National Security

A consequential time - On the Middle East, Globalization and Immigration

This week marks a critical moment in the struggle of so many to move the nation from the disappointing era of Bush to a new and more hopeful era for the nation.  The Senate and House are working to craft a new and better approach to the Middle East; the House Democratic Caucus discussed the new trade deal Tuesday at its weekly meeting; and the Senate has begun a vital and important debate on how to best fix our broken immigration system. 

To help our community better participate in these consequential debates, we offer up the following:

On a new strategy for the Middle East – We are excited to release a recently conducted video interview with noted Middle East expert, Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival.  Professor Nasr, now of the Fletcher School at Tufts, has had a profound influence on our thinking about the Middle East.  You can learn more about his book, read his writing, watch his appearance on The Colbert Report or watch our in-depth and probing interview with him here

On Immigration Reform – NDN is proud to be part of the national coalition working to pass comprehensive immigration reform this year.   On our site you can read our recent statements about the new bi-partisan approach to immigration, watch video of several informative immigration events, including our recent March event with Senators Reid, Kennedy, Salazar and Menendez, and watch and listen to the television and radio ads run by NDN and our affiliate the NDN political fund during the national immigration debate last year. 

On Globalization – On our site you can find the work of our Globalization Initiative, headed by former Clinton chief economic advisor Dr. Robert J. Shapiro.   There you can find our statement about the new trade deal negotiated by Chairman Charlie Rangel,  watch video of our public forums, including a compelling interview with SEIU’s Andy Stern, read a new paper which advocates putting “A Laptop in Every Backpack,” and review our many essays, reports and commentary that seek to craft a new economic strategy for America.

When the American people tossed the Republicans from power last year they were making a clear statement that they wanted their representatives in Washington to stop playing politics and work towards solving the great challenges facing the nation today.   We should be heartened at the progress made so far by the new Congress, and the eagerness of Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi to take on the hard things and not just the easy ones.  

But we should not be under any illusions – ushering in a new era of progress isn’t going to be easy.  Our community, which has contributed so much in the past, simply must stay engaged and active, and work to support in every way those leaders and initiatives working to repudiate the disappointing politics of the Bush era and help make this new century as exciting and successful for America as the one just past. 

ISG Report getting a 2nd look

The Post has an encouraging story this morning that the White House and other Republicans are giving the thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group Report a 2nd look. 

While this story is encouraging, it is really hard to fathom how repeatedly stupid the Administration has been on Iraq for almost 5 years now.  Almost nothing they've done has been right, thought through, or in our national interest.  Their outright rejection of the simple and reasonable recommendations of this report - something we wrote about a great deal here - was another in an historic set of low moments for the American government.

If you haven't read the Report, you can follow the links in the story to find a link to it.  It is very much worth reading.

Must read op-ed

Charles C. Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999 and Joseph P. Hoar, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994 have written a powerful rebuttal to the use of torture.  You can read it here or below.  It's an important reminder at a time when Republican Presidential candidates are falling all over each other, pretending to be Jack Bauer. 

It's Our Cage, Too
Torture Betrays Us and Breeds New Enemies

By Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar
Thursday, May 17, 2007; A17

Fear can be a strong motivator. It led Franklin Roosevelt to intern tens of thousands of innocent U.S. citizens during World War II; it led to Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt, which ruined the lives of hundreds of Americans. And it led the United States to adopt a policy at the highest levels that condoned and even authorized torture of prisoners in our custody.

Fear is the justification offered for this policy by former CIA director George Tenet as he promotes his new book. Tenet oversaw the secret CIA interrogation program in which torture techniques euphemistically called "waterboarding," "sensory deprivation," "sleep deprivation" and "stress positions" -- conduct we used to call war crimes -- were used. In defending these abuses, Tenet revealed: "Everybody forgets one central context of what we lived through: the palpable fear that we felt on the basis of the fact that there was so much we did not know."

We have served in combat; we understand the reality of fear and the havoc it can wreak if left unchecked or fostered. Fear breeds panic, and it can lead people and nations to act in ways inconsistent with their character.

The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp. Regrettably, at Tuesday night's presidential debate in South Carolina, several Republican candidates revealed a stunning failure to understand this most basic obligation. Indeed, among the candidates, only John McCain demonstrated that he understands the close connection between our security and our values as a nation.

Tenet insists that the CIA program disrupted terrorist plots and saved lives. It is difficult to refute this claim -- not because it is self-evidently true, but because any evidence that might support it remains classified and unknown to all but those who defend the program.

These assertions that "torture works" may reassure a fearful public, but it is a false security. We don't know what's been gained through this fear-driven program. But we do know the consequences.

As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works -- the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real "ticking time bomb" situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of "flexibility" about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone -- the rare exception fast becoming the rule.

To understand the impact this has had on the ground, look at the military's mental health assessment report released earlier this month. The study shows a disturbing level of tolerance for abuse of prisoners in some situations. This underscores what we know as military professionals: Complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat. The rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality.

This has had disastrous consequences. Revelations of abuse feed what the Army's new counterinsurgency manual, which was drafted under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, calls the "recuperative power" of the terrorist enemy.

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its "recuperative power."

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

This is not just a lesson for history. Right now, White House lawyers are working up new rules that will govern what CIA interrogators can do to prisoners in secret. Those rules will set the standard not only for the CIA but also for what kind of treatment captured American soldiers can expect from their captors, now and in future wars. Before the president once again approves a policy of official cruelty, he should reflect on that.

It is time for us to remember who we are and approach this enemy with energy, judgment and confidence that we will prevail. That is the path to security, and back to ourselves.

Charles C. Krulak was commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999. Joseph P. Hoar was commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994.

Safety of the Green Zone Called Into Question

U.S. Embassy employees in Iraq are growing increasingly angry over what they say are inadequate security precautions in the heavily fortified Green Zone, where recent mortar and rocket attacks have claimed the lives of six people, including two U.S. citizens.

In spite of the attacks, embassy employees complain, most staff members still sleep in trailers that one described as "tin cans" that offer virtually no protection from rocket and mortar fire. The government has refused to harden the roofs because of the cost, one employee said.

A second official called it "criminally negligent" not to reduce the size of the embassy staff, which a year ago was estimated at 1,000, in the face of the increasing attacks and blamed the administration's failure to respond on concerns that doing so might undermine support for President Bush's Iraq policy.

"What responsible person and responsible government would ask you to put yourself at risk like that? We don't belong here," the employee said, adding, "They're not going to send us home because it's going to be another admission of failure."

More from McClatchy...

A New Approach to Iran

The WAPO details a turn towards engagement with Iran by the Bush Administration:

The White House confirmed yesterday that the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad is likely to meet in the next several weeks with Iranian officials about stabilizing Iraq, as the administration embraces a tactic outsiders have long recommended as essential to reducing sectarian violence in Iraq.

A White House spokesman said that Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will meet with Iranian counterparts in Baghdad to prod Tehran to play a "productive role in Iraq." The confirmation came after the official Iranian news agency disclosed that the two sides had agreed to meet in Baghdad. U.S. officials said the meeting could occur as early as next week.

"The president authorized this channel because we must take every step possible to stabilize Iraq and reduce the risk to our troops, even as our military continue to act against hostile Iranian-backed activity in Iraq," said Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council.

Next Vote Vets ad: Major General Eaton

The new VoteVets ad is up. The second in a three-ad series, it features Major General Paul Eaton urging Congress to listen to Commanders on the ground in Iraq. For the first, click here.

Vote Vets ads call Bush's bluff

VoteVets.org launched the first of its three-ad series challenging President Bush on Iraq. From Vote Vets:

Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people. They are: Senators Susan Collins, John Sununu, John Warner, and Norm Coleman, and Representatives Mary Bono, Phil English, Randy Kuhl, Jim Walsh, Heather Wilson, Jo Ann Emerson, Tim Johnson, Mike Rogers, Fred Upton, and Mike Castle. Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to "Protect America, Not George Bush."

Next week, we’ll launch another ad with retired Major General Paul Eaton. And, after that, the campaign will wrap up with a powerful ad from former NATO Allied Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark.

The first ad is strong and features Major General John Batiste, who calls the President out for not listening to Commanders on the ground. Check it out below:

The Iraq War and Honesty

Troubling news from recently declassified documents on the killing of Iraqi civilians by US marines in Haditha in 2005.  A Captain and three enlisted men face charges in a military court tomorrow, but does the cover-up extend much higher up the chain of command?

Recently unclassified documents suggest that senior officers viewed the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in late 2005 as a potential public relations problem that could fuel insurgent propaganda against the American military, leading investigators to question whether the officers’ immediate response had been intentionally misleading. 

Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, a lawyer who was chief of staff to Maj. General Richard A. Huck, the division commander, approved a news release about the killings that investigators interviewing him in March 2006 suggested was “intentionally inaccurate” because it stated, contrary to the facts at hand, that the civilians had been killed by an insurgent’s bomb...

The documents also show that derailing enemy propaganda was important to senior Marine commanders, including Col. Stephen W. Davis, a highly regarded regimental commander under General Huck, who played down questions about the civilian killings from a Time magazine reporter last year, long after the attacks and the civilian toll were clear to the military...

Four officers were charged with failing to properly investigate the civilian killings. The first hearing against one of the officers, Capt. Randy W. Stone, is set for Tuesday morning, in a military courtroom at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Three enlisted marines are charged with the killings. Their hearings, to determine whether the charges warrant general courts-martial, are set to begin in the coming weeks. As Marine Corps prosecutors prepare their evidence against Captain Stone and his fellow officers, the unclassified documents suggest that senior Marine commanders dismissed, played down or publicly mischaracterized the civilian deaths in ways that a military investigation found deeply troubling. The documents suggest that General Huck ignored early reports that women and children were killed in the attack, and later told investigators that he was unaware of regulations that required his staff to investigate further.

And this kind of intentional inaccuracy in word and deed - recently pointed out to the nation in the Tilman/Lynch hearings - is reflected on a diplomatic scale by the Bush Administration.  After basing Speaker Pelosi for meeting with the Syrians, we now hear that Secretary of State Condi Rice is meeting with top representatives of the Syrian and Iranian governments, and it isn't even going very well:

The United States reached out to the Iranians, seeking a diplomatic conversation after years of pursuing a policy of trying to isolate them. But the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, seemed unimpressed, offering a blistering critique of the American role in Iraq. He also used the international platform to attack Israel and to reaffirm Iran’s right to a nuclear program, which it says is peaceful and the West says is intended to build weapons.“The unilateral policy, the arrogant one-sided policy, is a principal reason for the complex situation we are seeing in Iraq,” Mr. Mottaki said of Washington’s stance in remarks made at a news conference at the end of the two-day meeting. “Even the ordinary people of the United States realize that the policies pursued by the United States in Iraq are flawed, and they at least must admit that the policies have failed.” Mr. Mottaki’s remarks disappointed many diplomats here — including Iraqi officials — who had tried to orchestrate a brief meeting between him and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a step toward thawing tensions between the two countries.

And yesterday's tragic news makes it hard to be optimistic about the surge and our presence in Iraq.  Especially since the worst attacks were in a town that had been pointed to as a success

A defining moment for the Bush Presidency

Now that the President has vetoed Congress's alternative strategy for Iraq, we have come to a defining moment in his Presidency, for the nation, and the two parties.  At the core of this moment is the uncomfortable recognition that despite his lofty rhetoric about the intent of his foreign policy, Bush's foreign policy has failed at just about everything it has set out to do. 

The list of our failures are long.  Our dramatic intervention in Iraq has been costly and has been bungled beyond imagination, leaving the Middle East hurtling much more towards chaos and sustained regional conflict than democratization.  Al Qaeda has regrouped, has gained a regional legitimacy that it lacked prior to 9/11, and their allies, the Taliban, are resurgent in Afghanistan.  Terrorist attacks around the world have increased.  More states have acquired nuclear weapons, and despite recent encouraging signs in North Korea, the Administration's efforts to halt nuclear proliferation have been very disapointing, and thus dangerous.  The 9/11 Commission gave the Administration across the board failing grades, and as we saw with Katrina, our homeland is no safer today despite billions spent and unending photo ops and press conferences.  We've failed to reform our immigration system, worsening our already frayed relations with our Latin neighbors.  We've ignored the challenge of global climate change.  The tragedy of Darfur has been ignored.  International institutions, critical to keeping the nations of the world working together on our common challenges, have been weakened.  Our military has been ground down, anti-Americanism is on the rise just about everywhere, historic alliances strained, and our standing in the world dramatically diminished.  We are simply less able today to act in our national interest.

And of course, as we all know now, that the Administration ignored significant and repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks prior to 9/11, including the famous August 2001 memo that warned that Bin Laden was poised to strike targets in the US.  

Less obvious but I think equally troubling has been the Administration's lack of interest in global economics, and lack of advocacy for trade liberalization, one of the key pillars of our foreign policy success in the 20th century.  The Doha trade round has faltered, and here at home the Administration has over seen a dramatic decline in public support for liberalization, without offering any plan on how to help Americans better succeed in this era of dramatic economic change.   For a Republican President, the lack of leadership in this whole area has been staggering, and has done much to harm our long-term national interests.

Which brings us to today.  My hope is that as a proud and patriotic American the President will begin to acknowledge his mistakes, and seek to work with other responsible leaders to put America back on track.   We've come to a place now in Iraq where the President is no longer acting in our national interest, but in his own political interest.  Given the overwhelming evidence of system failure in all areas of his foreign policy, and the weakened state he has left the country he loves, he needs to find a new and better path.  Our Congressional leaders have acted responsibly by offering a thoughtful and constructive alternative to the President's plan.  They are acting in the nation's interest.  They are, in essence, asking a failed President to sit down and work out a better path, one much more in our national interest. 

I hope the President sees the next few weeks as an opportunity to finish his term by constructively cleaning up the mess he and his team have left us.  It would be the highest act of patriotism, leadership and courage expressed by this President in his entire term in office, and the kind of leadership our nation so desperately needs today.

I also hope that the Democrats use this time to not just work to "end the war," as admirable and important as that is, but to lay out a vision for the world in the post-Bush era.   Bush's failure has not been just Iraq, but a flawed foreign policy that has left America weaker.  The ultimate goal here should be to fashion a new foreign policy for America, starting with a new and better path for our policy in the Middle East.

George Tenet and Condi Rice

Watch this video from former CIA Director George Tenet's appearence on 60 Minutes last night. 

His book is out today and one section that stands out immediately is his criticism of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her failure to take anywhere near appropriate action after being warned about the threat posed by al-Qaeda.  Find out more in our Campaign to Get Condi to Come Clean.  And find out more about Tenet's book int the NYT review of George Tenet's "At the Center of the Storm."

Syndicate content