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...

A Fundamentally Childish Argument

I don't even know where to start with this. The argument that says that "if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" is the one that will screw us all.

The essence of the chief argument against this – and rest assured, I’ve used it myself – is, “if you’re not doing anything wrong you don’t have anything to worry about.” The government, police or “the authorities” in general are looking for The Bad Guys. They aren’t looking for “us.” We are The Good Guys and have nothing to fear.

The problem with that argument is this--who's to say what is "wrong?" Is protesting the government "wrong" this week? Because we just got wind that the Governor of Maryland was using his State Police to spy on anti-war protesters. Not "terrorists." American citizens opposed to the war in Iraq. The ability of the Federal government to get out a pair of movable goalposts and change what they define as being "wrong" is what this argument is all about. The moment we gave up our rights in favor of being protected because we believe that the government is only interested in going after some loose affiliation of "bad guys" is the moment when we handed the government a blank check to decide who it can silence. Whistleblowers, protesters, activists, people who don't commit domestic or international terrorism--see where this leads to?

One common and immediate rebuttal to this is that the real Bad Guys are the ones who will find ways to get around these surveillance efforts. They will use “burner” style disposable phones and find ways to disable GPS devices in vehicles. They will disguise their visage in public, which most of us would never do, and most of them probably don’t use computers anyway. As in the case of gun bans, the Good Guys will give up their guns while the Bad Guys keep theirs. (They’re not terribly interested in obeying local statutes in the first place, you see.) In the end, the government will simply wind up spying on and imposing restrictions upon the Good Guys while the Bad Guys flaunt the law.

Already solved that problem--it's called data mining, and it allows US intelligence agencies to sift vast amounts of meta-data to catch exactly those tactics. It's effective, it protects privacy rights because the "hit" generated from a positive match leads into the oversight process if the person that the information is matched to is a US person. The FISA court kicks in and protects the rights of the US person being surveilled, and we should always have some body, some authority, providing oversight.

Disguising their visage? You mean, rubber mask makeup and paste-on moles and shit? The kind with fake hair sticking out of them? Yes, your average "Jihadi" probably did attend drama school and probably aced stage makeup and design.

The gun argument is another fallacy--what does gun control have to do with protecting the privacy rights of Americans? Gun control is a public policy issue for the jurisdiction that you live in--what works in Montana might not work in downtown Chicago for a policy. Yes, the bad guys will always have guns. No one is willing to do what it takes to ensure they are prevented from getting guns and no one is prepared to lock people up in vast numbers for twenty or thirty years at a stretch.

In the end, the privacy protections we enjoy through the Bill of Rights, Miranda and similar guarantees, were never intended to protect the guilty nor make it more challenging for CSI investigators to capture them in dramatic fashion. These assurances were granted to shield the innocent from false accusations and prosecution, be it through either malfeasance or incompetence on the part of the authorities. We didn’t design this system to ensure you can get off on a technicality if you are guilty. We built it to make sure the right person winds up behind bars. This is the final intent of FISA – not to spy on you as long as you remain one of the Good Guys, but to make sure the Bad Guys don’t show up at your door with a palm frond.

Okay, that will leave your head spinning. Last time I checked, "CSI" was a fucking TV show. And that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the rule of law. Our system will sometimes let the guilty go--and that's because the guilty and the innocent have to be afforded the right to a vigorous defense. It's not perfect, but it beats every other system out there. You know, like the one where the government decides what is and what is not "wrong" based on their own whim.

If you're willing to give up your rights to be a little safe, you'll give up all your rights to be completely safe. The problem with that childish thinking is, with all of your rights gone, you have guaranteed yourself a peril that is much worse than anything a terrorist could do to you.

Holy Joe Would Love to See the US Attacked, Wouldn't He?

The most blatantly partisan Senator in America thinks that terrorists will attack us in 2009:

In describing the reasons he believes the Republicans' presumptive nominee for president would be better prepared than the Democrats' to lead the nation next January, Sen. Joe Lieberman said that history shows the United States would likely face a terrorist attack in 2009.

"Our enemies will test the new president early," Lieberman, I-Conn., told Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."

Lieberman nonetheless distanced himself from remarks by McCain chief strategist Charlie Black, who came under criticism for suggesting in an interview that McCain's election chances would be improved if a terrorist attack occurred before November.

"Sometimes even the best of them say things that are not what they intended to say," Lieberman said. "Certainly the implications there I know were not what Charlie intended. And he apologized for it. Senator McCain said he didn't agree. And, of course, I feel the same way.

"But here's the point. We're in a war against Islamist extremists who attacked us on 9/11. They've been trying to attack us in many, many ways since then."

I personally like that analogy that Lieberman used--when terrorists attacked America in 1993, the Clinton administration caught them, tried them, and punished them. No one lost their fucking minds. We used the rule of law. And Americans didn't have their civil liberties and habeas corpus flushed down the toilet.

When terrorists attacked during the Bush Administration, they ignored the warnings, flipped the fuck out and took all of our civil liberties away, formed the Department of Homeland Security, and have systematically fucked up every single solitary government agency and left us hollowed out militarily by launching the wrong war against the wrong adversary.

So, in a sense--Joe's right. They have been trying to "attack us in many, many ways since then." Only not the ways Joe thinks.

--WS

Police work brings down a terrorist financing network

Europe does it again, and shows the world how you effectively fight terrorism...you use good old-fashioned sleuthing. The operation involved police agencies from Germany, the Netherlands, and France cooperating to build the case and arrest 10 men they suspect of financing a terrorist organization in Uzbekistan. Some of the men are accused of acting as couriers and delivering cash to the Uzbek jihadists.

Although German authorities were aware that French police were investigating a network of alleged terrorism financers, the request for help on Friday morning came as a surprise.

The reason, though, was simple: One of the suspects is currently staying in Weil am Rhein, a town in the state of Baden-Württemberg close to the Swiss and French borders. However, the man, a Turk, actually lives in France.

Apart from the 35-year-old, nine other people were arrested. Eight were seized in France, partly in areas close to the German border, and a 10th man was held in Tilburg in the Netherlands. During the raids Dutch police searched three houses and confiscated a computer, documents, a CS gas pistol and a handgun magazine.

It is unknown at the moment whether all the arrested men are Turks. But most are definitely of Turkish origin, say sources in Germany's security authorities. Some of them also had Western European passports.

The suspects have been accused by the French government of supporting and financing the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) which uses terrorist tactics to nationalist ends has more regionally-based goals, namely the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in central Asia but also meddles in affairs in Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The IMU is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, but European law enforcement is not so hasty to affix the terrorist label. French authorities did say that the arrests were preventive in nature. Authorities don't believe that the men were involved in funding any specific, concrete plans for an attack.

The United States would be well served to apply more law enforcement resources to the terrorist fight, because terrorists are criminals, and fighting them with the military just romanticizes their cause, creates martyrs and recruits new jihadists to their ranks.

This is the sort of thing my nightmares are made of

I have a bit more than some nebulous, unformed concept of what would be required to infiltrate one of the national laboratories like Lawrence Livermore or Los Alamos or JPL - so when I read an article in Time magazine that reports that the Lawrence Livermore National Lab was infiltrated by commandos in a mock raid, it scares me on every possible level.

One night several weeks ago, according to TIME's sources, a commando team posing as terrorists attacked and penetrated the lab, quickly overpowering its defenses to reach its "objective" — a mock payload of fissile material. The exercise highlighted a number of serious security shortcomings at Livermore, sources say, including the failure of a hydraulic system essential to operating an extremely lethal Gatling gun that protects the facility. Experts contacted by TIME — including Congressional staff from both parties informed of the episode, and experts personally familiar with safeguards at Livermore — all said that the test amounts to an embarrassment to those responsible for securing the nation's nuclear facilities, and that it required immediate steps to correct what some called the most dangerous security weaknesses ever found at the lab.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman was quickly informed of the episode, along with other senior officials in the U.S. nuclear and national security apparatus. "People who know about this are very concerned; they are not happy," said one senior Congressional aide.

"It is essential to prevent terrorists from accessing nuclear materials at Livermore," said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonprofit that recently issued a study of the Lab's security. "Suicidal terrorists would not need to steal the fissile material, they could simply detonate it as part of an improvised nuclear device right on the spot." Some 7 million people live within a 50-mile radius of the laboratory — a fact that has prompted at least one panel of experts to recommend moving its nuclear-weapons material elsewhere.

According to a former senior officer familiar with the details of security at Livermore, simulated attacks are staged approximately every 12 months. The attack team's objective is usually to penetrate the "Superblock," after which the attackers are timed to determine whether they can hold their ground long enough to construct a crude "dirty bomb" that could, in theory, be detonated immediately, or can buy themselves enough time to fabricate a rudimentary nuclear device, approximating the destructive power of the low-yield weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A third option in the simulation is for the attackers to abscond with the nuclear material into the heavily-populated San Francisco Bay area.

The security flaws exposed in the recent test could exacerbate public opposition to nuclear weapons material being stored at Livermore, which is located near a major highway interchange, atop a vital agricultural irrigation canal and within a mile of two elementary schools, a preschool, a middle school and a senior center. In 2005 the Energy Department approved the doubling of the amount of plutonium stored at Livermore, less than five months after a scientific panel recommended, for security reasons, that nearly all of it be moved to a safer, more remote site.

Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CARES, a Livermore nuclear weapons watchdog group, dropped all pretense and spoke bluntly: "The fissile material simply cannot be made safe and secure. We in the community, which has 81,000 people, want to get rid of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium as soon as possible."

In addition to the fears surrounding the fissibles, the labs truck-mounted Gatling guns are spawning questions and controversy as well. First of all, they are supposed to be tested regularly, so their failure during the mock raid is troubling. The guns also have inspired fears among the civilian population because they can discharge 4000 rounds per minute and have a rill-radius greater than one mile. This prompts concerns about what could happen if the lab were ever attacked and the guns were engaged and firing live rounds.

And for the uninitiated - force-on-force simulations are just this side of worthless. The defenders always have a heads up that the simulation is coming, and they always happen over weekends or at night, when there is minimal staff, and the probable hostage-taking scenarios are skipped over. The minimal staff also means that the defenders do not have to exercise caution for fear of catching staffers in the crossfire.

The DoE played down the failure of the force-on-force simulation, saying only that there were "positives and negatives" - that some things went well and others needed "corrective action."

"We do not believe the [nuclear] materials at Livermore are at risk, and we do believe that security is strong," a DOE spokesperson told TIME. "But we're also interested in examining any deficiencies, which is the purpose of these routine exercises."

McCain States The Obvious While Evading The Truth

McCain's Media Mancrush Continues:

Hey, thanks for taking that clear moral stand, but maybe next time you should admit you're afraid of being called a pussy by people who, in any other era of American politics, would be laughed out of public life.

McCain answers the right question the wrong way:

I’ve made it very clear, I’ve made it very clear in my statements and in my support of the Detainee Treatment Act, the Geneva Conventions, etc., that there may be some additional techniques to be used, but none of those would violate the Geneva Conventions, the Detainee Treatment Act…And we cannot ever, in my view, torture any American, that includes waterboarding.

Thanks for clearing that up. Now, if we had a working media, the clarification would be--do you support torturing people who are not American citizens? Would you authorize the torture of a detainee, irregardless of their nationality? Do you think that it means anything to specify that you won't torture an American when we have, in fact, one particular member of al Qaeda who was born in the United States?

You know, guys like this:

(AP) An American member of al Qaeda warned President Bush on Tuesday to end U.S. involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape.

Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki, said al Qaeda would not negotiate on its demands.

"Your failure to heed our demands ... means that you and your people will ... experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech," he said in the seven-minute video.

Gadahn, who has been charged in a U.S. treason indictment with aiding al Qaeda, spoke in English and the video carried Arabic subtitles. The video appeared on a Web site often used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of al Qaeda's media wing, as-Sahab.

So, guess what wingnuts? Your boy McCain was in the midst of another softball round of lovingly asked questions--and he said, point blank, he won't torture Americans. Good for him. It's a great start.

But if we ever get our hands on Aham Yehiye Gadahn, well, your President McCain isn't going to be able to turn his goons loose on him now.

h/t to thinkprogress...

Bomb blast rips through Iranian mosque

A powerful blast ripped through the Mosque of the Martyrs in Shiraz, Iran on Saturday. The bomb was detonated in the area where men worship as evening prayers were ending. Eight people were killed instantly, and at least 66 were wounded. The death toll is expected to climb, based on the severity of injuries sustained by several of the wounded.

The last major bombing in Iran took place in the southern city of Zahedan, in February of 2007. That bombing was perpetrated by Sunni militants. Details are sketchy surrounding todays bombing, but it was reported that the mosque that suffered the attack hosts weekly lectures on Wahaabism, the fundamentalist brand of Sunni Islam practiced by the royal family of Saudi Arabia and the terrorist organization al Qaeda, and fundamentally opposed by the majority Shi'ite population of Iran.

I admit to wistful feelings when I heard about the blast today. Shiraz is prominent in my families lore and history. My mother tells me frequently that my very existence on planet earth is due to three days leave in Shiraz and a particularly good bottle of Shiraz.

I found a couple of random pictures of Shiraz. There are people there, living their lives and raising their families and muddling through as best they can. And some of them were attacked today, probably by the same fundamentalist whackjobs whose very reason for being is to attack Americans, given half a chance. Can we just for one day put aside our fears of the perceived Iranian threat, and feel a little compassion for the people who were attacked in their place of worship today?

None Shall Serve Their Country

You know, this is what happens when your administration is a disgrace.

The Bush administration has been rebuffed in its efforts to find a high-profile candidate to fill the top White House counterterrorism post.

The failure to find a successor to Frances Fragos Townsend, who resigned last January as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, has frustrated White House aides, given the significance the Bush administration has attached to the job. The position involves coordinating antiterrorism and homeland security efforts throughout the government and chairing the Homeland Security Council, a domestic counterpart to the National Security Council that President Bush created after the September 11 attacks.

Among those who have turned down the job—or made clear they weren't interested in replacing Townsend—are retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, former chief of U.S. Central Command, and retired Adm. James Loy, former Coast Guard commandant and deputy homeland security secretary, according to three sources knowledgeable about the issue who, like others quoted in this article, asked for anonymity when discussing White House personnel moves. (Neither Abizaid nor Loy responded to requests for comment.) The sources said most of the top candidates the White House contacted expressed little interest in signing on so close to the end of President Bush's second term. "It's a friggin' embarrassment," said one source who is involved in the recruitment process. The source noted that Townsend announced her resignation last November but didn't leave the post until January—in part to give the president plenty of time to find a replacement.

[SNIP]

The homeland security job is not the only key counterterrorism post the Bush administration is having trouble filling. As NEWSWEEK reported earlier this month, White House officials have spent months searching for a new candidate to head the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The previous chief, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, left for health reasons last October. Several highly experienced candidates have turned down invitations to become NCTC director.

There's a patriotism angle here--and that is, simply, if your country needs you, and you can serve, you should be prepared to answer as to why you won't. Abizaid and Loy should have said "I refuse to serve because I disagree with this administration." You don't duck the calls and hope no one notices. Then there's a common sense angle--why didn't anyone anticipate that a bunch of Republicans would bail on a failed administration to get back into the private sector ahead of the rush that will happen when a Democrat gets elected this fall? Money before country, you know. Finally, it comes down to this--the country is so poorly led and mismanaged right now, there is no one to step up and do the vital things we need to have done to adequately protect the country. It's so bad, they're handing out plum jobs to unqualified also-rans who just happened to have a pulse when the job came open.

Here's a quick hit from USA Jobs.com as to what's "open" down in Washington D.C.

OPENINGS, sorted by Salary, USAJOBS.COM, all qualified openings, Washington D.C. only, as of 3/18/2008 (click to enlarge):




I had to stop at 60--there are over 300 jobs that pay over $100K a year that are vacant in Washington D.C. alone. That doesn't take into account job openings throughout the country at that level. I tell everyone I meet that the DC area--which now has the three richest counties in America, according to a recent Forbes magazine article--has not felt the crunch that the rest of the country has felt because of the explosion in the size of the government AND the increase in the use of contractors. There are people in my hometown in the midwest who are getting arrested for stealing scrap metal. True story--a couple drove about 90 miles, probably burned at least 12 bucks worth of gas to go round trip, just to put scrap metal in their car to take to a dealer.

To them, a $100K a year job in Washington D.C. must sound like something out of a fairy tale.

Nice Try, Dumbass

Everyone's favorite pervy wingnut moves the goalposts and tries to justify that which escapes him:

I had meant to post on this earlier. I am tired of the Clintonian claims about "no direct operational connection," which sounds an awful lot like "no sexual relations." Well, what does "sexual relations" mean? And what does "direct, operational link" mean? The very language itself screams there was in fact a link by denying only a specific, and quite unifying link and, by implication, allowing for links short of the "direct, operational" variety.

Okay, that kind of link didn't exist -- Al Qaeda and Saddam maintained separate command and control and did not in fact unify their separate terrorist organizations. Did they help each other achieve their joint goals, on the other hand?

The answer appears to be "yes," as it has always appeared.

And yet the media continues blaring "no direct operational link" without pausing to note that gee, there sure are some indirect, non-"operational" links.

"Appears to be? Well, if you can't read and you don't have the ability to perform basic analysis, sure. You could read it that way. You'd be wrong, however. Here's the part that sorta blows your lameass shit out of the water and directly contradicts what you just read.

The documents cited in the report do reveal that Hussein supported a number of terrorists and terrorist activities inside and outside Iraq.

"The Iraqi regime was involved in regional and international terrorist operations prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The predominant targets of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens, both inside and outside of Iraq," according to the report.

Most of the terrorism was aimed at keeping Hussein and his Baath party in power, according to Pentagon officials.

Supporting al Qaeda would mean that Saddam would be supporting an organization that was diametrically opposed to his interests--as in, Saddam represented secularism, al Qaeda was a sworn enemy of secular governments in the Arab world.

See, that's how that works. Stick with ogling the boobies, Ace. Leave the analysis to the professionals. I don't know what's more fun--debunking bullshit or using "paint" to fuck up his logo. I'm getting better at it. Some of the ones I've done are only mildly debased and amateurish.

Waterboarding Did NOT Save Anyone's Life

The only way to approach this is to expose the lie they're using to hide the fact that all of them are complicit in something that should drive them out of public life forever. When you had the chance to speak up, you didn't do it. When you had the chance to step up, you hid in the shadows. There's only one piece of advice I can give you--GET OUT OF THE WAY of people who CAN lead. Russ Feingold and James Webb can do the job better than you can. And Speaker of the House Waxman and Majority Leader Conyers has a nice ring to it.

Juan Cole told us all about this in September. He spelled it out for us. But the trail goes back all the way to 2002 and has some interesting twists and turns. Bear with me, and if you click the links, I'm sure you'll find some good stuff.

To expose the lie, look at this headline on MSNBC.COM:

Waterboarding ‘probably saved lives’
Ex-CIA officer says technique worked, but he now considers it torture

BULLSHIT.

When you see bullshit, call it what it is and never back down. Waterboarding did NOT save the life of one single, solitary person. Bad main stream media, bad! You're no better than a puppy that piddles everywhere and won't learn to actually do your business outside where it is socially acceptable. With patience, we will teach you.

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The article continues:

A former CIA officer who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded said yesterday that the harsh technique provided an intelligence breakthrough that "probably saved lives," but that he now regards the tactic as torture.

Zayn Abidin Muhammed Hussein abu Zubaida, the first high-ranking al-Qaeda member captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, broke in less than a minute after he was subjected to the technique and began providing interrogators with information that led to the disruption of several planned attacks, said John Kiriakou, who served as a CIA interrogator in Pakistan.

Abu Zubaida was one of two detainees whose interrogation was captured in video recordings that the CIA later destroyed. The recent disclosure of the tapes' destruction ignited a recent furor on Capitol Hill and allegations that the agency tried to hide evidence of illegal torture.

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First of all, John Kiriakou is a liar. Plain and simple. When there is "closed circuit" video system in place, it generally means someone has also installed a goddamned recording device. Pretty much anyone who walks upright and can chew gum knows that. What a ridiculous, bald-faced lie:

Kiriakou said he did not know that the interrogations were videotaped, although there often were closed-circuit video systems in the rooms where questioning took place. He said he also had no knowledge of the decision to destroy videotapes of the interrogations. Officials said there are hundreds of hours of recordings, but most are of Abu Zubaida alone in his cell recovering from his injuries.

Yes, after he'd been shot, we denied him treatment and we denied him painkillers. We're just batting a thousand when it comes to decency and compassion, aren't we? Of course, to prove we're tough, we have to remember that this guy was a "terrorist."

This controversy over who was told what is ridiculous. You can go to the archives of the Washington Post and see that this was all well-known and spelled out in great detail. As far back as 2002, the foundation of a policy of torturing detainees was laid by men who have never worn the uniform, never stood a watch and never been held accountable for anything in their lives. And we will be paying the price for that for a generation or more.

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An August 2002 memo by the Justice Department that concluded interrogators could use extreme techniques on detainees in the war on terror helped provide an after-the-fact legal basis for harsh procedures used by the C.I.A. on high-level leaders of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

The legal memo was prepared after an internal debate within the government about the methods used to extract information from Abu Zubaydah, one of Osama bin Laden's top aides, after his capture in April 2002, the officials said. The memo provided a legal foundation for coercive techniques used later against other high-ranking detainees, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, believed to be the chief architect of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, who was captured in early 2003.

So we've now established that anyone with a brain knew that Zubaida and Khalid Shiekh Mohammed were tortured in 2002. The government told everyone what they were doing and dared people to challenge them. This was all spelled out again and again in 2004 when the CIA had to put their efforts on hold and wait for legal justification to be dishonestly concocted by the White House and the Justice Department. What people did not know is that it was videotaped. And, as Abu Ghraib shows, it's one thing to talk about naked monkeypiles of people. It's a whole other thing to show people what it looks like.

You can go into those same archives and see things from 2002 like this little chestnut:

While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, each of the current national security officials interviewed for this article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary. They expressed confidence that the American public would back their view. The CIA, which has primary responsibility for interrogations, declined to comment.

"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists. "I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA."

Sorry, chumley. We don't back your view. And respecting human rights means we have a thing called moral authority. And that moral authority is now long gone. Long gone.

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We also know that, in 2004, it was reported that:

The interrogation methods were approved by Justice Department and National Security Council lawyers in 2002, briefed to key congressional leaders and required the authorization of CIA Director George J. Tenet for use, according to intelligence officials and other government officials with knowledge of the secret decision-making process.

When the CIA and the military "started capturing al Qaeda in Afghanistan, they had no interrogators, no special rules and no place to put them," said a senior Marine officer involved in detainee procedures. The FBI, which had the only full cadre of professional interrogators from its work with criminal networks in the United States, took the lead in questioning detainees.

So where's the story in all of this? The story that they're trying to concoct is that there was a need to torture Zabaida and that the Congress was briefed. That gives them their plausible deniability. Because we're long past "discussing" whether people should go to jail. We need to discuss things like "hard time" and "Leavenworth" and "shower privileges."

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And what they certainly don't want anyone to know is that Abu Zabaida is delusional and insane, and had no useful information. It was known at the time that he was not to be trusted. But they tortured him anyway. This is where the lies get really interesting, and go virtually unchallenged. The first thing people should know is that we tortured a crazy person and he gave up nothing useful. Seems like that's the part we should "focus" on as we figure out how we pissed away our soul for 35 seconds of torture. You know, our "soul?" The thing that used to make us proud? America's soul is now an Amsterdam hooker with one leg, standing in front of a dirty window with a thousand yard stare. It's not easy to get your soul back when you've given it away:

He described Abu Zubaida as ideologically zealous, defiant and uncooperative — until the day in mid-summer when his captors strapped him to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane and forced water into his throat in a technique that simulates drowning.

The waterboarding lasted about 35 seconds before Abu Zubaida broke down, according to Kiriakou, who said he was given a detailed description of the incident by fellow team members. The next day, Abu Zubaida told his captors he would tell them whatever they wanted, Kiriakou said.

"He said that Allah had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate, because it would make things easier for his brothers," Kiriakou said.

Kiriakou's remarks came a day before top CIA officials are to appear before a closed congressional hearing to account for the decision to destroy recordings of the interrogations of Abu Zubaida and another senior captive, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Last Thursday, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden announced that the recordings were destroyed in 2005 to protect the identities of CIA employees who appear on them.

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What did Zubaida give them?

Nothing. He was nuts.

"The interrogations of Abu Zubaida drove me nuts at times," Downing said. "He and some of the others are very clever guys. At times I felt we were in a classic counter-interrogation class: They were telling us what they think we already knew. Then, what they thought we wanted to know. As they did that, they fabricated and weaved in threads that went nowhere. But, even with these ploys, we still get valuable information and they are off the street, unable to plot and coordinate future attacks."

Really? Here's Juan Cole, writing about what is in Ron Suskind's book The One Percent Solution:

Ron Suskind's One Percent Solution discusses Abu Zubayda. His sources in the intelligence community revealed to him that Abu Zubayda turned out not to have been a high level planner, as Rumsfeld had announced. He was more like a low level travel agent for the families of al-Qaeda operatives.

And he could barely pull off that basic job, since he seems to suffer from multiple personality syndrome. The CIA captured his diary. The entries were by his three distinct personae, Hani-1, Hani-2 and Hani-3 (a boy, a young man, and a middle-aged man).

The entries contained exhaustive detail about making travel arrangements for his clients. It was useless, junk detail, compulsive in nature and completely unhelpful. It went on forever. Dan Coleman, then the FBI's lead man in fighting al-Qaeda said the diary was about "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said. . . This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

So where's the discussion about how fucking nuts this guy was? Buried deep in the articles being used to give the administration cover? Forgotten?

How about putting it in the goddamned FRONT of the story, where it fucking belongs?!? I think I'm gonna blow a gasket, and it's only Tuesday.

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And, no. Bill Clinton did NOT do it, too:

According to present and former officials with firsthand knowledge, the CIA's authoritative Directorate of Operations instructions, drafted in cooperation with the general counsel, tells case officers in the field that they may not engage in, provide advice about or encourage the use of torture by cooperating intelligence services from other countries.

"Based largely on the Central American human rights experience," said Fred Hitz, former CIA inspector general, "we don't do torture, and we can't countenance torture in terms of we can't know of it." But if a country offers information gleaned from interrogations, "we can use the fruits of it."

Bush administration officials said the CIA, in practice, is using a narrow definition of what counts as "knowing" that a suspect has been tortured. "If we're not there in the room, who is to say?" said one official conversant with recent reports of renditions.

The Clinton administration pioneered the use of extraordinary rendition after the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But it also pressed allied intelligence services to respect lawful boundaries in interrogations.

After years of fruitless talks in Egypt, President Bill Clinton cut off funding and cooperation with the directorate of Egypt's general intelligence service, whose torture of suspects has been a perennial theme in State Department human rights reports.

"You can be sure," one Bush administration official said, "that we are not spending a lot of time on that now."

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That's right. We were warned. Nothing to see here, folks. Continue to not pay attention to what your government is doing in your name. Move along.

The soul of this country is under siege. The soul of this country and what it stands for is being stripped away from us. Don't let the bastards do it.

Turkish Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly to Authorize Cross-Border Incursions in Pursuit of Kurdish Terrorists

The Turkish Parliament has voted to authorize the government to launch cross-border incursions into Iraq to pursue PKK terrorists that find safe-haven in the Kurdish areas of Iraq.

The motion passed with 507 votes in favor and 19 opposed, and the passage brings Turkey one step closer to entering the conflagration in Iraq and gives the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan one year in which to launch offensives against Kurdish terrorists who carry out attacks in Turkey from safe havens in Iraq. “After so many incidents, we’re at a point that our patience has run out,” said Cemil Cicek, a government spokesman and a member of a special council on terrorism, speaking in the parliamentary chamber.

Bear in mind that over the last two decades, Kurdish terrorists have inflicted at least ten times the toll America experienced on September 11, 2001 on the Turks. Under US law, the PKK is a terrorist organization, and militias are not – but the U.S. military attacks the militias and not the PKK. (This coddling of the PKK undermines the seriousness of a so-called war-on-terror, to say the very least.)

Terrorist organizations are defined by a willingness to attack civilians in an effort to achieve political objectives via public pressure. The PKK routinely commits acts of terrorism against Turkey in order to promote their separatist agenda.

“We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don’t think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq,” President Bush said at a news conference at the White House. “There’s a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into the country.”

But Turkish officials say that recent diplomatic efforts have not succeeded. Turkey signed a security agreement with Iraq in September, but since then, more than two dozen Turks have been killed in rebel attacks, some of them civilians, and the government is under strong public pressure to act.

Turkey is out of patience and not at all interested in negotiating with the terrorists of the PKK. They are only interested in actions that would eliminate the PKK as a threat to the national security of the Turkish state.

This is going to be interesting, and the next few days will set the tone of Turkish-American relations for the remainder of the Bush administration. And keep in mind…The die for preemption was cast with the United States invasion of Iraq, and frankly, George ‘aWol’ Bush and his cast of cultural cretins have so degraded the status of the United States that their warnings and preening are about as effective as the Big Lebowski bellowing at the Dude “Get a job, Sir!”

Doffing my Cap to German Law Enforcement

Just hours after it was revealed that David Addington in 2004 was "preying" for another terrorist attack so the Bush maladministration could seize even more dictatorial power in the name of fighting terrorism, it was revealed that German police have arrested three terrorists who were in the final stages of preparation for bombing high-value targets in Germany that represent vital American interests.

“They were planning massive attacks,” the German federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, said at a news conference, outlining a vast six-month investigation. She said that the suspects had amassed huge amounts of hydrogen peroxide, the main chemical used to manufacture the explosives used in the suicide bombings in London in July 2005.

...The arrests came a day after the Danish police arrested eight people in a suspected terrorist plot there. The German interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said there was no evidence of a direct link between the plots, despite similarities, including a suspected link to Al Qaeda. Six of those suspects have already been released.

Germans officials said the attacks could have come within days, noting that the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks falls next week and that the German Parliament will soon take up a politically sensitive debate about extending the deployment of German troops in Afghanistan.

“There was an imminent security threat,” the German defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, said on state television.

Ms. Harms said the three suspects arrested Tuesday belonged to a German cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, a radical Sunni group based in Central Asia that split from the extremist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

While this group has not been linked to terrorist attacks in Europe, it has claimed credit for suicide bombings in July 2004 near the United States and Israeli Embassies in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. The group has called for the overthrow of the secular government in Uzbekistan.

I have a whole different outlook on terrorism and effectively combating it than most of my fellow Americans, because it has been on my radar for over 20 years. I was an Air Force wife in the 80's - Hello? Rome Airport, anyone? Lets just say that lots of couples never went out dancing in Germany, either, and leave it at that. Back then, spouses and children routinely took a different commercial flight to an overseas billet than the service member who was required to fly in uniform. I have the utmost respect for the European law enforcement community that stemmed those problems back then.

Europe has been dealing with terrorism, and doing so effectively, for many years now, and they have done so with common-sense security measures and with good, old-fashioned police work. Today, they led the way once again, showing us once more that the way to effectively fight terrorism is law enforcement, not blowing shit up, invading countries that didn't attack us, and terrorizing the citizens of said country.

Get it yet?

What I wouldn't give for a competent and functioning State Department

This is about as sane as that time Caligula made his horse a Senator.

The Bush administration has decided to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a "specially designated global terrorist organization.” This move will take place under Executive Order 13224, signed September 23, 2001. The EO authorizes the US to seize the assets of businesses, individuals and charities that the United States government identifies as having ties to terrorist organizations on the list. It also allows for the disruption of operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."

The classification of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization is the first time a military branch of a sovereign government has been so designated.

The driving purpose of this move is to impinge upon the Revolutionary Guard’s far-reaching business interests, and as a cudgel to wield against foreign companies that do business with the Revolutionary Guard, and individual IRGC members.

"Anyone doing business with these people will have to reevaluate their actions immediately," said a U.S. official familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been announced. "It increases the risks of people who have until now ignored the growing list of sanctions against the Iranians. It makes clear to everyone who the IRGC and their related businesses really are. It removes the excuses for doing business with these people."

Expect this to set off a great hue and cry among U.S. allies and trading partners that do business with the Iranian military branches. China is Iran’s number one trading partner, and Russia has strong business ties with the IRGC.

Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Center for American Progress fears that this move could have a deleterious effect on diplomatic efforts, "It would greatly complicate our efforts to solve the nuclear issue. It would tie an end to Iran's nuclear program to an end to its support of allies in Hezbollah and Hamas. The only way you could get a nuclear deal is as part of a grand bargain, which at this point is completely out of reach."

This is just pathetic...

I get the feeling that the *right* is so panicked and desperate at their slipping grip on the rudder of power and influence, that they are willing to sacrifice a few thousand innocents on the altar of politics.

In fact, it seems like every day that passes without a major attack on our shores is a bitter disappointment to some of them.

How else to explain this?

America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater.

What would sew us back together?

Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

The unity brought by such an attack sadly won't last forever.

The first 9/11 proved that. *

Yep - another September 11 attack is JUST what we need! That will unite us behind the war in Iraq! We will all forget that Iraq wasn't responsible for the worst terrorist attack in history, and we will all stop letting those pesky facts get in the way, and we'll all rally 'round the flag and return the Republicans to the prominence and respect they so richly deserve!

Give me a fucking break. If anyone said something like that in my presence...The August fundraiser would be for bail money.


By the way...Who was the editor who let this garbage pass? Fire that idiot post haste.

(h/t Atrios)

About that NIE...

[Cross-posted at WTWC, and from there it was linked at the Salon Blog Report on 18 July 2007]

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” --FDR

That is a far cry from the current occupant, who might as well just come right out and say

“The only thing I have to offer you, is fear itself.”

Pardon me for getting more than just a little bit annoyed with the banging of the fear drum.

Reading a lede like this (NY Times)…

The United States will face “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” over the next three years, as Al Qaeda continues to plot attacks comparable in scale to those of Sept. 11, 2001, the nation’s intelligence agencies said today.

or this (WaPo)...

The terrorist network Al-Qaida will likely leverage its contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil, according to a new National Intelligence Estimate on threats to the United States.

…annoys the piss out of me.

Especially when the whole thing is a mere 800 words in length, and if you read it carefully, the conclusion is, this administration has done everything wrong and allowed the Al Qaeda terror network to regroup.

This is coming from the administration that rebuffed President Clinton’s warning that terrorism would be the main issue they faced. This is the president who, on 06 August 2001 dismissed the Presidential Daily Briefing with “bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” in bold across the top with a flippant “Okay, you’ve covered your ass now.” This is the administration that, when 15 Saudi suicide bombers hijacked some planes in a jihad that was ordered by a Saudi extremist…Attacked Iraq. A secular country that had no connection to the attacks, and had the added advantage of providing a check against Iran. (Stupid, stupid, stupid.)

Now, faced with the revolt of some Senators and Representatives of their own party who have hopes that their political careers will outlive this administration; they are trekking once more to the well of fear.

Look – it’s a dangerous world. Terrorism is real. People do die. I realize this in ways you probably don’t. I was a globe-trotting Brat in the 70’s. I was a military wife in the 80’s. Back then it was pretty damned dangerous just to pass through the airport in Rome. It was par for the course for the active duty spouse to take a different flight than his or her family when relocating to an overseas billet because the active duty spouse was required to fly in uniform, and service personnel were targeted by terrorist hijackers.

I “get it” in ways that most people can not possibly even begin to imagine.

I understand that you do not fight a war against an ideology, a tactic, a transitive adverb* for fucks sake, with a big shiny military. You investigate, you gather intelligence, and you operate in the shadows. You infiltrate, prosecute and incarcerate. You know…Police type work. Remember that concept? (Sure you do.) It's what we used to do, back when our counter-terrorism efforts were not prepackaged by Acme™.

I do not need lectures. I do not need color-coded alerts. I have been aware of the dangers that lurk out there for my entire life.

I know that there is a wolf in the woods.

So what are you? Are you a sheep? Or are you a Kangal?

(*h/t TOFUBO)

It was like watching a baby seal get clubbed, except I enjoyed it

You all know I love a good fisking. I derive great glee out of taking a dumbasses argument and subjecting it to death by a thousand cuts. I haven’t been indulging myself in that pastime too much of late, however. Instead I’ve been staying out of the swamps and tackling white papers from saner sources, like the GAO and the Century Foundation (my favorite think tank. God I’m hopelessly wonky.) The last time I took someone’s own words and proceeded to thoroughly beat the bloody piss out of ‘em was probably when the Washington Post gave the more vapid of the Cheney daughters a spot on the editorial page. That roughing up I gave Emily Yoffe last week was nuthin’ really. I dashed it off in one hissy-fit that maybe rated a four on a scale of ten.

Now I have never claimed I have to be the one performing the assault on the asinine and the battery upon the intellectually and factually dishonest to enjoy it. Hell, I would almost rather read a good argument-eviscerating than give one. Well. A horseman approacheth, not with guns blazing, but with deadly aim. It’s been a while since I tore into a right-wing think tank myself, other than my occasional salvo fired at the American Enterprise Institute, but pot-shots at that clown college is how y’all know I haven’t been replaced by a pod-blogger.

Well, a little over a month ago The Existentialist Cowboy made the case that terrorism is much worse under Republican regimes. He showed his work and he cited his sources, and proved his god-damned case.

The Heritage Foundation should have been smart enough to have known better than to pick a fight with him. His freakin’ research was right there, all they had to do was read his post and check his sources and have the sense to let it go. But they didn’t. Instead, they tried to denounce his well-sourced report with an argument that amounts to “Len Hart is mean! He wants us to have to deal with facts and stuff! No fair!”

They are seriously stupid over there sometimes.

What fucking report did they read that they thought they could peddle that shit and get away with it? Just read any two paragraphs of his blog at random. He doesn’t make idle assumptions or engage in speculation. He reports facts. If you want to play High Noon with this guy, you better have your brother on the roof of the saloon with a rifle, because otherwise you are dead in the street.

A Len Hart report is on a par with the best cover story from the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Detail-rich, well-written, sourced, thought out, tightly edited and precisely constructed. He’s one of the finest examples we can point to as a counter when they try to denounce bloggers as “not journalists.”

If that were really the case, how come last winter, when CBS blew off a significant negative development in Iraq, Lara Logan turned to the bloggers to get a story out that wouldn’t play well and might cost support for the war? That incident made me think that perhaps we are the real journalists, since the sanctioned media has abdicated their constitutionally provisioned role. Where the hell do they think the term “Fourth Estate” comes from, anyway? The fourth estate, provisioned in our Constitution to serve as a check on the three branches equally. And while we are on the topic, why have so many professional journalists like Len Hart and Diane Silver and Manifesto Joe and countless others turned to blogging in order to tell the unvarnished truth?

Rudy has Picked his Running Mate

[Crossposted at WTWC & linked @ The Salon Blog Report]

He hasn’t made the announcement yet – but every time he takes to the stump, no matter what he is there to talk about – right there at his side – is Terrorism.

In a speech in Des Moines, where he was scheduled to speak about fiscal responsibility (giggle – chortle – LMAO – snort) it took him a whole 2:14 to change the subject to terrorism and make with the fearmongering:

"I will continue to keep America on offense in the terrorist war against us, because I think that's the overriding issue of our day," he declared. Then he leaped into a detailed discussion that wound its way through earmarks and out-of-control federal budgets to the threat of Democratic tax increases and — as always — back to terrorism.

While talking tax policy, he shifted the focus to a debate of the Democratic candidates:

"They never mentioned the word 'Islamic terrorist' during the debate…. Maybe they think they're going to be insulting somebody if they say it. I'm trying to figure out who would be insulted — other than Islamic terrorists."

But the most surreal segue to terror might have been while he was pandering to Cuban voters in south Florida:

Others might "romanticize" Castro and his ilk, but Cuban Americans know better than anyone else, he said, how important it is "to be strong in the face of dictators and terrorists…. America can't show weaknesses to these Islamic terrorists. Because, if we do, we're going to be in a lot greater danger."

He inflates and overstates his record – a lot of those firefighters on September 11 didn’t have to die. If Rudy had standardized the communications system when he had the chance, instead of giving the comms contract to a buddy, maybe some of them would have been able to hear the radio messages that the police broadcast, that the buildings were going to come down. But they missed the messages and kept climbing the stairs, because the radios were not compatible.

He attacks President Clinton for his record on terrorism, saying with scorn and derision that Clinton approached terrorism like a police matter. (The 9/11 Commission agrees with President Clinton's approach.)

Newsflash, Sylvester Rudy! It worked! McVeigh was caught, convicted and executed, and the perpetrators of the first WTC bombing are sitting in prison and will never be free again. No Patriot Act, no Constitutional abrogation and no Gitmo required.

On the other hand, with all those enhancements, Osama bin Laden remains free 2118 days and two shooting wars after September 11, 2001.

But wait – there’s more. What he says now is precisely the opposite of what he was saying a year ago:

The idea of trying to cast blame on Clinton [for the 9/11 attacks] is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don’t think he deserves it.

Of course, there is also that bit about Clinton being the first Chief Executive to treat terrorism as a national security issue…in 1995. “[we will treat] terrorism as a potential threat to national security as well as a criminal act and will apply all appropriate means to combat it.” In every major speech he gave the last three years of his presidency, Clinton raised the issue of terrorism and national security, in conjunction.

What pisses me off about the whole deal is this: He’s like the boy who cried wolf. Terrorism is a very serious issue, one that deserves sober assessment and cogent analysis. When he works it into every answer, no matter the question, it can not possibly advance our ability to deal with a very real problem. In fact, it is bound to do just the opposite. By selecting terrorism to be his running mate, the probability of desensitizing the electorate and making a mockery of an issue we should be talking about approaches one.