Fables of the reconstruction

Militants Can See U.S. Spy Drone Video Because It's Not Encrypted

Lovely:

Using cheap, downloadable programs like SkyGrabber, militants were apparently able to watch and record the video feed — and potentially be tipped off when U.S. and coalition forces are stalking them. The $25.95 software was originally designed to let users download movies and songs off of the Internet. Turns out, the program lets you nab Predator drone feeds just as easily as pirated copies of The Hangover.

And here’s the real scandal: Military officials have known about this potential vulnerability since the Bosnia campaign.

Worst of the Worst

Hurray for justice:

The U.S. government released from Guantanamo Wednesday a Kuwaiti Airways engineer whom a judge freed from eight years detention because American interrogators had wrung a false confession out of him years ago.

The case of Fouad al Rabia, a 50-year-old father of four, brought into sharp relief questions about the quality of evidence the military intended to present at his military commission trial. ...

Rabia, who holds a business degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, Fla., won his freedom after Cynamon argued that U.S. officials had mistakenly identified the obese flight engineer as a key aide to Osama bin Laden at the 2001 battle of Tora Bora, then subjected him to systematic abuse at Guantanamo until he told them what they wanted to hear.

Kollar-Kotelly, with access to secret Pentagon evidence, agreed in a 65-page ruling.

She found that Rabia had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program forbidden by the U.S. Army's field manual, that his interrogators themselves didn't believe his confession, and that the evidence backed his assertion that he was in Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission that he undertook annually.

"If there exists a basis for al Rabia's indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court.''

It only took 8 fucking years of torture and the intervention of a Kuwaiti prince to spring an innocent guy. One down, 214 to go.

Phil Carter Says He Left Pentagon for "Personal Reasons". Really.

Noah Schachtman at Danger Room says:

Carter served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy, handling porcupine-thorny issues like Guantanamo. So when Carter said he was stepping down for “personal and family reasons,” some wondered whether that was Beltway code for unhappiness with the way the Obama administration was dealing with Gitmo. After all, every D.C. official says he or she’s resigning to get in more family time.

I just got off the phone with Carter. “I know this is a Washington cliche, but sometimes the cliches are true,” he tells me. “I made this tough decision for personal reasons, even though I loved the job and the work we were doing. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to serve again.”

Schachtman claims to be a long-time friend of Carter's and believes him. Carter has always seemed like a stand-up guy to me, so I tend to believe this.

The Excitement of a Military Career

In video game form:

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

In other news, Mikhail Kalashikov turned 90 yesterday. If he got royalties for the gun he invented, he'd be a very wealthy man. Instead, he had the bad luck to create the AK-47 in the Soviet Union, which was notoriously bad at protecting intellectual property rights.

Happy Armistice Day.

Mortification

Regrets, now you have more than a few:

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Tex., started having second thoughts about his military career a few years ago after other soldiers harassed him for being a Muslim, he told relatives in Virginia.

He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

I doubt this is intentional wordplay, but the original meaning of the root of "mortify" is "put to death." I believe both that Hasan was harassed and that he was deeply affected by the soldiers he had to treat. I understand not wanting to deploy, although "tough shit, they paid for your medical degree" is also an acceptable answer. But assuming you don't want to go to war, how do you get from there to shooting scores of people? Probably he was just flipped out and not thinking straight. But I can't rule out the possibility that he connected the dots between being harassed for being Muslim and what he was afraid of in Iraq and decided he needed to kill some soldiers, intending to go out guns blazing. In effect, he decided to take up arms against his country, albeit in a half-assed way. 

For these reasons, I think his commanding officer's remark that Hasan's "death is not imminent" is both a statement of fact and a prediction of mortification to come. The U.S. military has not had an execution for some time, but has several men on death row, including Sgt. Akbar - who also claimed harassment and then fragged his officers while in Kuwait. I think Maj. Hasan is destined to join them.

Hasan is Alive and in Custody

Per press briefing by Ft. Hood CO. "His death is not imminent," he said, in reply to a question about Hasan's condition.

A female, civilian Department of Defense police officer who had been wounded by Hasan shot him and stopped the attack.

Hasan Didn't Want to Go to Iraq; Total Dead is 13

Says MSNBC:

Hasan was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq on Nov. 28, officials said. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said military officials had told her that Hasan was “pretty upset” about his deployment orders.

The Associated Press, quoting military officials, said Hasan received a poor performance evaluation at Walter Reed. The officials would reveal no further details, citing the confidentiality of military records.

A 12th victim has died, bringing the total dead to 13.

Shooting at Ft. Hood

The radio tells me that U.S. Army Col. Maj. Malik Hassan Hasan and two accomplices have killed 12 10 soldiers and a civilian contractor. Hassan was shot and killed by MPs. The others have been apprehended.

Update: Hasan is said to have used pistols, which suggests a lack of a plan. Also, this: "Fort Hood is home to the Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which is designed to help soldiers overcome combat stress issues." It doesn't say if Col. Hasan had seen combat. This could be a PTSD-related incident, if the accomplices prove to be innocent.

On TV, CNN says that there is also known gang activity at Hood.

Update 6:08: Sen. Hutchinson went out of her way on CNN to note that the troops killed were on their way to Iraq. Let the politicization begin!

Update 6:19: Hasan was a doctor.

Update 6:23: Suspected accomplices have been cleared and released. I say PTSD.

Update 6:30: Hasan was a psychiatrist licensed in Virginia.

Update 6:50: Hasan worked at the stress management center.

Update I quit: CNN is interviewing some dude from Facebook. "Are there memorial pages that have been set up?" Um, okay, news over.

A Small Change for the Better

Bush never went to Dover.

Scientist Arrested for Attempted Espionage

People are stupid:

In early September, [Stewart David] Nozette was contacted by phone by an individual purporting to be an Israeli intelligence officer, but who really was an FBI undercover agent, the document says.

They met in downtown Washington in front of a hotel, and over lunch, Nozette "demonstrated his willingness to work for Israeli intelligence," it says.

The undercover agent engaged in a series of meetings with Nozette, and eventually Nozette allegedly provided "secret" information in a "dead drop" post office box. Some of the information, the affidavit says, was classified as secret.

Selling secrets is just plain dumb. I mean, even if it had been the Israelis he was dealing with, turning over classified information puts you at their mercy. They can make you deliver more and more material, and if you refuse they'll just burn you to the Americans. 

So what was Nozette's problem?

The FBI document, signed by Special Agent Leslie G. Martell, says Nozette in January 2009 told a colleague "that if the United States government tried to put him in jail" on an unrelated matter, Nozette would move to Israel or another unidentified foreign country and "tell them everything" he knows.

What the hell is that about? Taxes? Drugs? Child porn? I have no idea. Whatever it was, telling someone with a clearance you're thinking of betraying your country if you get prosecuted for it is just stupid squared.

What did Nozette know?

Nozette had a "top secret" clearance, and served at the White House on the National Space Council for President George H.W. Bush, the affidavit says. Later, from early 2000 to early 2006, he did research and development for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Naval Research Laboratory, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, it says.

Lovely.

The Israelis are not accused of doing anything wrong here. However:

The document says Nozette also acted as a technical consultant from 1998 until early 2008 "for an aerospace company that was wholly owned by the government of the state of Israel." The company consulted with Nozette monthly, getting answers to questions, and he received regular payments of $225,000, Martell's affidavit says.

Well, if he was an independent contractor receiving "regular payments" of almost a quarter million dollars, I would guess the tax angle sounds likelier.

U.S. Generals, Off the Record: McChrystal is Just Like Shinseki

Poor babies:

The hallways at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center buzzed with sympathy for McChrystal, who has said the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan risks failure without a rapid infusion of additional forces. Obama and his advisers are now debating strategy in Afghanistan, with some officials arguing against additional deployments.

"It was definitely a hand slap," one Army officer said of the statement last weekend by national security adviser James L. Jones, a retired Marine general, that military officials should pass advice to President Obama through their chain of command. The Army officer, like others attending the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the politically sensitive issue.

Profile in courage: An anonymous officer criticizing the President publicly for telling a commander he should work on the strategic review that is underway rather than just announce his preferred strategy.

A number of senior Army officers compared McChrystal to Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who warned before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure the country -- advice that was dismissed as "wildly off the mark" by then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz.

"You know what happened to Shinseki," said one Army general, referring to what many officers believe was the Bush administration's punitive treatment of the general, now Obama's secretary of veteran affairs.

Yeah, I know what happened to Shinseki. He was called before Congress to answer questions, he didn't run to the Washington Post to bitch anonymously. And when he answered Congress's questions, he was forced out. Unlike McChrystal. 

Officers said there was no question that McChrystal and other commanders would carry out whatever decisions Obama makes. "We will tell you what we think, but we are also soldiers, so if the president gives an order, we will execute it," the senior officer said.

How nice of them.

U.S. Commanding General in Afghanistan Tells the President Which Orders to Give

There's no other way to interpret this:

He was speaking in Britain — America’s close ally in Afghanistan — a day after he had participated by video link from London in a White House strategy session on the war that included President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and an array of senior advisers.

General McChrystal was asked by a member of an audience that included retired military commanders and security specialists whether he would support an idea put forward by Mr. Biden to scale back the American military presence in Afghanistan to focus on tracking down the leaders of Al Qaeda, in place of the current broader effort now under way to defeat the Taliban.

“The short answer is: no,” he said. “You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”

He did not mention Mr. Biden by name.

Right now the White House is engaged in a strategic review of its options in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That review has just gotten underway and is expected to take some time to complete, but McChrystal's statement, if left as is, narrows the range of possible options. The statement is an attempt to tie President Obama's hands by publicly announcing which strategic goals are acceptable and which are not. If Obama decides to support Biden's idea, then Republicans will seize on McChrystal's statement as proof that Obama is undermining American security. 

McChrystal must retract his statement or be removed from his position. If SecDef Gates lets this slide, we'll end up with a decades-long commitment to a war for no reason other than the generals like fighting it.

Saddam Said He Bluffed on WMD to Deter Iran

Given that he must have known he was going to be executed, I think he had no reason to lie about this:

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region."

Bush, knowing all this or at least having good reason to believe it, boxed Hussein into a corner by demanding Iraq prove it had no WMD, which would have weakened Hussein against the Iranians. Instead, by deposing him, all we've done is strengthened Iran's influence in the region immeasurably, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of American dollars.

Over There

American troops withdraw from the cities and Maliki moves to consolidate his power. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, only with ties to Iran. Heck of a job, Georgie.

More Uighurs Released

The 17 Uighurs held in Gitmo are innocent of any wrongdoing but have been imprisoned since 2001. In 2007, five Uighur detainees were released to Albania.  A couple of days ago the Obama administration announced that the nation of Palau had agreed to take in temporarily some or all of the Uighurs. And today, the Justice Department [sic] announced that the country of Bermuda has accepted four Uighurs for permanent resettlement.

First Trial of Gitmo Captive in U.S.

Good move:

The Obama administration on Tuesday transferred its first Guantánamo detainee to U.S. soil by having U.S. marshals move a Tanzanian man from Guantánamo to New York City for trial on capital terror charges.

A predawn Justice Department statement said Ahmed Ghailani, about 35, was being housed in the Metropolitan Correction Center, a medium to maximum-security lockup in downtown Manhattan that has held everyone from alleged al Qaeda arch-terrorists to financier Bernard Madoff.

Ghaliani, born in Zanzibar and captured in Afghanistan, had been at a secret Super Max-style lock-up at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba for former CIA captives called Camp 7.

He faced arraignment in federal court later in the day as an alleged co-conspirator in the Aug. 7, 1998, U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 234 people.

Okay, do that 200 more times and then we're done. Seriously, it will be more difficult than that, but at least this is a start.

Ambinder notes:

Notice the date that Ghailani arrived at Guantanamo: 2006 -- that's after the reign of enhanced interrogation techniques had ended...after the torture that extracted (lots of bogus information and some accurate information) from his fellow detainees was put to an end. There was plenty of collateral information about Ghailani's involvement in the embassy bombings, and so the decision to grant him an Article III trial was probably one of the easier calls the administration had to make.

That is, Ghailini probably wasn't tortured, so that won't hinder the admissibility of any incriminating statements he may have made.

Dad Wore Grey or Blue

I should have realized there are lots of people still alive today whose fathers fought in the Civil War. The last Union widow died only in 2003. And I guess that site implies there is at least one Confederate widow still alive.

It's the 21st century and we still have the living reminders of the 1860s. I find that amazing.

Treason!

Shorter Porter Goss:

Liberals stabbed America in the back! The CIA needs to be able to torture in secret for freedom to survive.

Like a Fucking Boomerang

It's nice to see scum get their just desserts; it's horrific it took four murders to make it happen.

Hopey-Changey of the Day: Jimmy Carter, Call Your Office

China Hand at American Footprints, on the meaning of a personnel fight in the Obama administration that you probably have never heard of:

[C]onsider l’affaire Freeman the first conspicuous salvo in the effort to sabotage the Obama administration’s outreach to Tehran.  

Under the Bush administration, when the identity of U.S. and Israeli priorities was pretty much a given, regional confrontation was a welcome opportunity to advance Full Spectrum Dominance, and the idea of fighting two billion-dollar wars (plus for good measure a Global War on Terror) was considered to play to America’s economic and military strengths, AIPAC’s trashing of Middle East realists was not such a big deal.  

But now we are in classic Walt-Mearsheimer territory, where the Obama administration’s intense desire to disengage from Iraq and fix Afghanistan requires at the very least a divergence from Israeli priorities and at worst (from Tel Aviv’s point of view) bilateral engagement with Iran.

Provocation, obstruction and even the active sabotage of U.S. Iran initiatives inflicts few costs on Israel.  Israel’s political position in Washington is secure, and its claim to unstinting U.S. support is enhanced rather than damaged if it occupies an isolated position at the center of a dysfunctional Middle East filled with Muslim nations hostile both to it and the United States.

For the United States, it’s different.  The Obama administration is trying to unwind from overextended positions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It needs the help of regional powers that have real reach and positive interests inside Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid a catastrophic clusterf*ck that would damage U.S. interests and cripple the Obama presidency.  

That means Iran.  And Syria.

Not Israel.

I anticipate unending efforts by Israel’s supporters in the U.S. Congress, media, and think tank commentariat to make the political cost of dealing with Iran unsupportable for the Obama administration.  And with the economy stuck in a mile-deep rut, President Obama may in fact decide not to pick a fight over Iran and do little more than prolong the bloody standoffs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That is to say, the hardest of hard-line Israel hawks has a death grip on American foreign policy, and it looks very likely they will be able to stop Obama from changing our country's relationship with Iran and advance peace in the region. Because peace doesn't serve their interests in the short run.

How Much Would You Pay for This Vehicle?

It's called the Growler Light Strike Vehicle:
It's top speed is 35 miles per hour, it's only 50 inches wide so it can fit in a small cargo plane and is designed to surmount an obstacle 12 inches high. It is based on Vietnam-era jeep technology, and uses some of the same parts. It is unarmored and so can't be used in urban environments. It's sole mission is to tow a mortar and haul ammo in uninhabited areas. The commercial version is $15,500 and a military model sold to the Dominican Republic was priced at $33,000.

The U.S. Marine Corps is paying $209,000 each. You may be shocked to learn that the company which makes them is run by a retired U.S. Marine Colonel.

I have a better option: mules. They cost about $3,000 each after training and can climb over obstacles greater than 12 inches. I don't know how much they can haul, but I imagine a team of 4 could pull quite a bit and you'd still be $197,000 ahead on cost. On the downside, they'd shit all over the place. On the upside, you could eat them if you get in a tough spot. Can't really eat your $209,000 jeep.

The Thing Is, It Makes Us Less Secure

David Axe at War is Boring:

I had just returned from Chad. I had drinks with Jimbo and Blackfive boss Matt Burden. While Matt sat quietly, Jimbo told me how he was frustrated with professional reporters who only report facts, and don’t help use those facts to promote U.S. national security. He said he envisioned building a privately run intelligence network that would use freelance reporters, operating under Blackfive’s auspices and sponsored by corporations, to gather information for transmission to intel analysts in the U.S. He asked if I would be interested in joining up.

I said no, in no uncertain terms. In fact, I recall cursing and yelling.

Jimbo - Jim Hanson - is dumb as a box of rocks, but this takes things to a new level. Axe is pissed off because such a plan would get journalists killed. Personally, I'm pissed off not because Hanson wants journalists to feed information to the intelligence types, but because Hanson is talking about propaganda, not just spying. If you wanted to set up a spy network using journalists, you only need one thing: Cash. But passing along gossip is one thing, shaping stories to fit a certain ideological end is another. If people did sign up for that, they've actually harmed the national security of the United States of America, because they're depriving people of the truth as best as they can discover it.

(Via Robert Farley.)

One Way to Deal With Gitmo Detainees and Uphold the Rule of Law

Obama has announced that he will issue the order ending the military commissions and beginning the process of closing Gitmo, but figuring out what to do with some of the prisoners will take longer. Partly that's because we can't find anyone to take those we want to release because they're, you know, innocent and partly because there are some Obama doesn't want released because he thinks they're guilty. He says the evidence wouldn't stand up in court, but nevertheless he believes the charges are true.

There has been some gnashing of teeth from liberals and some crowing from conservatives over this perfectly predictable outcome. The presumption seems to be that either Obama must let these guys go right now and vindicate the Constitution, on one hand, or hold them and acknowledge that Bush and Cheney were right all along (about everything, presumably). That is, liberty and security are irreconcilable.

There is at least one way I can think of to give these guys a fair trial: Start over. The evidence against them currently is tainted by secrecy, hearsay and torture, so don't use it. Create a firewalled investigative team and send them into the field. Collect witness statements. Examine evidence. Put together a case. If there is enough to indict, then do it. Give them real lawyers - there are plenty of volunteers available - who can put on a real defense. If there isn't enough to indict, then let them go.

There are probably lots of other ways to accomplish the goal of protecting both freedom and safety.  That's what the legal system is supposed to be all about. But you have to start off with personnel who are acting in good faith, and starting January 20th, I think we'll have that.

The Strong Men

Lovely:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he called President George W. Bush to seek an abstention [on a UN Gaza truce resolution] from the U.S., a key Israeli ally at the United Nations.

I said: "Get me President Bush on the phone," Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. "They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care: 'I need to talk to him now.' He got off the podium and spoke to me."

Olmert said he argued that the United States should not vote in favor, and the president then called Rice and told her not to do so.

"She was left pretty embarrassed," Olmert said.

So, in a public speech, Israel's prime minister gives the impression that he can pick up the phone and demand the President take his call at any time, and basically order him to countermand his Secretary of State's stated position.

"The government of Israel does not make policy for the United States," the [senior U.S.] official added.

Coming from the Bush administration, this normally would be excellent evidence that the government of Israel does indeed make policy for the United States. I assume the senior U.S. official is the very embarrassed Condoleezza Rice.

Whatever else it means, the prime minister of Israel has deliberately kneecapped America's ability to negotiate with the parties in the region on this crisis. The only plausible explanation is that Olmert is doing this to score domestic political points by appearing tough and in control, which is apparently the only thing the people of Israel want right now, judging by their support for the operation in Gaza.

In related news, the Israel government committee that oversees elections has banned the two largest Arab-Israeli parties from participating in the next parliamentary election. This move included the concurrence of the Labor Party's representative on the committee. Arab members of the Knesset walked out in protest. All this, even though everyone involved admits the Israel Supreme Court will almost certainly overturn the ban. Again, this is just a display of toughness, a willingness to do something, no matter how futile or stupid, to feel like you're driving events and not the other way around.

All of which is just fucking peachy keen.

(Haaretz link via upyernoz.)

Pic of the Day: Hey Hey, Ho Ho

Protest in support of Gazans outside Israeli consulate, 19th & John F. Kennedy Blvd.:

The two guys in the foreground are civil affairs cops. Everyone is very cold.

Chants:

"Stop killing children!"
"Stop bombing mosques!"

"Stop killing our people!"

& etc.

Passing African-American schoolkid, about the protesters:

"We don't like them. They want to blow us up!"

I think that applies to everyone, sweetie.

The U.S. Army's Video Arcade in Philly

Nathan Hodge at Danger Room:

The New York Times has an excellent piece on the Army's new urban recruiting tool: a $13 million video arcade in suburban Philly.

That's right. According to the Times, the Army is having a hard time recruiting in urban areas. So the service set up the 14,500 square foot "Army Experience Center" in the Franklin Mills Mall. The place is packed with first-person shooters, full-scale simulators (and 22 recruiters).

He also note that "the Army is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar push to create more videogames to prep troops for combat." One correction though: Franklin Mills is in Philly, not the Philly suburbs.

Viagra Beats the Taliban

Not kidding:

The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.

"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.

For U.S. intelligence officials, this is how some crucial battles in Afghanistan are fought and won.

Does anyone believe this story? I mean, I don't know a lot about Afghanistan, but I find it a little unbelievable that the local head man is going to admit to a CIA officer that he can't get it up. To anyone, for that matter. Plus, there is the problem of cultural knowledge. The "chieftain" was supposedly sophisticated enough to know what Viagra was and felt comfortable using it, but couldn't get it except from the CIA guy. Generic sildenafil is produced in bulk in India and China. Maybe the particular region is too remote to get such things in the normal course of trade. But overall, it sounds more like the CIA officer justifying requisitions for his personal use.

Pre-Planning on Closing Gitmo: "The Difference Is That He Tries to Solve It"

As you probably know:

The Pentagon is drawing up plans to shut the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be prepared for any order from President-elect Barack Obama, who has promised to close the controversial facility after he assumes office Jan. 20, a defense official said yesterday.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates instructed his staff to have a blueprint in place by the time of the inauguration in case Obama decides the closure of the facility is one of his "first orders of business," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.

I read this to mean that Obama told Gates that closing Gitmo would be one of his first orders of business, and make him do this as the condition of him keeping the job. And by "this", I mean not just plan to close Gitmo, but to announce it publicly. It would be both appropriate and Obama-like if he were to announce in his inaugural address that the first executive order he will sign is the one directing Gates to begin the process of closing the prison.

Gates "has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down -- what would be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility while at the same time, of course, ensuring that we protect the American people from some dangerous characters," Morrell said at a news briefing.

Any plan will probably address whether to also abolish the military commission system and, if so, what kind of legal framework can be substituted to put detainees on trial. The U.S. government will have to negotiate homes in third countries for as many as 60 detainees who have been cleared for release but cannot be returned to countries such as Uzbekistan and Libya because of fears they will be tortured. And the next administration will have to find or build appropriate detention facilities in the United States, as well as negotiate with local and state authorities who may not want terrorist suspects housed in prisons in their areas.

So what happens to the people we release?

European nations have begun intensive discussions both within and among their governments on whether to resettle detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a significant overture to the incoming Obama administration, according to senior European officials and U.S. diplomats.

Funny/sad:

The willingness to consider accepting prisoners who cannot be returned to their home countries, because of fears they may be tortured there, represents a major change in attitude on the part of European governments. Repeated requests from the Bush administration that European allies accept some Guantanamo Bay detainees received only refusals.

The Bush administration "produced the problem," Karsten Voigt, coordinator of German-American cooperation at the German Foreign Ministry, said in a telephone interview. "With Obama, the difference is that he tries to solve it."

If goodwill were money, Bush would be history's greatest spendthrift.

Who is considering taking detainees? We don't know exactly:

At least half a dozen countries are considering resettlement, with only Germany and Portugal acknowledging it publicly thus far.

Okay, who else? My guesses are U.K., Spain, France and Poland. Not Italy, I don't think.

This is also well played:

European officials put out tentative feelers to Barack Obama's team to see whether it was willing to discuss the issue, but the incoming administration has rejected holding even informal talks until after the Jan. 20 inauguration, according to European and U.S. officials aware of the outreach.

"President-elect Obama has repeatedly said that he intends to close Guantanamo, and he will follow through on those commitments as president. There is one president at a time, and we intend to respect that," said Brooke Anderson, chief national security spokeswoman for the Obama transition team. ...

"I assume the new administration will have someone on a plane to Europe within minutes of Obama being sworn in," said Sarah E. Mendelson, director of the Human Rights and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the author of a report on closing Guantanamo Bay.

On a plane? I wouldn't be surprised if the envoy weren't already on the ground in Europe at the moment Obama's hand hits the bible.

So what is Obama willing to do to "solve it"? Again, we don't know, but the Europeans have some things they'd like to see:

The Europeans want a clear commitment to close Guantanamo Bay and an acceptance of common legal principles in the fight against terrorism, including those regarding the treatment of suspects, European officials said. A series of meetings between the United States and the European Union on a legal framework for combating terrorism has considerably narrowed differences on the application of human rights law, refugee law and humanitarian law, said [Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis] Amado and John B. Bellinger III, a legal adviser at the State Department.

Elsewhere in the article, a German official is quoted as saying the U.S. cannot place any restrictions or conditions on how European countries handle the detainees. They saw what happened with David Hicks and the embarrassment Bush caused the Aussie government.

The Europeans also want Obama to agree to transfer a small number of detainees to the United States before they attempt to sell a resettlement program to their own citizens.

"I believe that will happen," Amado said.

Interesting. There have been no talks with the Obama people, but Amado has reason to believe that the new administration will first take some innocent detainess before Europe does. That sounds to me that there have been talks with people close to but not in the transition. Which is how it should be.

One group likely to be settled here is 17 Chinese Uighurs who have been held for years at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration has acknowledged that the Uighurs are not enemy combatants, and in October a federal judge ordered them released into the United States.

In interagency discussions, the State Department has argued that the Uighurs be brought to the United States to help persuade Europe to resettle other detainees. But a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the departments of Homeland Security and Justice, as well as White House officials, considered resettlement in the United States a "red-line" issue.

Yeah, it's a red-line issue for Bush to have to be confronted with the living, breathing evidence of his incompetence and ideological blinders. I hope some of the Uighurs settle in Dallas.

Quote of the Day: Truth in Jokes

Sanjar Qiam, in Kabul:

Story has it Little Ahmad wanted 1000Afs [Afghani, the currency of Afghanistan] badly and prayed for two weeks but nothing happened. Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the 1000Afs. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, Afghanistan, they decided to send it to President Karzai. President Karzai didn’t know what to do with it and forward it to President Bush. Bush as God’s rep on earth was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send Ahmad a 100 Afs note. Bush thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy in a place where they never have money. Ahmad was delighted with the 100AFs and sat down to write a thank you note to God, which read: Dear God, Thank you very much for sending the money, however, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Bush and Karzai offices and, as usual, those crooks deducted 900Afs. Thanks, Ahmad.

Good joke, but unrealistic. One hundred Afghani is about $2.14 at today's rates. Bush never sent anyone a dime unless he thought he'd get something out of it.

Greeted As Liberators

It was dark all around.
There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free.
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company C.
They were all left behind,
Most of them dead,
The rest of them dying.
And that's how the High Command
Took my daddy from me.

What Shinseki Faces at Veterans' Affairs

One of the many problems that incoming VA Secretary Shinseki is being tasked with:

Traumatic brain injuries, one of the signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, can be linked to such long-term problems as seizures, aggression and dementia reminiscent of Alzheimer's disease, according to an Institute of Medicine report released Thursday.

Even mild brain injuries, the report found, appear associated with some long-term problems....

A recent Rand Corp. report ... estimated that 300,000 troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan -- 19% -- had suffered traumatic brain injuries. Such injuries have cost the nation $554 million in treatment and lost productivity, that report estimated.

In a separate report in April, Rand estimated (pdf) that about 300,000 returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets were psychological casualties. From that report:

We estimate that PTSD-related and major depression–related costs could range from $4.0 to $6.2 billion over two years (in 2007 dollars). Applying the costs per case for TBI to the total number of diagnosed TBI cases identified as of June 2007 (2,726), we estimate that total costs incurred within the first year after diagnosis could range from $591 million to $910 million (in 2007 dollars).

As a progressive, it is completely unacceptable to me if once again we ignore veterans' health issues and let these people end up killing themselves, drinking or drugging, or homeless.

And do I even need to say it? The injuries these servicemembers will have to live with for the rest of their lives is one of the many excellent reasons not to get into a war you don't have to fight.

This part from the newspaper article is concerning:

VA officials, who said they would carefully review the report's recommendations, have 60 days to decide whether the long-term problems should be treated as related to brain-injured veterans' military service.

Bureaucrats and bean-counters are the source of the resistance to treating injured vets. They stood in the door over Gulf War Syndrome for 17 years, denying it every step of the way.  Shinseki will have cut through the roadblocks. It's clear that Obama has his back:

"For many of today's troops and their families, the war doesn't end when they come home," Obama said at a press conference in Chicago [announcing his pick of Shinseki].

But "far too few" are receiving the treatment they need to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, he said.

Obama pledged to cut red tape, eliminate budget shortfalls and help ease the transition back to civilian life for troops returning to a troubled economy.

"No one will ever doubt that this former army chief of staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans," Obama said of Shinseki.

"He has always stood on principal because he has always stood with our troops, and he will bring that same sense of duty and commitment to insuring that we treat our veterans with the care and dignity that they deserve."

It's nice to hear responsible talk after 8 years of uber-hawks shortchanging the people they sent off to fight. I look forward to the follow-through.

7:48 a.m.

67 years ago. Just think, if the Japanese had not made this one grievous miscalculation, everything that followed in the 20th century might have come out differently. And fortunately for us, Adm. Nagumo lost his nerve before the attack achieved its objective.

Quote of the Day: SAVAK Thanks You

She's completely right about this:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered a strong defense of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, saying in the long term, it will be viewed as "a great strategic achievement."

She just didn't mention that it's a great strategic achievement for the government of Iran.

Change We Need: Shinseki to VA

Great move:

Retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki will be named as Barack Obama's Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Sunday afternoon in Chicago.

The surprise pick represents the addition of yet another heavyweight to the Obama cabinet, as well as a subtle slap at President Bush's original national security team.

Subtle ain't in it, son.

Like other uniformed Pentagon personnel, he clashed with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz personally and professionally, especially on the Iraq war.

Shortly before the end of his term as Chief of Staff in 2003, Shinseki told a congressional committee that post-war Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops. Both Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz scoffed at the estimate. When Shinseki retired, no senior civilians from the Pentagon showed at his ceremony.

In an interview to air tomorrow, Obama praised Shinseki's judgement on the war.

We have a massive number of psychological and physical casualties coming out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We need to fully fund Veteran's Affairs in order to get those men and women and their families the help they need. No more stalling for 17 years before recognizing that you need to spend money on the troops after they take off the uniform, too.

U.S.-Born Religious Terrorists in the Middle East

Probably not the religion you thought of:

[T]he bombing [that injured a Jewish Israeli professor] may be the latest sign that elements of Israel’s settler movement are resorting to extremist tactics to protect their homes in the occupied West Bank against not only Palestinians, but also Jews who some settlers argue are betraying them. Radical settlers say they are determined to show that their settlements and outposts cannot be dismantled, either by law or by force.

There have been bouts of settler violence for years, notably during the transfer of Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005. Now, though, the militants seem to have spawned a broader, more defined strategy of resistance designed to intimidate the state.

This aggressive doctrine, according to Akiva HaCohen, 24, who is considered to be one of its architects, calls on settlers and their supporters to respond “whenever, wherever and however” they wish to any attempt by the Israeli Army or the police to lay a finger on property in illegally built outposts scheduled by the government for removal. In settler circles the policy is called “price tag” or “mutual concern.”

How Malcolm X of him.

Born in Monsey, N.Y., Mr. HaCohen came to Israel with his parents as a child. He dropped out of yeshiva, or religious seminary, at 16 and went to settle the hilltops, he said. He got married at 18 and has since been living in and around Yitzhar.

Representing the messianic, almost apocalyptic wing of the settler movement, Mr. HaCohen peppers his speech with talk of redemption and makes it clear that in his land of Israel, there is no place for Arabs.

Like Mr. Ben Shochat, Mr. HaCohen, who is disarmingly soft-spoken, said he was not drafted into the army because of his religious beliefs. As a member of Yitzhar’s first response security team, though, he receives regular combat training and has a personal weapon.

The "land of Israel" in this case being at least all of the territories or perhaps much more. This movement sheds some revealing light on why some Israelis are so concerned about Iran getting the bomb and wiping out Jews: It's psychological projection.

Israel has a powerful military and a very competent intelligence service. Why can't they root out these extremists?

In general, the relationship between the religious settlers of the area and the army is an ambiguous, if symbiotic one. Most young ideological settlers serve in the army and now make up an increasing portion of the elite combat units and the officers corps.

Like the catastrophic invasion of Lebanon, this is another example of how the occupation has degraded the Israeli military as a professional, disciplined fighting force. That's dangerous enough for Israel's survival, but it presents an even greater threat politically.

The aim of the settlers is to change "the facts on the ground" in the territories - by occupying territory and killing or terrorizing Palestinians - that no political deal can reverse. Similarly now, they seem to have changed the facts of Israeli political life, even at the risk of destroying Israel altogether:

The argument (which I substantially agree with) went like this: If not abandoned, the settlements will require either the construction of a full apartheid state, or the extermination/expulsion of the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank. Either way, Israeli democracy dies, and Israel cannot survive without democratic institutions. Interestingly enough, a friend and I were speaking with one of the [Foundation for the Defense of Democracy] organizers after the lecture, and he made the argument that the settlers could not be moved; there were too many of them, and they held too much political power.

Or the Arabs could annihilate the settlers and change "the facts on the ground" again, but that seems unlikely given the relative military strength of the Israeli army and the Palestinians.

How should the U.S. respond? This post on TPM offers a couple of suggestions: First, condition U.S. aid to the Israeli government preventing the construction of additional settlements. The other is really intriguing to me:

Many groups in the U.S. (including right-wing Christian Zionists) provide financial support to settlements and settler causes (see here and here), often to 501(c) 3s as tax-deductible, charitable contributions, and that is something into which an investigation is long overdue.

We just saw dubious convictions in a U.S. court of Muslim charity leaders accused of providing material support to terrorists in the territories. That happened because the recipient organizations were linked to Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization. If one group in the territories that commits extralegal violence in order to achieve political aims is labeled terrorist, then all should be so labeled. Even though (or perhaps because) harpng on the Israeli/Palestinian situation is a smokescreen used by authoritarians in and out of government across the region, the U.S. should be scrupulous in applying its standards in classifying terrorist organizations regardless of religion.

Another Prank Call By a DJ

Don't know if I buy this:

A man pretending to be India's foreign minister called Pakistan's president and talked in a "threatening" manner during the Mumbai terror attacks, prompting Pakistan to put its air force on high alert, a security official and a news report said Saturday. ...

[Pakistan newspaper] Dawn reported that none of the normal checks on establishing callers' identities before putting them through to the president were carried out because of the urgency of the situation during the attacks.

India's foreign minister denies making the call. The attack started on the 26th and the call was made the evening of the 28th. I find the Pakistani story implausible. Given the situation, I would expect that the phone lines between Islamabad and Delhi were burning up by Friday night. What was the urgency that required abandoning the procedure for identifying callers? I think it's most likely that the Pakistanis lied about this in order to distract the news media from focusing on Pakistani intelligence's role in the attack and to raise the specter of accidental nuclear attack. It's also possible that India's foreign minister is lying, but I doubt it since the Pakistanis could rumble him in no time using phone records.

It's also possible that the story is true. (And the Pakistani presidential staff is incompetent.) The fact that the call came 48 hours after the attack started means any joker could have made it. It could also have come from any number of players inside the governments of India or Pakistan, or from the terrorists themselves (reinforcing success).  Fun stuff.

Iraqi Parliament Ratifies SOFA

149-49. 126 legislators didn't even bother to show up. The Sadrists banged on the table and chanted, "No agreement", as the document was being read aloud. What a zoo.

Obama v. Osama

Is Osama bin Laden alive? Whether or not he is, does Barack Obama believe he is?

These are important questions because Obama made Bush's failure to catch bin Laden an issue in the campaign. People rightly mocked John McCain's "secret plan" to get the al-Qaeda leader, while Obama was specific about what he'd do:

"You know John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell,” Mr. Obama said, "but he won’t even follow him to the cave where he lives.”

The assumption being that the cave in question was located in the Pakistan border region with Afghanistan.

I'll take my two questions in reverse order: If Obama doesn't believe bin Laden is alive, then he's committed a very foolish error by making the issue a centerpiece of his criticism of the way Bush has protected the nation's security. If he doesn't believe it, then he is open to the same attack down the road: "You said you'd follow bin Laden to the cave where he lives. What's the holdup, Mr. President?" The only response to which would be to adopt the Bushian tactics of stalling and changing the subject.

So let's assume Obama believes bin Laden is alive. If that's right, then I don't think this is just a bit of campaign rhetoric that will fall by the wayside. I believe that Obama will make it one of his top national-security priorities to find bin Laden, wherever he is. Intelligence types who want to talk about other issues will find that the President will start off briefings with a question like, "Are you any closer to locating that motherfucker?", something I assume Bush did not do, at the urging of thugs like Musharraf who he hired to do our bidding. And if bin Laden is found, Obama will order the use of military force to take him, no matter what country he is in. I expect that he will launch the attack without warning, and will only inform national leaders and the American people after it has succeeded or failed.

Obama, it seems to me, likes to combine politically attractive positions with good policy. Take, for example, his recent linking of job promotion, green energy research, and economic intervention. I think he'll do the same with the hunt for bin Laden, the protection of the nation's security, and the improvement of America's standing in the world.

One of the ways that Bush blundered in foreign policy was by going outside the narrative frame of the 9/11 attacks to launch the invasion of Iraq as well as the more bellicose rhetoric toward Iran. The world understood why we invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban. They saw it as morally just that we would go after the people who attacked us, as well as the people who harbored the attackers. Most of the American people supported it, too. But by invading an oil-producing country that had nothing to do with 9/11, Bush did worse than undermine the notion that America was being morally just: He confirmed the jihadists' worldview of American foreign policy as one that seeks to dominate the Middle East by controlling its natural resources.

The effect of this was to undermine popular support for American foreign policy both at home and abroad. It harmed American national security by, among other things, creating the most effective recruiting and training tool possible for the jihadists: The Iraq insurgency. People from all over the Middle East region were radicalized into sympathy, at least, for the jihadis. Militants flocked to Iraq to fight the "Crusaders". The commanders of the insurgency now have long experience in fighting the Americans in exactly the type of urban warfare we're likely to face in the future. They know American tactics and doctrine, and the exact limits of U.S. power. In addition, they have troops who survived the conflict who can apply the lessons learned to future ones.

Bush's popularity tanked for many good reasons, but mostly they all revolve around the theme of incompetence. The report warning that al Qaeda was determined to strike in the U.S. was ignored. The invasion of Iraq was underplanned and under-resourced. The response to Hurricane Katrina was reckless and inexcusable. One of the most damning was the idea that Bush had taken his eye off the ball by neglecting the hunt for bin Laden to pursue PNAC pipe dreams and depose Saddam. The question, "Why are we in Iraq?" inevitably was twinned with, "Why haven't we caught bin Laden?" 

Obama is going to try to rectify these mistakes in the obvious way, by withdrawing from Iraq. But he also will try to reframe the conflict around our legitimate response to being attacked. Unlike the Bush excuse that "9/11 changed everything", Obama will assert that 9/11 calls for a strong and focused response, and that he will deliver it. The U.S. is going to recenter its military effort on Afghanistan. And it's going to capture or kill bin Laden. If he's alive.

Important Questions Answered Long Ago

Benjamin Wittes op-ed:

Solving the Guantanamo problem means making important decisions about detention policy in combating terrorism more generally: When, if ever, should the United States engage in preventive detention of terrorism suspects? If and when it does, should it treat them as enemy combatants under the laws of war or under some other body of law, perhaps a new detention statute? What rights should they have? What should the government have to prove about them, to what standard of proof, and in what sort of forum?

Notwithstanding the idea projected by some members of his camp that closing Guantanamo is simply a matter of will, Obama cannot just wish these questions away. Indeed, they defy answers in the absence of a systematic and rigorous review of the detainee population itself, including the classified information about each prisoner.

It's remarkable to me that anyone would say that the law should proceed from "a systematic and rigorous review of the detainee population itself." That presumes a process - a review - that would in turn establish the level of process - a trial - that the prisoners would receive.

This isn't how we do it in America.

In this country, we start with the law - specifically, the law contained in the United States Constitution. From that law, we derive a set of principles and practices that are then applied to individual prisoners. In that application, we determine whether a specific individual is guilty or not guilty, and if guilty, what punishment they should receive.

Mr. Wittes wants to interpose a review that would determine what process - what law - should apply to each prisoner. This presumes the review would be a wider-ranging inquiry than a trial would be. It also presumes that this review would be more accurate in discerning the truth. But the reason the legal principles we uphold in the Constitution are the law is that we as a society believe they are the best way to arrive at the truth in a legal proceeding.

Mr. Wittes is quoted elsewhere as saying:

"There will be a sobering moment for enthusiasts of a 'try and release' regime when people start looking at the contents of those detainee files," said Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution fellow and the author of "Law and the Long War," which advocates preventive detention backed by a national security court.

He assumes that the assertions contained in detainee files will be as impressive others as they apparently were to him. This just what Duncan calls the "GOP Daddies" tactic, in which somber men in suits presume to tell others that their judgment is better than theirs, and "that Something Very Serious Was Happening and Something Needs To Be Done." Note the phrase "try and release", a parallel to "catch and release" - a fishing term, but also an expression of futility in law enforcement and illegal immigration circles.  To Mr. Wittes, trying someone and finding them not guilty equals doing nothing at all.

By proposing this standardless review as a means of allocating the amount of process that is due each prisoner, Mr. Wittes is suggesting that we undermine our system of justice. If we mean to throw out the rules in these cases, it begs the question why we ever follow the rules that are already established in our legal system. These people are dangerous - even though no proof has yet been presented - this line of argument goes, so we have to allow government officials to say whether they should receive a fair trial, something less than a fair trial, or no trial at all. But government officials always say a defendant is dangerous before the trial happens, but we presume the defendant is innocent and make the government prove its case. If we abandon that principle in these cases, why have the principle at all?

Apply the law to the facts. If the government can't make its case, then the government should not be holding the prisoner. This is how we do it in this country, and that's how we should go about closing Gitmo.

The Bright Line

What Digby said:

I'm not trying to get ahead of myself. But Brennan is being talked up as the replacement for Michael McConnell and that's potentially problematic. If Obama comes out and explicitly says that there will be no more use of the techniques Greenwald lists, or anything else that can be construed as torture, and makes sure that his subordinates know he means exactly that, then I'm not quite as worried about the effects of this on foreign policy. But if he tries to split the baby or compromise on it, then he will automatically lose a huge portion of his moral authority both at home and abroad.

They could just go back to secretly torturing and spying as the government did in the past, but after all this --- and the political ramifications if it got out --- let's hope not. And anyway, that's not what the intelligence types want. They want immunity for torture (excuse me, "enhanced interrogation") and they want it to be public. I don't think there's any going back.

Torture is not negotiable and it can't be redefined or "smoothed out" or anything else. This one is a bright line. I give Obama the benefit of the doubt at this point, of course --- nothing's been announced. But I'm nervous. The institutional pressure is going to be acute and I'm not reassured by the presence of people like John Brennan. The fact that he isn't as bad as Dick Cheney just isn't good enough.

What Obama said, on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to be Attorney General:

I did not hear Mr. Gonzales repudiate two and a half years of official U.S. policy which has defined torture so narrowly that only organ failure and death would qualify. A policy that he himself appears to have helped develop the dubious legal rationale for. Imagine that. If the entire world accepted the definition contained in the Department of Justice memos, we can only imagine what atrocities might befall our American POWs. How, in a world without such basic constraints would we feel about sending our sons and daughters to war? How, if we are willing to rationalize torture through legalisms and semantics, can we claim to our children, and the children of the world, that America is different, and represents a higher moral standard?

This policy isn't just a moral failure, it's a violation of half a century of international law. Yet while Mr. Gonzales' job was White House Counsel, he said nothing to the President.

He showed no ability to speak with responsible moral clarity then, and he's indicated that he still has no intention to speak such truths now. During his recent testimony, he refused to refute a conclusion of the torture memo which stated that the President has the power to override our laws when acting as Commander-in-Chief. Think about that -- the nation's top law enforcement officer telling its most powerful citizen that if the situation warrants, he can break the law from time to time.

The truth is, Mr. Gonzales has raised serious doubts about whether, given the choice between the Constitution and the President's political agenda, he would put our Constitution first. And that is why I simply cannot support his nomination for Attorney General.

I tend to believe someone who (a) taught Con Law and (b) made such a sweeping declaration about international law means what he says. The fact that the people with the relevant experience necessary to the transition are tainted by association with the prior regime's policies is not surprising or overly worrying to me. The question is, does the President-elect maintain the position he took as a candidate, or not? I'm betting yes.

U.S. Withdrawal From Iraq Inches Forward

Maliki's cabinet approved the Status of Forces Agreement today. Next it goes to the Iraqi parliament, where it probably, but not definitely, will pass. The largest Sunni party wants a national referendum on it first.  Sadr opposes it on the grounds that it validates the occupation. Sistani, Maliki's allies and the Kurds favor it.

Caveat: I can't find an English-language version of the agreement online, so I have to go off the news reports. If approved, the agreement would require U.S. troops to leave Iraqi cities and towns by next summer, and withdraw from the country fully by the next of 2011. A new agreement is necessary because the U.N. mandate under which the U.S. occupation continues expires at the end of the year. The Iraqi parliament adjourns for the year on November 24th, so it must pass by then.

In addition:

It strengthens Iraqi controls over U.S. forces by:

• Requiring the U.S. to get Iraqi consent before searching homes.
• Giving Iraqis authority over the international zone that houses the centers of American power in Baghdad.
• Enabling Iraqis to search U.S. cargo.
• Prohibiting Americans from conducting raids in other countries from Iraqi soil.
• Eliminating the judicial immunity that applies to foreign contractors and U.S. soldiers working in Iraq under the occupation's current mandate.

It's an interesting list. I assume that Iraqi consent will never be withheld, Iraqi authority over the Green Zone ends exactly where whatever American on the scene says it ends, and that the U.S. will tell the Iraqis which cargo they have the power to search and which they don't.  The ban on cross-border raids piqued my interest, until I remembered that as with any agreement, it's all about how you define the terms. I assume that "raid" for these purposes will not be a raid as is used in the English language, but a tiny, cramped subset of all possible raids. In other words, it's all for domestic consumption and not to be taken seriously.

The last point is misleading but has some actual substance to it. Immunity for soldiers has not been eliminated, just modified:

U.S. soldiers are still guaranteed immunity except in cases of serious felonies committed while off duty outside their bases.

The real target here is the Private Military Contractors. As far as I can tell from the news coverage, immunity has been eliminated for them. If an Iraqi police officer can make the arrest, they're screwed. If he can't, then it's a question of whether they'll give him up or fly him out. If I were a PMC, I'd be asking for a rider to the employment agreement on that issue right about now.

Clearly, though, withdrawal from Iraq is a done deal as far as U.S. politics go. Even Saint Petraeus wants us out.

Obama Plans for Closing Gitmo; No Word on Other Secret Prisons

Good, Obama will close Gitmo:

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some [Guantánamo Bay] detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

Potentially bad:

A third group of detainees -- the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information -- might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The protections built into such a new court will be the key to whether these people get treated fairly.

Obama has said the civilian and military court-martial systems provide ''a framework for dealing with the terrorists,'' and [Obama legal adviser Prof. Laurence] Tribe said the administration would look to those venues before creating a new legal system. But discussions of what a new system would look like have already started.

''It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts,'' Tribe said. ''It will have to both be and appear to be fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances. I think people are going to give an Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in that regard.''

Though a hybrid court may be unpopular, other advisers and Democrats involved in the Guantanamo Bay discussions say Obama has few other options.

I'd just note that long before 9/11, Tribe was no doctrinaire liberal on national security trial policy. Although conservatives like to portray him cartoonishly, he's been thinking about these issues for some time. When he says "fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances", he means it.

This hybrid system sounds like the Orwellian "National Security Courts" that I thought back in May Bush would spring on us:

The key issues, as I see it, are truly impartial juries and viable avenues of appeal against questionable evidence, like hearsay. Clearly, it's not possible politically to argue for full trial rights, but we can make the case that enabling defendants to vigorously defend themselves on the facts will produce better decisions and raise our standing in the eyes of the world.

The ACLU has a stronger stance:

On the first day in office, the president should order the shutdown of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and restoration of the rule of law for the detainees now held there. Specifically, the president should order the prompt shutdown of the detention facility, the transfer of any prisoners charged with a crime to a facility within the continental United States for trial in a federal criminal court or before a military court-martial, and the transfer of all uncharged detainees to countries where they will not be abused or imprisoned without charge.

Court-martial or federal criminal trial, or nothing. They're not happy about the hybrid system idea:

"I think that creating a new alternative court system in response to the abject failure of Guantanamo would be a profound mistake,'' said Jonathan Hafetz, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents detainees. ''We do not need a new court system. The last eight years are a testament to the problems of trying to create new systems.''

I think this is a fine negotiating position but there is little chance we will end up there. The entire third group of prisoners - which probably includes some incredibly dangerous people - would have to be released because none of the evidence against them would be admissible. No one would take them except countries that sponsor terrorism, and once released, they'd go right back to attacking U.S. forces or civilians around the world. Congress and President Obama would be rightly pilloried by the public for letting them out.

There are several areas that I see that have to be worked out:

• The biggest problem is how to deal with evidence that is inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence, because it is inadmissible hearsay, or because testimony or confessions were obtained through torture, or because the chain of custody is considered reliable for intelligence-gathering purposes but would not satisfy an Article III judge. The goal here has to be the reliability of the evidence and the ability of the jury to assess how credible it is.
• Next is the right of the defendants to confront witnesses and see the evidence against them. Can spies and informants be cross-examined without putting their lives in danger? Methods of gathering signals intelligence might have to be revealed to jurors as well as the defendants. Will defendants be given the time and resources necessary to conduct their own investigations?
• Who will be the jurors? It has to be civilians, in my view. Military juries are for courts martial.
• Appeal rights: Specifically, to which court may an appeal be made, what bases for appeal will be available and what level of scrutiny will they be given?
• Sentencing: Will the death penalty be an option? For lengthy prison terms, will there be any process by which a defendant could seek release down the road if circumstances change?

To be honest, I can imagine so many insoluble scenarios here that I couldn't even suggest what to do. It's yet another area that Bush has royally screwed us. The best thing I can hope for is that most of the prisoners are people who we can just let go or give normal federal criminal trials to, and the number of prisoners in the third category is small.

Also, the article only mentions Gitmo. Although Gitmo is large and symbolically important, we reportedly have secret prisons all over the world. Is Obama going to include people being held there for long periods of time in this program?

The Very Fact of a President Obama Helps America Project Military Power Worldwide

Out of all of the many good reasons to vote for him, one of them was that a President Obama would improve America's standing in the world. What few people may have realized is that one way that higher standing manifests itself is in the effect on the U.S. military's propaganda war with Islamist militants:

One of the themes of this conference was information operations, or "IO" -- how the U.S. can influence others around the world. This officer and other conference-goers were disgusted, by how badly the U.S. had bungled this war of ideas, and allowed opinions about America to sink so low. Candidate Obama, the group concluded, was the best IO campaign America had had in years. Allies were more ready to listen. Enemies' narratives about America were being undercut.

Seven years after 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly elected a black man whose father was Muslim. That new President has promised to use the power of the United States to defeat the enemies of freedom worldwide. This isn't mere symbolism.

Bush to Maliki: Sign the Status of Forces Agreement or Else

Hearts and minds:

The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Newspapers on Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq's economy, educational sector and other areas - "everything" - said Tariq al-Hashimi, the country's Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn't know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Al-Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, listed "tens" of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, and he said the implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

"It was really shocking for us," he said. "Many people are looking to this attitude as a matter of blackmailing."

Is this a real threat? Will the Iraqis cave, negotiate or call Bush's bluff?

(Via Laura Rozen.)

Cakewalking to the Presidency

Shorter Michael Gerson:

Barack Obama is only winning because the surge is a huge success! If the surge were a failure, then the war would be in the news, and Obama would be losing because people would be reminded of his surely-unpopular stance against the surge, which is going so well.

I swear to god I am not making this shit up.

Feb 12 1987 - Aug 12 2007

Integrity

ACLU blog of rights:

Army Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, the lead prosecutor in the military commissions case against Mohammed Jawad, has resigned in protest because the prosecution team was not providing the defense evidence that could indicate Jawad’s innocence. Jawad was a teenager when he was captured in Afghanistan and he’s one of the two youngest prisoners at Guantánamo.

That's how a military lawyer serves his country.

Mr. Buttle

27B-Stroke-6:

The United States has revoked the travel visa of a Pakistani rights defender ahead of her trip to Washington to highlight the plight of hundreds of missing compatriots allegedly rounded up as part of the "war on terror," the rights group Amnesty has said.

Amina Janjua, founder of Defense of Human Rights, was about to take a flight from Geneva to Washington Saturday when she was informed by a US diplomat by telephone that the visa issued to her had been cancelled, an Amnesty official said. ...

Amnesty had arranged Janjua's week-long US trip and had confirmed her meetings with senior State Department officials and congressional staff, Kumar said.

US officials were not immediately available for comment.

Janjua has visited Norway, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland as part of her tour to raise awareness of what Amnesty calls "enforced disappearances" by the Pakistani government since it joined the US-led war on terror in 2001.

Her husband is among 563 people who had disappeared, according to Defense of Human Rights.

Mr. Masood Janjua was disappeared in May 2005, presumably kidnapped by Pakistani security, and has been spotted in various detention facilities. Mrs. Janjua has not heard from him or seen him in over 3 years, and the Pakistani government disavows all knowledge.

I'd say he's probably dead by now, or wishes he were.

But I can't imagine why the Bush Administration wouldn't let Mrs. Janjua visit the U.S.[/snark]

Finally

U.S. commandos went after a Taliban commander inside Pakistan, although the raid maybe have been executed poorly. Why am I cheering the invasion of another country, after being against the invasion of Iraq? Because Pakistan is where the people who attacked us are.

Plus, this:

The raid has electoral implications in all three countries involved. Barack Obama was chided when he suggested that U.S. troops out to attack targets in Pakistan; the Democrat then blasted his Republican rival, John McCain, last week for his reluctance to pursue Pakistan-based Al Qaeda operatives. Afghan President Karzai is facing reelection next year -- and is walking a fine line between his U.S. benefactors and Pakistani neighbors. And the L.A. Times notes that "the strike came just three days before Asif Ali Zardari, the head of the Pakistan People's Party, is seeking the presidency in a vote by Pakistani lawmakers."

When Obama called for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, Bush and McCain criticized him for it and then turned around and adopted his policy. When Obama called for attacking Taliban and al Qaeda on the Pakistan/Afghan border, Bush and McCain again criticized him for it and then turned around and adopted his policy. By the time the election rolls around, McCain's campaign slogan will be, "Just like Obama, only old and white!"

Holy War on Terror, Batman!

A summer blockbuster apparently has political overtones. Compare Spencer Ackerman, who thinks it is pro-Cheney:

[The threat of a devastating terrorist attack] creates an awful burden on those entrusted to protect others. "When Cheney spoke about it on national television a few days after the attacks," writes Ron Suskind, in his surprisingly sympathetic book explicating Cheney's weltanschauung, "The One Percent Doctrine," "he had given it a note of recognition -- this is what we must do, where we must live, like it or not."

That recognition is how Batman attempts to square his moral circle. He creates a surveillance technology that gives him limitless power, something that horrifies his ally Lucius Fox, and vows to destroy it after its first use. (In the comics, it's known as the Brother Eye, and it leads to disaster.) Only by abusing the trust of Gotham City can Batman redeem it. But through it all, he reassures himself -- at least implicitly -- that his awareness of his betrayal is what separates him from the Joker: intentions. It is this, and not consequences, that matter here. As part of his burden, he recognizes that he has become an outlaw, and accepts the ensuing persecution from the Gotham Police Department.

To publius:

[O]ne of the central issues in the new movie is Batman’s vigilanteism. Batman acts outside of the law, but does so for what he – in his and our minds – believe is the greater good. When the movie starts, though, we learn that there are new copycat Batmans, trying out the vigilante’s hat for themselves. And what’s to stop them? After all, Batman doesn’t have any real legitimacy. Why does he get to dress up as a bat, while others can’t?

While these imitation Batmans are fairly harmless, the Joker is a far different story (Ledger/Nolan’s Joker, to be precise). The Joker – like Batman – is acting for his own reasons. I don’t want to give away the whole film, but he has a different sort of philosophical vision in his head and – like Batman – goes about making it reality. And like Batman, he acts outside of the law. ...

[A]s long as [Batman's] using the authority, we’re all ok. But once one person can break the law because they subjectively think they’re doing “good,” then what’s to stop everyone else? More to the point, what’s to stop the Jokers? What makes the Joker’s worldview objectively worse than Batmans? ...

From here, you can see the connection to the problems with the unitary executive and Yoo-ism in all their glory. These people broke the law, but did it for subjectively good reasons (or let’s assume they did). Except for the US Attorney scandal, there’s no evidence that they’ve been breaking the law (torturing, spying, etc.) for naked political reasons.

But once the legitimacy threshold is crossed, it’s hard to see how Jokers won’t eventually arise. After all, if we can break the law to beat terrorists, why can’t we break the law if we’re convinced (really firmly convinced in our heads) that electing Democrats or Republicans will destroy the country?