Fighting Terrorism in Trans Sahara Africa

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...
In 2004, the US Government realized that it needed to do something about the spread of terrorism in Trans-Saharan Africa:

U.S. Gen. Charles Wald, deputy commander of the European Central Command, has been warning Congress and the Pentagon for months that al Qaeda-affiliated groups are active in Mauritania, Mali, Chad and Niger. The trade in diamonds used by terrorist groups, begun under the protection of former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, continues despite international efforts to curb it. "The terrorist activity in this area is not going to go away," Wald warned recently. "This could affect your kids and your grandchildren in a huge way. If we don't do something about it, we are going to have a real problem on our hands."

Unfortunately, the efforts since then have mostly failed, due to a lack of cooperation between the State Department and the Department of Defense.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report that shows that the US State Department, the Department of Defense, and the USAID Agency are having key issues with regards to stopping the spread of terrorism throughout Trans-Sahara Africa. The Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP)was set up to coordinate efforts to stop the spread of terrorism into the region.

First, the agencies lack a comprehensive, integrated strategy for their TSCTP activities, and the documents used in planning the activities do not prioritize proposed activities or identify milestones needed to measure progress or make improvements.

Second, disagreements about whether State should have authority over DOD personnel temporarily assigned to conduct TSCTP activities in partner countries have led to DOD's suspending some activities, for example, in Niger.

Third, fluctuation in State's and USAID's distribution of funds for TSCTP resulted in suspension of a peace-building program in Mali.

Fourth, although the agencies measure activities' outputs, such as the number of foreign military personnel trained, they do not measure their activities' outcomes in combating terrorism--for instance, any decrease in extremism in the targeted countries.

This region is familiar to anyone who understands that the spread of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Trans-Sahara region is of great concern to our European allies.



Simply implementing programs and activities that would help these countries better fight the spread of terrorism has run into the usual challenges--State and DoD can't collaborate on anything, and this goes back to the way Don Rumsfeld operated, which, in most cases, was often in contradiction to the efforts of the State Department:

Several factors have hampered the key agencies’ ability to collaboratively implement TSCTP activities, in some cases limiting their ability to achieve or assess progress in combating terrorism and inhibiting the spread of extremist ideology.

First, no comprehensive, integrated strategy has been developed to guide the agencies’ activities, and documents used in planning program activities have not included some elements that we have identified as needed in an interagency counterterrorism program’s strategic plan.

Second, despite some collaboration at the headquarters level, disagreement between State and DOD about whether State should have authority over DOD personnel temporarily assigned to conduct TSCTP activities in the partner countries has contributed to the suspension of some of these activities.

Third, fluctuation in the distribution of obligations for TSCTP in Mali resulted in the suspension of some program activities.

Fourth, although the agencies have indicators to measure activities’ direct results, the agencies have not yet developed the capability to measure and report on overall progress toward program goals.

Take a close look at this distribution of funds:



These are relatively small amounts of assistance and aid, but of note should be the assistance given to Mauritania, which just underwent another coup that saw the President and the Prime Minister arrested. Instability in countries like Mauritania are one reason why terrorists might locate there and take advantage of the political situation.

Most of our assistance is going to Niger, in hopes of slowing the spread of terrorism there. Overall, though, it doesn't matter who gets what because the GAO has uncovered a decidedly common lack of focus on the part of the US State Department:

To enhance U.S. agencies’ ability to collaborate in strengthening country and regional counterterrorism capabilities and inhibiting the spread of extremist ideology in northwest Africa, we recommend that the Secretary of State work through the Director of Foreign Assistance, who serves concurrently as USAID Administrator, to develop a comprehensive strategy for the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership in conjunction with the Secretaries of Defense and the Treasury, the U.S. Attorney General, and the heads of any other partner agencies. The strategy should include clear goals, objectives, and milestones, including output and outcome indicators, and identify resources needed to achieve the program’s goals.

We also recommend that the Secretaries of State and Defense develop and issue joint guidance with regard to DOD personnel temporarily assigned to conduct TSCTP activities in the partner countries.

No one could reasonably expect Secretary Rice to be fired before the end of the Bush Administration, but this is one more issue that will land in the lap of the next Secretary of State, thanks to the neglect and the lack of interest in fighting the actual spread of terrorism in the world. The US military now has a command dedicated to Africa--AFRICOM--but will it focus on stopping terrorism or on keeping the flow of oil moving out of Nigeria?

Remember to update your blogrolls and bookmarks with our new domain name, They gave us a republic...

Rice Bars US Embassies From Helping Candidates--AFTER McCain Got Help From US Embassy in Colombia

Someone on Capitol Hill needs to bring the Secretary of State before their committee and start asking some very pointed questions--as in, "are you going to use the State Department to influence the Presidential election?"

The night before presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) left for Afghanistan, Iraq and Western Europe for a tour of US bases overseas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a cable to US missions forbidding them from holding events for presidential candidates or arrange meetings for them.

Rice issued no such cable prior to foreign excursions by presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

In a cable sent late Thursday, according to a copy leaked to the Washington Times, Rice enjoined American diplomats to treat the candidates as "members of Congress visiting in personal or semi-personal capacities," but "with additional restrictions based on rules related to political activity."

That's right--she didn't instruct officials at the US Embassy in Colombia to treat John McCain like this. In fact, US Embassy officials went with him on his ridiculous boat ride junket:

McCain and his wife, Cindy, were briefed on interdiction efforts then toured the bay in a fast boat, named “Midnight Express 39,” with U.S. Embassy officials, Colombian military and government officials and the Secret Service. The boat is part of a 12-boat drug interdiction fleet that the Colombian navy bought from the United States with funds from Plan Colombia – the 10-year, $5-billion-dollar U.S. program.

McCain, dressed in khakis, a blue-and-white button-down shirt and a Navy baseball cap, arrived with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Coincidentally, Obama has Senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed with him--one Republican and one Democrat. McCain couldn't even be bothered to take a Democrat with him.

This is an outrageous abuse of power. The Hatch Act has never meant anything to these people, nor has restraint or common decency. Every time someone criticizes the left wing blogosphere for using obscenities or expressing outrage needs to understand something--the Republicans in this country abuse their power on a daily basis in ways no one ever thought possible without regret or remorse.

If the full weight of the Executive Branch is now going to align itself with the McCain campaign, then the US Congress better step in and stop it by any means necessary.

--WS

Gates Makes His Case to Stay on at Defense

While we're not huge fans of some of his earlier work, we bear a grudging respect for what Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been doing--and saying--as of late. It's too bad the Republicans went out and found a Secretary of Defense who, essentially, rips the guts out of every argument John McCain and his surrogates have been making this year.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned yesterday against the risk of a "creeping militarization" of U.S. foreign policy, saying the State Department should lead U.S. engagement with other countries, with the military playing a supporting role.

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in the long-term campaign against terrorism, Gates said, arguing that military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism.

I can't wait for the outcry--Secretary Gates has basically undercut the rationale for staying in Iraq, effectively debunking the myth that if we don't fight them over there, we'll end up having to fight them over here. He has put the onus on Secretary Rice, who has never been up to the task. Her State Department is a shambles, with hundreds of key positions unfilled for months and years.

Every time McCain talks about attacking Iran, staying in Iraq, or using war as the instrument of our foreign policy--he should be hammered with this quote from Gates. McCain's manly boast about "I know how to win wars" should have been met with laughter and derision. Instead, the Man Crush continues.

We don't need another Richard Cohen type situation--Gates should not be kept by a possible Obama administration, if only because we need to develop Democrats who can effectively lead on defense issues.

[h/t to Juan Cole]

--WS

Russia and China thwart the International Community

The inherent weakness and ineffectiveness of Condoleezza Rice as a diplomat has all but guaranteed a rise in the obstructive tendencies of China and Russia. It's obviously not entirely her fault that both countries have decided to thwart the international community with regards to sanctioning Zimbabwe--but it is also true that there is absolutely no way the Russians and Chinese can be persuaded by anything she says or does. Because of that the US has had, in effect, a lame duck foreign policy for years.

Russia on Saturday attacked remarks by U.S. and British officials who criticized Moscow's veto on proposed U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement Saturday said it was "impermissible" that the criticism called into doubt Russia's worthiness as a Group of Eight partner.

The United States accused Russia and China of standing with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe against his own people, after the two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council vetoed proposed sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The resolution would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe, an international travel ban and a freeze on the personal assets of Mugabe and 13 other officials.

It also called for the appointment of a U.N. special envoy for Zimbabwe.

The U.S., along with Britain and France, supported the resolution, arguing that sanctions were needed to respond to the violence and intimidation that opposition leaders and international observers said Mugabe and his supporters used to steal the recent presidential election.

Russia, however, claimed the sanctions would have taken the U.N. beyond its mandate, while China argued Zimbabwe should be allowed to resolve its political crisis on its own.

You don't threaten to throw Russia out of the G8--you either do it or you don't do it. And who realistically thinks that would happen anyway? Russia has Europe over a barrel when it comes to energy supplies anyway.

The fact that the UN can't stop arms from going to Zimbabwe effectively ends the possibility that anything will be done any time soon. And the ineffectiveness of the UN body plays into the hands of the people who think Rice is a capable diplomat because it confirms their bias against the organization.

--WS

"...for the protection of the American people."

Even though we write about this topic a lot, we don't write about it nearly enough. We are never going to stop pounding this drum--it's going to go down as the worst thing our country did in the name of protecting the American people.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden admitted, in his February testimony before Congress, that the Central Intelligence Agency used a technique known as waterboarding on three high-profile Al Qaeda detainees. He also said the CIA had not used the technique in five years -- though the administration seems to be asserting that the agency can use it, when necessary.

President George W. Bush told ABC News in April, "I'm aware our national-security team met on this issue. And I approved.” The president was referring to reports that the National Security Council’s “principals committee” -- the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the head of the NSC and the CIA director -- discussed and approved the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking with Google employees in Mountain View, Calif., in May, said, “after Sept. 11, whatever was legal in the face of not just the attacks of Sept. 11, but the anthrax attacks that happened, we were in an environment in which saving America from the next attack was paramount.” She added, “there has been a long evolution in American policy about detainees and about interrogations...we now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003.”

In just the last few weeks, a parade of White House, Defense Dept. and CIA lawyers have squirmed before hostile Congressional committees, giving testimony eerie in its clinical treatment of what most of the world thinks is torture. The hearings produced countless stunning quotes, but one attributed to a CIA lawyer stands out: "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."

Indeed, they have been doing it wrong. But they all say they are doing it for us -- for the protection of the American people.

If that was the motivation, no thanks. No one has to be tortured to keep anyone safe.

--WS

Here's Why We Need a Truman Committee

I hate to write about something that's going to upset people so early in the morning, but how can anyone stomach the incompetence and the greed and the corruption of the political appointees of the Bush Administration?

A House investigative committee has learned that the American ambassador to Albania knew evidence of Chinese origins was being removed last year from an ammunition shipment before a U.S. contractor sent the material to Afghanistan, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the panel.

This month, Maj. Larry Harrison, a Pentagon official at the U.S. Embassy in Albania, told staff members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Ambassador John L. Withers II held a late-night meeting with Albania's defense minister. After the Nov. 19 meeting, the order was given to Albanian officers "to remove all evidence of Chinese packaging" from the ammunition, Waxman said in a letter sent yesterday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In a June 9 appearance, Harrison told the committee that "the ambassador agreed that this would alleviate the suspicion of wrongdoing," Waxman wrote. Harrison also said "that he did not agree with the decision to remove the Chinese markings," Waxman said.

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted Efraim E. Diveroli, president of AEY Inc., the U.S. company involved, on 71 counts, including conspiracy to defraud the government on a $298 million U.S. Army contract to provide various types of ammunition to the government of Afghanistan.

Where do you start with something like that?

I hope Major Harrison's career doesn't come to an end because of this incident. Rarely does the person who speaks up and blows the whistle on the Bush Administration and their political appointees emerge unscathed from the act of thwarting their political goals and their rampant greed. Someone will likely take action against Harrison's career, and that's why we are seeing a military that is hollowed out, staffed with yes-men, and overrun by the God-boys who invite crazies to come to the Pentagon and give them briefings.

No matter how you look at this story, what emerges is a troubling incident of corruption and greed:

On March 27, The New York Times published an article that said Albanian documents showed that the Miami company had bought more than 100 million Chinese cartridges that were stored for decades in former cold war stockpiles.

Mr. Diveroli arranged to have them repacked in cardboard boxes, many of which split or decomposed after shipment to the war zones, according to the article. Different lots or types of ammunition were mixed. In some cases the ammunition was dirty, corroded or covered with a film.

The repackaging operation, carried out by an AEY subcontractor at the Rinas Airport in Tirana, has become the focus of the Congressional investigation.

According to the transcript excerpts released by the committee, Major Harrison told investigators that he did not agree with the decision to hide the boxes from the reporter, and said that he felt “very uncomfortable” during the meeting.

Major Harrison, who as the chief of the embassy’s office of defense cooperation was responsible for helping American efforts to train, equip and modernize Albania’s military, said that his suggestion to bar the reporter from visiting the Albania base was rejected.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the committee’s chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said Monday that there were signs that embassy officials in Tirana tried to cover up the November meeting once Mr. Waxman’s staff began an investigation into the arms company. The letter said the committee would seek to interview Mr. Withers and other embassy personnel.

This is the kind of thing that sets off warning bells. When Major Harrison realized what sort of ground he was standing on, he immediately took steps to protect himself--perhaps he already was savvy to how the Bush Administration treats people who get between them and their money:

After his hour-long interview, Harrison "expressed an interest in seeking advice of counsel" and a Pentagon attorney terminated the session, Waxman wrote. Three days later, Harrison's lawyer told the committee he needed at least two weeks to prepare for continuing the interview.

Waxman charged in his letter that "it appears" embassy officials kept from the committee information related to the ambassador's meeting in Albania. Harrison told the panel that he had "urged embassy officials to inform the committee," Waxman wrote, but embassy officials did not mention it in response to a prior request for information.

All this, so a few corrupt officials in Albania could dump Cold War-era ammunition into the hands of some Club-hopping trash from Florida, who could then make millions re-packaging it and sending it to the Middle East.

Perhaps the death penalty for war profiteers isn't harsh enough.

They violated international law, they employed torture, and Condoleezza Rice is complicit

An audit by the Inspector General for the Department of Justice was released yesterday and what is detailed in the 370-page report is enough to turn the stomach of decent people. It is horrifying. It is sick. It is perverse. And FBI Agents were complaining about the detainee treatment they witnessed that was perpetrated by military interrogators and CIA agents at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and other detention centers.

And it was all done in your name. You had to be made safe, you know, even at the expense of the moral high ground that we liked to consider we occupied. That illusion should be over by now, in the face of what we know has transpired.

Complaints by FBI agents about abusive interrogation tactics at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other U.S. military sites reached the National Security Council but prompted no effort to curb questioning that the agents considered ineffective and possibly illegal, according to an internal audit released yesterday.

Reports that Guantanamo detainees were being subjected to extreme temperatures, religious abuses and nude interrogation were conveyed at White House meetings of senior officials in 2003, yet these questionable tactics remained in use, a lengthy report by the Justice Department's inspector general concluded.

In one instance, colleagues of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft reported that he personally aired concerns about Defense Department strategy toward a particular detainee with Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, while other Justice managers shared similar fears with the council's legal adviser in November 2003, the report said.

Ashcroft declined to be interviewed by investigators, so it remains uncertain how aggressively he pressed the issue, according to the report. Other senior Justice officials told investigators that no changes were made in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay even after these and other complaints filtered up to the National Security Council.

Nearly half of the 450 FBI agents who worked at Guantanamo reported that they had observed or heard about military interrogators using a variety of harsh interrogation techniques on detainees, with the most common being sleep deprivation and short-shackling -- or locking a detainee's hands and feet together to prevent comfortable sitting or standing -- for long periods of time.

Military officials at Guantanamo Bay used some aggressive techniques before they were approved, possibly in violation of Defense Department policy and U.S. law, the report said. They also continued to use "stress positions" and other such techniques well after they were prohibited by Defense Department policy in January 2003, the report said.

The 370-page report draws heavily on e-mail messages and contemporaneous memos to provide the clearest and most definitive account to date of the key tactics used by the government against suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It describes, for example, a "frequent flyer program" meant to lessen resistance by extensively disrupting sleep, use of strobe lights in conjunction with loud rock music, twisting of thumbs backward, and exposure of detainees to extreme temperatures, threatening dogs, pornography and sexual taunting.

Detainees in Iraq had water poured down their throats while they were cuffed and kneeling, the FBI agents told investigators.

Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was angry. "Some have suggested that the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody was simply the result of a few bad apples acting on their own. The report released today by the Department of Justice Inspector General is proof that that is simply not true. The IG found that scores of FBI agents observed the use of harsh interrogation techniques in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay."

Aren't you just bursting with pride?

We can not abide this as a nation. We know the Congress can't impeach Bush and Cheney because there is not the political will to make it stick. If anyone got a blow job the woman who knew about it and could prove it is conveniently dead..so...no impeachment for them...

But Condi Rice is another story. Can't we impeach her for her complicity in desecrating our country and allowing us to become a nation of gulags and torture and Kafkaesque process?

UPDATE I / Warren Street / 11:51 AM

The government kept meticulous records of everything it did, also in our name, by the way. TPM's document collection has more

This is just for IRAQ:




What kind of horrific bureaucracy keeps track of how many times it threatens to harm someone's family? I just want to know. Because I don't care what anyone says--THAT'S un-American. Period.