Terrorism

Mondays Musings: Opportunity and Peril, Cruz Rising

Reminders of the opportunities and perils in the world today - On this anniversary of Pearl Harbor, what stands out about the 2016 race this morning is how much we’ve been reminded of both the opportunities and perils the modern world offers America today. We wake this morning to the good news of the Chavista government in Venezuela having been routed last night. On the heels of a new and more modern government in Argentina, and the beginning of the normalization of ties with Cuba, Latin America is going through an important period of shedding some of its more destructive and anti-modern impulses. This is of course is good news for the United States, as it is likely to make our own neighborhood more peaceful and prosperous in the years ahead.

But we also wake to the news of another far right victory in European elections, this one in France. In the US and Europe, globalization and all that it brings (rapid migration, economic/social dislocation) is fueling a rise in reactionary parties and politicians. There isn’t a great difference between France’s Le Pen and the US’s Trump. The rise in this reactionary sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic is worrisome of course, and terrorist attacks and Syrian refugees are adding fresh grist to this nationalist mill. The weakening of establishment politics here and in Europe has to become a central reason for greater urgency in both eliminating the Islamic State and resolving the various sectarian conflicts in the Middle East, starting with Syria.

We had some other good news last week as it appears that the Saudis and Iranians worked together to fashion a new government in Lebanon. Perhaps the combination of lower oil prices, the barbarity and prowess of ISIL, the instability mass Middle Eastern refugees are bringing to other regions of the world is all creating a moment where sustained Saudi/Iranian cooperation could become possible. Certainly our leaders should be doing everything we can to encourage this path, as it is the only way peace will ever come to the region in the years ahead.

Be sure to also read my take on the panicky, disappointing GOP response to Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks here. All of these developments are a reminder why we need an experienced, forceful leader in the White House in 2017. Ain't going to be an easy time to be US President in the coming years.

2016 Landscape – Only real significant change this past week is growing evidence that Ted Cruz is making a major move in the polls nationally and in the early states. Ben Carson’s collapse has benefitted Cruz, and he has now become the most significant challenger to the front runner Donald Trump. While Rubio has gained a bit of ground in recent weeks, he is still in the second tier. One thing I wonder is whether his first ad in the early states which so firmly identifies him as coming from a striving immigrant family will end up limiting whatever momentum he may have had from his good performances in recent debates. The GOP’s next debate is in eight days, Tuesday, December 15th. And then six more GOP debates come in the first 10 weeks of 2016. Lots of fireworks ahead!

"Monday Musings" is a new column looking at the national political landscape published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You find previous versions here.

Obama's Statement on the Secruity Reviews

There was so much in this text I fould interesting I've decided to include the whole thing:

Good afternoon, everybody.  I just concluded a meeting with members of my national security team, including those from our intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement agencies involved in the security reviews that I ordered after the failed attack on Christmas Day.

I called these leaders to the White House because we face a challenge of the utmost urgency.  As we saw on Christmas, al Qaeda and its extremist allies will stop at nothing in their efforts to kill Americans.  And we are determined not only to thwart those plans, but to disrupt, dismantle and defeat their networks once and for all. 

Indeed, over the past year, we've taken the fight to al Qaeda and its allies wherever they plot and train, be it in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Yemen and Somalia, or in other countries around the world.

Here at home, our intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement agencies have worked together with considerable success:  gathering intelligence, stitching it together, and making arrests -- from Denver to Texas, from Illinois to New York -- disrupting plots and saving American lives.  And these successes have not come without a price, as we saw last week in the loss of our courageous CIA officers in Afghanistan.

But when a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way.  And it's my responsibility to find out why, and to correct that failure so that we can prevent such attacks in the future.

And that's why, shortly after the attempted bombing over Detroit, I ordered two reviews.  I directed Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to review aviation screening, technology and procedures.  She briefed me on her initial findings today, and I'm pleased that this review is drawing on the best science and technology, including the expertise of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and his department.

I also directed my counterterrorism and homeland security advisor John Brennan to lead a thorough review into our terrorist watch-listing system so we can fix what went wrong.  As we discussed today, this ongoing review continues to reveal more about the human and systemic failures that almost cost nearly 300 lives.  We will make a summary of this preliminary report public within the next few days, but let me share some of what we know so far.

As I described over the weekend, elements of our intelligence community knew that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had traveled to Yemen and joined up with extremists there.  It now turns out that our intelligence community knew of other red flags -- that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula sought to strike not only American targets in Yemen, but the United States itself.  And we had information that this group was working with an individual who was known -- who we now know was in fact the individual involved in the Christmas attack.

The bottom line is this:  The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack.  But our intelligence community failed to connect those dots, which would have placed the suspect on the "no fly" list.

In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence; it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.  The information was there.  Agencies and analysts who needed it had access to it.  And our professionals were trained to look for it and to bring it all together. 

Now, I will accept that intelligence, by its nature, is imperfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged.  That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it.  Time and again, we've learned that quickly piecing together information and taking swift action is critical to staying one step ahead of a nimble adversary.

So we have to do better -- and we will do better.  And we have to do it quickly.  American lives are on the line.  So I made it clear today to my team:  I want our initial reviews completed this week.  I want specific recommendations for corrective actions to fix what went wrong.  I want those reforms implemented immediately, so that this doesn't happen again and so we can prevent future attacks.  And I know that every member of my team that I met with today understands the urgency of getting this right.  And I appreciate that each of them took responsibility for the shortfalls within their own agencies.

Immediately after the attack, I ordered concrete steps to protect the American people:  new screening and security for all flights, domestic and international; more explosive detection teams at airports; more air marshals on flights; and deepening cooperation with international partners.

In recent days, we've taken additional steps to improve security.  Counterterrorism officials have reviewed and updated our terrorist watch list system, including adding more individuals to the "no fly" list.  And while our review has found that our watch-listing system is not broken, the failure to add Abdulmutallab to the "no fly" list shows that this system needs to be strengthened.  

The State Department is now requiring embassies and consulates to include current visa information in their warning on individuals with terrorist or suspected terrorist connections.  As of yesterday, the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, is requiring enhanced screening for passengers flying into the United States from, or flying through, nations on our list of state sponsors of terrorism, or other countries of interest.  And in the days ahead, I will announce further steps to disrupt attacks, including better integration of information and enhanced passenger screening for air travel.

Finally, some have suggested that the events on Christmas Day should cause us to revisit the decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.  So let me be clear.  It was always our intent to transfer detainees to other countries only under conditions that provide assurances that our security is being protected. 

With respect to Yemen in particular, there's an ongoing security situation which we have been confronting for some time, along with our Yemeni partner.  Given the unsettled situation, I've spoken to the Attorney General and we've agreed that we will not be transferring additional detainees back to Yemen at this time.

But make no mistake:  We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda.  In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  And, as I've always said, we will do so -- we will close the prison in a manner that keeps the American people safe and secure. 

Our reviews -- and the steps that we've taken and will continue to take -- go to the heart of the kind of intelligence and homeland security we need in the 21st century.  Just as al Qaeda and its allies are constantly evolving and adapting their efforts to strike us, we have to constantly adapt and evolve to defeat them, because as we saw on Christmas, the margin for error is slim and the consequences of failure can be catastrophic.

As these violent extremists pursue new havens, we intend to target al Qaeda wherever they take root, forging new partnerships to deny them sanctuary, as we are doing currently with the government in Yemen.  As our adversaries seek new recruits, we'll constantly review and rapidly update our intelligence and our institutions.  As they refine our tactics, we'll enhance our defenses, including smarter screening and security at airports, and investing in the technologies that might have detected the kind of explosives used on Christmas.

In short, we need our intelligence, homeland security and law enforcement systems -- and the people in them -- to be accountable and to work as intended:  collecting, sharing, integrating, analyzing, and acting on intelligence as quickly and effectively as possible to save innocent lives -- not just most of the time, but all the time.  That's what the American people deserve.  As President, that's exactly what I will demand. 

Thank you very much.

Anticipating the Coming Debate Over Foreign and Security Policy

When Washington returns in 2010 we will have a new issue to challenge the effective management of an already incredibly crowded agenda - a review of our intelligence, homeland security and counter-terrorism strategies and performance in the aftermath of the Nigerian-who-got-through. 

The coming debate could radically impact Washington's agenda in 2010. Given that these issues touch on a wide range of Congressional committees and areas of the Administration, and that there is a wide-held belief in DC that the reforms made during the Bush era were not completely effective or well done, it is going to be hard to control and contain the debate once it begins.   That there are so many different Congressional committees involved in this debate is itself a sign of the lack of coherence of the new counter-terrorism regime ushered in during the Bush era, from the DNI to DHS itself. 

The truth is that it may be time for the country to have a more systematic, thoughtful discussion about how to best deal with the global threat of terrorism, the nature of terrorism itself and how the two wars we are already fighting fit into our overall global national security strategy.  Over the last few days you could feel the American people saying - Nigeria? Yemen? Is there no end to this? How does all this relate to what is happening in Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan? It has been almost a decade now, with trillions spent, ten of thousands of American causalties, vast new bureaucracies built, a new significant escalation in Afghanistan, extraordinary opportunity costs - and what have we accomplished? Are we safer? What can we do better?  These are reasonable questions for the American people to ask.

If this debate lasts for months - which it could - it may very well knock other important priorities off the legislative calendar this year, a calendar that was already in danger of being incredibly overloaded.  Could we end up spending the coming year finishing health care, and having long and significant debates our economic and security policies, pushing a whole array of other important - but less important issues - off the agenda?

Does all this seem like an overreaction to a lone man who got through Fortress America? Perhaps, but that the vast new intelligence appartus built over the past decade didn't put some now clearly reasonable pieces together to stop a threat, and the attack demonstrated how the global jihadi network has spread beyond the places we are already significantly engaged abroad, has raised some critical issues which now seem inevitably headed towards a big, sustained and perhaps overdue conversation. 

Rather than fighting the consolidation of the 2010 agenda it may be in the interest of the governing party to embrace it, and not look defensive, as if they have other things they would rather be talking about.   Peace and prosperity drive most elections in the US, and 2010 may end up being no different.  The Republicans are already jumping on the Christmas Day attempt, and will no doubt spend the year ahead trying to reorient the national discussion to an area - national security - they feel will advantageous for them.  But given their actual record in the decade just past, and the extraordinary mess they left for others to clean up, the Republicans may rue the day the debate became about national security, for there is no way to have this debate without talking about the epic foreign policy and security failures of the Bush era, something they simply cannot disown.

So rather than wishing this new issue environment away, the President and the Democrats might decide rather to make it their own, and spend their political year making their case for how they hope to bring peace and prosperity to a country desperately seeking it.   They can take on the anarchronistic and disproven arguments of the conservatives head on, defining their vision and plans, and making very clear, where, on the two most important issues facing the nation, it is exactly they want to take us.  Not at all an unreasonable thing for the American people to ask of the governing party in a time of great transition and national challenge.

Happy New Year all. 

And a new year it will be.

Mon PM Update: On his Mother Jones blog David Corn chews over this essay a bit, and provides some thoughts of his own.

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