, and they'll often strike back,
attacking the perceived "enemy" in a personal manner. It all seems so
ridiculous, since these people likely don't know each other at all....

...But no matter, the whole thing is hopeless. Let's just go back to work.

And it really is their war -- a war they've rubber-stamped and refused to oversee, let alone question, since it started.

Now they don't want to talk about it.

The day's events ended the initial phase of what looms as a yearlong
confrontation between the new, Democratic-controlled Congress and the
commander in chief.

Reid told reporters he would no longer attempt to win passage for
nonbinding measures and would turn his attention to legislation
designed to force Bush to change course. House Democratic leaders
intend to do likewise.

In typical Republican style, they consider anything that questions the Bush policy to be tantamount to inviting screaming suicide bombers into small town America. They also tried to claim that the Democrats just want to leave American troops hanging in Iraq.

Because if you don't kiss George W. Bush's feet, you must want to kiss the feet of terrorists. Right?

At issue are Republican attempts to prevent Representative Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania from requiring that our troops are properly equipped with body armor, armored vehicles and training -- things the Republicans neglected to provide over their years of ruling Congress.

Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record),
D-Pa., has described a series of provisions that would require the
Pentagon to meet certain standards for training and equipping the
troops, and for making sure they have enough time at home between
deployments.

Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., said these provisions were designed to protect the troops.

Republicans argued the effect would be to deny troops needed reinforcements and are expected to try to block the restrictions.

Yes, the GOP logic is it's better to send our troops in ill-equipped and un-trained so they can get into the fight faster. Never mind that we have Army and National Guard troops in un-protected Hum-Vees and Marines in amphibious vehicles that are designed to float, not to repel rocket-propelled grenades.

You know, the Republicans sure love to talk a big game, puffing out their chests, thumping like Kong, but when it comes down to it, they'd rather fund bridges to nowhere and tax cuts for rock stars and CEOs than give our armed forces what they need to do their job. It's a damned good thing the GOP is out of power for the time being, or they'd have us sending into Iraq green recruits wearing nothing but skivvies and Sketchers, and leaving defense of our homeland to the ROTC and Boy Scouts.

Apparently Representative Tom Lantos supports the nuclear cooperation deal President Bush signed into law on the 18th, but stated that Bush can't just cut out the parts of the bill he doesn't like.

In a public ceremony on December 18th, President Bush signed the "Henry Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act," permitting the US to export fuel to India's civilian nuclear energy program and broadly cooperate with the South Asian country in the nuclear sphere. Based on a variety of concerns that the deal would help India's nuclear weapons program or result in transfer of technology to states like Iran, Congress attached a wide range of conditions to the bill, requiring the president to certify that India was not taking actions that negatively affected US foreign policy goals.

But hours after the public ceremony, the White House issued a "presidential signing statement" which undercut nine substantive sections of the legislation, calling them advisory.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), the Democrat who will take over as chairman of the House International Relations Committee next month, has told RAW STORY that the president's claim in the signing statement that the bill's provisions are advisory has no standing. "It's very clear what the legislation requires," Lantos said, "and the president may not like it, but it's there."

This could be a blow to the King George ethos prevalent in the White House these days.

Devoted wingnuts will almost certainly attack Lantos and other Democrats for this, but one can safely assume they wouldn't want a Democratic President dodging items of passed laws he or she doesn't like, either. In the end, it's probably better to have presidents obey and enforce the law rather than flaunt it for their own convenience.

So How Terrible Is It? Max Rodenbeck asks in the New York Review of Books, November 30, 2006 issue. Louise Richardson, a Harvard professor who has been teaching about terrorism for a decade, counts the ways:

1. Terrorism is not new.
2. Terrorism is nowhere near as threatening as, say, drunk drivers (who kill six times more Americans than 9/11 every year).
3. Terrorism using weapons of mass destruction is extremely difficult and rare.
4. Terrorists are rational.
5. Terrorism usually arises out of defensive desperation.
6. Suicide attacks are rational: cheap, effective against difficult targets and, well, terrorizing.
7. Terrorism and Islam are not linked. Terror has been perpetrated in the name of most religions, as well as for secular causes.
8. Democracy does not prevent terrorism.
9. Democratic civil rights do not impede prosecuting terrorists.
10. Military action is usually not effective against terrorist groups.
11. Armies usually cause more terrorism in response.
12. Addressing causes of terrorism is not surrender or appeasement to the terrorists themselves.

You can almost see Rush, O'Reilly and the other armchair hawks having apoplectic fits over these conclusions.

One particularly important point of Richardson's is that few terrorist groups have ever succeeded in achieving their stated primary aim, whether to foment a revolution or to "liberate" a territory. In fact, most of them do not really expect to do so, and are extremely vague about what they would do if they actually succeeded. Osama bin Laden has said next to nothing about what sort of society he would actually like to create, just as Marx never described in any detail what his communist utopia would look like. This may explain why the terrorist groups that have taken power have sometimes produced such incompetent rule —as was the case with Yasser Arafat.

Because terrorists tend to be aspirational rather than practical, their practices typically amount to what Ms. Richardson calls a search for the three R's of terrorism: revenge, renown, and reaction. As she puts it, "the point of terrorism is not to defeat the enemy but to send a message." This simple insight is important, because it suggests ways of dealing with terrorism: you must blunt the impulse for revenge, try to limit the terrorists' renown, and refrain from reacting in ways that either broaden the terrorists' appeal or encourage further terrorism by showing how effective their tactics are.

Richardson's three R's go a long way toward explaining why American policy has become so disastrously askew. As she notes, an act such as September 11 itself achieves the first of her three R's, revenge. So spectacularly destructive an attack also gains much of the second objective, renown. But the Bush administration's massive and misdirected overreaction has handed al-Qaeda a far greater reward than it ever dreamed of winning.

"The declaration of a global war on terrorism," says Richardson bluntly, "has been a terrible mistake and is doomed to failure." In declaring such a war, she says, the Bush administration chose to mirror its adversary:

Americans opted to accept al-Qaeda's language of cosmic warfare at face value and respond accordingly, rather than respond to al-Qaeda based on an objective assessment of its resources and capabilities.

In essence, America's actions radically upgraded Osama bin Laden's organization from a ragtag network of plotters to a great enemy worthy of a superpower's undivided attention. Even as it successfully shattered the group's core through the invasion of Afghanistan, America empowered al-Qaeda politically by its loud triumphalism, whose very excess encouraged others to try the same terror tactics.

That's right. Bush has decided us into military and political blunders that have resulted in placing al-Qaeda right up to superpower level in foreign affairs -- something akin to making some urban gangbanger into Public Enemy No. 1.

The article is a fascinating read ... if depressing.

While President George W. Bush meets with the Iraq Study Group about how to un-fubar a mess of his own making, things are getting even worse in Afghanistan, where 9/11 was planned:

Insurgent activity in Afghanistan has risen fourfold this year, and militants now launch more than 600 attacks a month, a rising wave of violence that has resulted in 3,700 deaths in 2006, a bleak new report released Sunday found.

This is what happens when the proverbial eye is taken off of the proverbial ball.

Meanwhile, in the volatile border area near Pakistan, more than 20 Taliban militants — and possibly as many as 60 — were killed during several days of clashes, officials said Sunday.

The new report said insurgents were launching more than 600 attacks a month as of the end of September, up from 300 a month at the end of March this year. The violence has killed more than 3,700 people this year, it said.

It sure seems like Afghanistan is where Bush's "anti-terror" focus should have been, instead of pulling punches while focusing all of his attention on Iraq.

Maybe the Taliban should be told that they've been sidelined in the "front lines on terror." After all, Iraq holds that title, according to President Bush — presumably for all its civil-war violence between different Iraqi factions.

Then again, when it comes to threats against the rest of the world, Iraq doesn't seem to be very relevant at all. The Asia Pacific Economic Conference forum is focused on domestic terror. And in England, MI5 has identified 30 terror plots against Britain:

Muslim extremists are planning at least 30 major terrorist attacks in Britain, according to MI5. The head of Britain's internal the security service, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, says some of the plots might involve chemical or nuclear materials.

Some of the potential attacks may involve young British Muslims who are being groomed to become suicide bombers, Manningham-Buller said.

MI5 agents are watching 1,500 suspects, most of them British-born and with links to Pakistan.

[NPR audio link]
Will more American soldiers and Marines dying in Iraq really help? Or is the real front line on terror not in some dusty, broken country reeling from decades of dictatorship, but rather in the police work done in cities and countries all over the world?

The Republicans have a reputation for being disciplined and that reputation extends to the Republicans members of the House and Senate. The GOP Congressional members move largely in formation. Today that formation resembles a bunch of lemmings moving to perdition.

After a huge layoff, if I still had my job, but many of my colleagues did not, irrespective of the industry, when I got to my desk the next day, I would have to take a long and hard look at my own survivability. I would close the door and sit down and rethink what career issues were at stake for me. If I was a GOP member of Congress (or a Dem, too) I would take a long, hard, and frank look at myself and wonder if I should walk in lock step with anyone, except for those who determine whether or not I keep my job. I would look at those who no longer around and take a lesson.

Did the voters who put me in office put me there to be a GOP rubber stamp? I might have been swept in by a GOP tide and my State or District may have gone for George W. Bush, but did they want we to be one of the lemmings? When does discipline begin to become corrosive?

The Democrats are very far right of where they were a generation ago. It isn't that the country has suddenly shifted to "liberal" values. No. Then I look at Lincoln Chaffee, and he's out. It's not about the politics. It's about the party. It's about the way that Congress isn't doing its job. It is no longer behaving like one of the branches of government.

If this were a corporation, it would be equivalent to terminating an employee who is content to just sit around and sign off on everything without adding value. We've seen it in industry where the Board of Directors or the top management team kowtows to the boss. The word in my parent's generations for this was "being a yes man."

I would realize on the morning after that there is a way to disagree while still being loyal. I would recognize that the electorate (beyond the base) had come out to register their displeasure with those who did not demonstrate that they had a bit of a spine. I would understand that George W. Bush is a lame duck. I would know that "staying the course" has been repudiated at the polls, although I would know there are those who will continue to advocate it until the bitter end in November, 2008.

The vote on November 7, 2006, was in part a message to Congress that ideology was not as important as getting to work. If I were a Senator or Representative, I would know that a wakeup call had been sent out for us to get off our collective duffs and do the job we were getting perks and pay to perform.

I would know that George W. Bush and his inner circle are marching into history, but that my own career might span a number of terms well beyond that.

At one point coat tails can turn into anchors and loyalty can backfire if it appears I am not thinking for myself and not listening to the electorate.

I would know that in two, four, or six years I would be measured by what I had done and not purely on loyalty to the White House. The clock would be ticking and it would be the first day of the rest of my career.

Just watch and learn.