(A thoroughly disgusting state of affairs - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
After Ahmed Ghailani was found guilty of participating in a conspiracy to bomb two U.S. embassies in November, a conviction that could land him life in prison (his sentencing hearing is scheduled for January), the usual slate of right-wing pundits took to the airwaves, eager to denounce President Obama for trying the suspected terrorist at all.
Liz Cheney declared that the guilty verdict "signals weakness in a time of war."
John Yoo said prosecutors were "lucky to even get one conviction," adding that "It is really hard to see what the upside is to having civilian trials."
And Laura Ingraham, sitting in for Bill O'Reilly on Fox, called trying terror suspects in federal court "insane," "wrong" and "potentially dangerous."
Last week, in a rare public interview, Michael Leiter, the nation's counterterrorism chief, acknowledged that the government's drone and targeted killing strategy, which appears to have become a cornerstone of the Obama administration's "war on terror," demands "a full and open debate."
Leiter was responding to a question from Newsweek's Michael Isikoff about the fact that the Obama administration has said that it can target for killing certain U.S. citizens abroad based on their alleged connections to terrorism. The U.S. citizen and Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, has been widely reported as a U.S. government target. Leiter said last week that the U.S. believes that Awlaki had a "direct operational role" in failed Christmas day bombing attempt on a plane over Detroit last year.
The idea that the U.S. would target for killing its own citizens, though, has outraged many critics, who claim that amounts to government-sponsored assassinations.
In fact, targeted killings may be legal in some circumstances, when the government can show that the killing is actually necessary in self-defense against some imminent attack, or that the target is an enemy belligerent who's fighting a war against the United States and therefore can lawfully be killed by U.S. forces. But the Obama administration (and the Bush administration before it) has never offered a real explanation of who it's targeting and why, and how it knows that those targets are either directly fighting the United States or about to launch an imminent attack against U.S. targets.
Even if it can't provide all the names and specific evidence in advance, the government could do far more to explain its targeting policy and the legal support for it. Although State Department officials have assured critics that the government is following the law, those assurances amount to a plea to the public to trust that the government is doing the right thing. Unfortunately, government actions over the last eight years surrounding the "war on terror" have demonstrated that "trust us" just isn't good enough.
Leiter has now publicly acknowledged the point. "[C]ertainly, the policy decisions about the ways in which we should or should not use force demand a full and open discussion," he told Isikooff. "And again, I think it's part of my appearance, here, I'm trying to answer the questions to the extent I can."
Still, Leiter didn't really answer the question. Of course, the questions are difficult, and to some extent the government may need to keep some of the facts classified for national security purposes. But it could provide a whole lot more information than it's providing now.
In the case of al-Awlaki, for example, who has already been named as a target, what information connects al-Awlaki to the failed Detroit bombing? And is this the only attempted terrorist incident he's believed to have been involved in? If so, that might qualify him as conspiring to commit mass murder, but an isolated incident wouldn't make him an actual enemy belligerent under the laws of war. Or, is the government claiming it can kill him in self-defense? If so, it would have to demonstrate some real reason to believe he's an imminent threat.
Some critics of the targeting policy suggest that Awlaki, like any other suspect, deserves due process and should be arrested, charged and tried - not simply killed. While that treatment might be a good idea if the circumstances allow for it, if Awlaki is truly an enemy belligerent fighting the United States, then the laws of war don't require that. As Leiter pointed out: "Just to be clear, the U.S. government through the Department of Defense goes out and attempts to target and kill people, a lot of people, who haven't been indicted."
Of course, those are people who are (presumably) actively participating in a war against us. The government cannot simply target people it suspects of, say, financing terrorism or providing material support for terrorist actions. It needs to acknowledge that publicly.
Asked how the U.S. responds to the fact that several recently convicted terrorists, such as Faisal Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi, have said they were motivated to attack the United States due to the U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Leiter acknowledged the challenge. "I certainly will not try to argue that some of our actions have not led to some people being radicalized." He added: "That doesn't mean you don't do it. That means you craft a fuller strategy to explain why you're doing that and try to minimize the likelihood that individuals are going to be radicalized."
Explaining the strategy and its justification is actually the key to minimizing the likelihood that the strategy will motivate others to become radicalized. And that's exactly the part of the U.S. targeted killing strategy that's still missing.
First, on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a bill to stop the Obama administration from purchasing a new prison that could house detainees now at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay under lock and key here in the United States.
Then on Friday, just as the Memorial Day weekend got underway, the House of Representatives voted to stop the president from transferring any of the Guantanamo detainees to the United States for any reason - including a trial.
But then on Saturday, the Washington Post reported that actually, only about 10 percent of the 240 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay when President Obama took office were "leaders, operatives and facilitators involved in plots against the United States." The majority were merely low-level fighters. About 5 percent of the prisoners couldn't be categorized as anything at all.
The report was based on the findings of the administration's Guantanamo Review Task Force, provided to the administration last January. Those findings were never released publicly, and only sent to select committees on Capitol Hill last week. The administration reportedly didn't share the information earlier because, in the wake of the failed Christmas-day bombing attempt, members of Congress had displayed little to no interest in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
Last week's events reveal that many members of Congress continue to show little interest in the real facts about Guantanamo and the detainees held there. How else to explain the stubborn refusal to allow any of them to touch United States soil, even to stand trial, regardless of whether there's any reason to believe that they're actually terrorists?
The Obama administration's task force that deemed most of them low-level foot soldiers was made up of more than 60 career professionals -- including intelligence analysts, law enforcement agents and prosecutors. They reviewed capture information, interview reports, CIA, FBI and NSA records, as well as files on the detainees' behavior since their imprisonment. Notably, the Bush administration hadn't even bothered to look at much of this evidence, the task force reported, so last year was the first time it had been systematically compiled and reviewed. Senior officials from six different agencies, including the defense department and Homeland Security, approved the task force's findings.
Still, that seems to be having little impact on the 282 lawmakers who voted to ban them all from coming to the U.S. for trial. Many persist in portraying all of the 180 remaining detainees as "the worst of the worst," as former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld called them.
"We can't stop every terrorist from coming to the United States but we can stop the ones that are coming from Guantanamo," said Rep. Randy J. Forbes, the Virginia Republican who offered the House amendment prohibiting the movement of detainees to the United States.
Meanwhile, a long list of retired military leaders have said that keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open threatens national security, rather than improving it.
While members of Congress blow hot air about threats they imagine from suspected terrorists confined in Supermax prisons on U.S. soil, they continue to ignore some very real national security dangers that they have the ability to do something about. As the New York Times pointed out over the weekend, Congress has failed to streamline its oversight of national intelligence and refused to prohibit or even adequately regulate companies' use of toxic gases that could easily be weaponized by terrorists for use in a future attack.
It's high time for lawmakers to stop posturing around imaginary threats, which prevents the federal government from bringing actual terrorists to justice and releasing those who don't deserve to be in prison. That - coupled with tackling tangible threats to homeland security that loom right here in our own country - would be the real way to enhance U.S. national security.
As the government continues to pursue the case of Omar Khadr, it's becoming clear why the administration chose to try this case in a military commission rather than a regular civilian federal court: a civilian federal court judge would likely throw the case out.
This country and the planet cannot afford to delay climate and clean energy legislation. It is that simple. Every day Washington politics puts our clean energy future on hold our economy gets weaker, our enemies get stronger, and the planet gets more polluted. It has been almost a year since the House approved comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation to create jobs, cut our oil imports in half and reduce the carbon pollution that threatens us all, and we are still waiting for the Senate to act. The time is now for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that jump-starts our economy, strengthens national security, and leads to a healthier planet.
Over the past week, Sarah Palin encouraged Tea-Party candidates to make energy issues a central part of their campaigns. "There's nothing stopping us from achieving energy independence that a good old national election can't fix," she said.
The Wall Street Journal is absolutely right that Lindsey Graham is tossing up an embarrassing air ball. Graham's effort to get the administration to abandon legitimate federal court trials for suspected terrorists in exchange for the funding needed to close Guantanamo Bay is headed nowhere fast, predicts the Journal.
It's nice to see that even conservatives are disgusted with Liz Cheney's latest attack on Eric Holder. As you've no doubt heard, Cheney is miffed that there are attorneys in the Department of Justice who, in the past, have defended people accused of nasty crimes. Of course, that's what defense lawyers are supposed to do, but that doesn't stop Liz Cheney from sponsoring scary videos insinuating that defending someone swept up by US forces and accused of terrorism is just fundamentally worse than defending an ordinary serial murderer, rapist or corporate swindler.
The Washington Post reports today that President Obama's advisors are planning to recommend that the administration reverse its decision to try the September 11 suspects in federal court and instead opt for military commissions. That's more than just disappointing, given the overwhelming consensus of military and legal experts that civilian courts are more effective for prosecuting terrorists. If the president were to heed that advice, it would also be astonishingly bad politics.
The pressure is growing on the Justice Department to produce supposedly "deleted" e-mails that could reveal whether government lawyers during the Bush administration were instructed to devise legal justifications for torture.
This past week, the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee held three days of hearings on global warming (Day 1,
Day 2, Day 3), with a wide range of panels. While much of the testimony was simply an advancement of lines of debate that have been heard for over a decade, there were some relatively new developments, particularly in two panels on Wednesday , one dealing with adaptive strategies and thinking, the other dealing with the national security implications of global warming. Arguably the most compelling and knowledgeable testimony and followup comments on the national security panel came from Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (Ret) (written testimony here), who has twice served on the Military Advisory Boards for the reports on global warming from the Center for Naval Analysis.
In his testimony, Admiral McGinn stated:
We are just beginning to emerge from one of the most serious global financial crises of our lifetimes. This understandably focuses our attention on near term fiscal issues. However, after several years of examining climate change and the United States' energy use, it is clear to our Military Advisory Board that our economic, energy, climate change and national security challenges are inextricably linked. And it is also clear that our past pattern of energy use is responsible, in a significant way, for our economic situation today. For these reasons, we must take a long range, comprehensive view to develop effective national policies and make real and positive changes to the ways in which we power America. A business as usual approach, continued over reliance on fossil fuels, or small, incremental steps, simply will not create the kind of future security and prosperity that the American people and our great Nation deserve. The time to act, and act boldly, is now.
I interviewed Admiral McGinn on Friday, in order to get a better understanding of how the military has come to see global warming as a major national security concern, and what we all can learn from their perspective. The complete interview transcript is on the flip.
In recent weeks--starting with Washington, DC kick-off just prior to 9/11--a coalition of progressive Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and others known as Operation Free has been holding public events to spread the word about protecting America from the security threat of global warming. Participants include VoteVets, VetPac, Veterans for Common Sense, The Truman National Security Project, The American Values Network, Veterans & Military Families for Progress, and Veterans for Green Jobs. An August story at Grist.org reported:
"As a former U.S. Army captain and a veteran of Iraq, I understand firsthand how our dependence on foreign oil is a threat to national security," said Jon Powers, chief operating officer at the Truman National Security Project, a sponsor of Operation Free. "We're looking to Washington to take this threat seriously and come up with policy that reduces the threat to national security."
This week, as noted by Think Progress, the vets with Operation Free were attacked as traitors (what else?) by a Pennsylvania legislator:
Upon hearing about the group's visit to Pennsylvania, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) blasted the veterans as "traitors" and compared them to Benedict Arnold:
"As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!" Mr. Metcalfe's email reads. "Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!"
Rep. Metcalfe, who served in the U.S. Army from 1980-84, today defended the remarks, saying that "if the type of policies that an individual promotes undermines the Constitution and the law of the land in our country, then they are not patriots."
So global warming is "leftist propaganda," not only despite the complete consensus of the peer reviewed literature, but despite several years of recognition as a national security threat by high-ranking defense analysts. This is a classic example of Conservative Bullshit Epistemology, which I wrote about last weekend ("Bullshit Epistemology And Conservative Narcissism Run Wild"). In fact, it combines several different bullshit arguments all in one, which is what makes it such a perfect exemplar of how Conservative Bullshit Epistemology works.
On this international day of global warming action, it's quite clear that the US remains the biggest impediment to effective action to avoid catastrophic global warming. There are many reasons for this, not least is the failure of progressives to mount an effective counter-campaign against the massive flood conservative disinformation. If we want to fix the problem of America's Neanderthal self-destructive politics of global warming, then we need to look at this failure and how to correct it. One key to this is the blindingly obvious argument that global warming constitutes an overwhelming threat to our national security--which is the main thrust of this diary. However, that's just one basic point among several that should have been driven into the heads of every single American voter--no, every single American resident--as a basic pre-requisite for having a responsible debate about how to deal with global warming. Here is a sample of such points (more in the extended entry):
New Orleans may sink into the sea by 2100. Much of Florida may also be underwater by then. Drought will likely become the norm out West, meaning California could no longer provide the food we depend upon. Las Vegas may become downright inhabitable.
No, I'm not fabricating any of this. These will be the consequences of inaction if we continue to delay implementing the solutions we need to solve the coming climate crisis. But for some reason, may of our supposedly wise lawmakers in Capitol Hill are either willfully ignorant of the facts or downright lying about our future.
Tired chickenhawk, James Jay Carafano of Heritage, recently patted the military on its collective head and told it not to worry about the climate. "Being Green is not the job of the U.S. military", he said. I wonder how his logic holds up:
As for climate change security, even if global temperatures rise, it will be generations before any dramatic change occurs. Even the U.S. military can adapt readily to that pace.
... Doomsday scenarios merit no consideration. But real developments demand a response. For example, we know the Artic is becoming navigable year round.
How's this for dramatic ... This year marks the first time the Arctic ice cap has been an island for 125,000 years, and within 4-20 years, the Arctic will be ice free all summer.
A spread of 16 years isn't very precise, but that's not the difference of even a whole person old enough to drink, let alone a multi-generational rate of change.
