Obama’s Pollyannaish, ‘Buy the World a Coke’ Foreign Policy

NewsRealBlog

2010 April 11

by Jeff Hedgpeth

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Obama doctrine is, “I’m not Bush so please love us.” 


The recent brouhaha over comments made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai has created a schism in the Obama Administration over the posture America should take towards the controversial leader going forward. Initially the Administration tried a hard line towards Karzai, and referred to his remarks as “troubling,” but the intransigence of the Afghan leader has lead to a change in strategy.

On “Face the Nation” Sunday Bob Schieffer reported,

“…the Administration has decided now to see if being nicer to Karzai will be more productive.”

The Obama Administration trotted out Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on the Sunday shows to signal a marked change in the American demeanor towards Karzai. The new approach is to signal our support and understanding for the troubled leader.

Here we have yet another tenet of the Obama doctrine. It has become sacrosanct with this Administration to fall back, not on strength, but on some naive assumption that we can somehow change the world through an Obama charm offensive.

How to handle Karzai is a dilemma not easily solved, but I think we can be reasonably certain that Obama is not going to tame obstreperous heads of state by buying the world a Coke and hoping they will join hands on a hilltop and sing about peace and harmony.

Predators Over Pakistan The U.S. drone campaign is effective—and legal. Why won’t the Obama administration’s lawyers defend it?

TheWeeklyStandard.com

BY Kenneth Anderson

March 8, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 24

Targeting terrorists and militants with Predator drone strikes is one campaign promise President Obama has kept to the letter. Missiles fired from remote-piloted “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs) at al Qaeda and Taliban leadership steadily and sharply increased over the course of 2009. Senior U.S. military and intelligence officials have called them one of the most effective tactics available to strike directly at al Qaeda and the Taliban. Indeed, CIA director Leon Panetta says that drones are “the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership.” There is every reason to believe him.

In January 2010 alone, a dozen strikes were launched just in the Pakistani tribal region of Waziristan. With the beginning of the promised offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Predator attacks have likewise surged against targets in Pakistan, concurrent with moves by Pakistani intelligence to detain Taliban leaders, and also concurrent with the extensive use of UAVs on the battlefield in the Afghan offensive (primarily as an urban surveillance tool but also for missile strikes). Obama promised that his administration would go after al Qaeda and Taliban in their refuges in Pakistan​—​with or without the permission of the Pakistani government, he pointedly said—and so he has done.

The aggressive expansion of the Predator targeted killing program is the Obama administration’s one unambiguous innovation in the war against terrorists. The adaptation of UAV surveillance craft into missile platforms took place as an improvisation in 2002 under the Bush administration—but its embrace as the centerpiece of U.S. counterterrorism operations belongs to Obama. It is not the whole of it—the Obama administration has expanded joint operations with Pakistan and Yemen, and launched commando operations in Somalia against terrorists. But of all the ways it has undertaken to strike directly against terrorists, this administration owns the Predator drone strategy. It argued for it, expanded it, and used it, in the words of the president’s State of the Union address, to “take the fight to al Qaeda.”

As al Qaeda, its affiliates, and other transnational jihadists seek shelter in lightly governed places such as Yemen or Somalia, the Obama administration says the United States will follow them and deny them safe haven. Speaking at West Point, the president obliquely referred to so-called targeted killings—we will have to be “nimble and precise” in the use of military power, he said, adding that “high-ranking al Qaeda and Taliban leaders have been killed, and we have stepped up the pressure on al Qaeda worldwide.”

The Predator drone strategy is a rare example of something that has gone really, really well for the Obama administration. Counterterrorism “on offense” has done better, ironically, under an administration that hoped it could just play counterterrorism on defense—wind down wars, wish away the threat as a bad dream from the Bush years, hope the whole business would fade away so it could focus on health care. Yet for all that, the Obama administration, through Predator strikes, is taking the fight to the enemy.

And, let’s face it, in dealing with terrorist groups in ungoverned places in the world, we have few good options besides UAVs. Drones permit the United States to go directly after terrorists, rather than having to fight through whole countries to reach them. Maybe that’s not enough to win. Maybe “light-footprint” counterterrorism via drones turns out to be just the latest chimera in the perennial effort to find a way to win a war through strategic airpower. Yet even in a serious counterinsurgency on the ground, drones will still be important as a means of attacking terrorists while clearing and holding territory. The upshot? As long as we engage in counterterrorism, drones will be a critical part of our offense.

Obama deserves support and praise for this program from across the political spectrum. More than that, though, the drone strikes need an aggressive defense against increasingly vocal critics who are moving to create around drone warfare a narrative of American wickedness and cowardice and of CIA perfidy.

Here the administration has dropped the ball. It has so far failed to provide a robust affirmation of the propositions that underwrite Predator drone warfare. Namely:

n Targeted killings of terrorists, including by Predators and even when the targets are American citizens, are a lawful practice;

n Use of force is justified against terrorists anywhere they set up safe havens, including in states that cannot or will not prevent them;

n These operations may be covert—and they are as justifiable when the CIA is tasked to carry them out secretly as when the military does so in open armed conflict.

n All of the above fall within the traditional American legal view of “self-defense” in international law, and “vital national security interests” in U.S. domestic law.

There are good reasons for Republicans and centrist Democrats to make common cause in defending these propositions. On the one hand, they should want to aggressively protect the administration against its external critics—the domestic and international left—who are eager to prosecute Americans for their actions in the war on terror. They should also want to make clear that in defending drone strikes, they are defending the American (and not just the Obama) legal and strategic position. Moreover, it will be the American view of domestic and international law for future administrations, Democratic and Republican.

At the same time, congressional Republicans and centrist Democrats need to put Obama’s senior legal officials on the record and invite them to defend their own administration, defend it to the full extent that the Obama administration’s actions require. Which is to say, Congress needs to hear publicly from senior administration lawyers and officials who might be personally less-than-enthused about targeted killings of terrorists and not eager to endorse them publicly, or to do so only with hedged and narrow legal rationales from which they can later walk away.

Consider, for instance, the diffidence of Harold Koh, the legal adviser of the Department of State. In an informal public discussion with his predecessor, John Bellinger, aired on C-SPAN on February 17, he was asked about drones and targeted killings and declined to say that the practice was lawful. (Granted, it was in an unscripted setting, which cannot be taken as anyone’s last word and on which it would be unfair to place too much weight.) All he said was that if he concluded that it was unlawful, he would, if he thought it appropriate, resign his position. He added that he remained at his post. The statement falls far short of the defense one might hope for from such a high-ranking administration lawyer. More than a year into the new administration, that ought surely to strike the general counsels of the CIA, the Pentagon, the Director of National Intelligence, the NSC, and other agencies directly conducting these activities as somewhat less than reassuring.

In fact, the administration’s top lawyers should offer a public legal defense of its policies, and congressional Republicans and Democrats should insist on such a defense. This is partly to protect the full use-of-force tools of national security for future administrations, by affirming the traditional U.S. view of their legality. But it is also to protect and reassure the personnel of the CIA, NSC, and intelligence and military agencies who carry out these policies that they are not just effective but lawful policies of the U.S. government and will be publicly defended as such by their superiors.

Even as the Obama administration increasingly relies on Predator strikes for its counterterrorism strategy, the international legal basis of drone warfare (more precisely, its perceived international legal legitimacy) is eroding from under the administration’s feet—largely through the U.S. government’s inattention and unwillingness to defend its legal grounds, and require its own senior lawyers to step up and defend it as a matter of law, legal policy, and legal diplomacy. On the one hand, the president takes credit for the policy—as frankly he should—as taking the fight to the enemy. His vice president positively beams with pride over the administration’s flock of Predator goslings. On the other hand, the Obama administration appears remarkably sanguine about the campaign gearing up in the “international law community” aimed at undermining the legal basis of targeted killing as well as its broad political legitimacy, and ultimately at stigmatizing the use of Predators as both illegal and a coward’s weapon.

Stigmatizing the technology and the practice of targeted killing is only half of it, though. The other half is to undermine the idea that the CIA may use force and has the authority to act covertly under orders from the president and disclosure to Congress, as long provided in U.S. law. The aim is to create a legal and political perception that, under international law, all uses of force must be overt—either as law enforcement or as armed conflict conducted by uniformed military.

The Obama administration is complacent about this emerging “international soft law” campaign. But Obama’s opponents in this country, for their part, likewise underestimate and ignore the threat such a campaign presents to national security. That’s apparently because many on the right find it hard to imagine that mere congeries of NGOs, academics, activists, U.N. officials, and their allies could ever overcome “hard” American national security interests, particularly when covered by the magic of the Obama administration. Both liberal and conservative national security hands, looking at the long history of accepted lawfulness of targeted killings under American law, think, “Come on, there’s obvious sense to this, legal and political. These arguments in domestic and international law have long been settled, at least as far as the U.S. government is concerned.” But if there’s a sense to it, there’s a sensibility as well, one that goes to the overall political and legal “legitimacy” of the practice within a vague, diaphanous, but quite real thing called “global public opinion,” the which is woven and spun by the interlocking international “soft law” community and global media.

It’s a mistake to remain oblivious to either the sense or the sensibility. Outside of government, the oblivious include hard-realist conservatives. Inside government, some important political-legal actors are struggling impressively both to overcome bureaucratic inertia and get in front of this issue, and to overcome factions within government unpersuaded by, if not overtly opposed to, this program—particularly as conducted by the CIA. Those actors deserve political support from congressional Republicans and Democrats. Because obliviousness to the sensibility of lawfulness and legitimacy—well, we should all know better by now. Does anyone still believe that the international legal-media-academic-NGO-international organization-global opinion complex cannot set terms of debate over targeted killing or covert action? Or that it cannot overcome “hard” American security interests? Or that this is merely another fringe advocacy campaign of no real consequence, whether in the United States, or abroad in Europe, or at the United Nations?

T

he Obama administration assumes that it uniquely sets the terms of legal legitimacy and has the final word on political sensibility. This is not so—certainly not on this issue. The international soft-law campaign looks to the long-term if necessary, and will seek the political death of targeted killings, Predator drones, and their progeny, and even perhaps to CIA covert action, by a hundred thousand tiny paper cuts. The campaign has already moved to the media. Starting with Jane Mayer’s narrative of Predator drone targeted killing in the New Yorker last October, and followed by many imitators, the ideological framework of the story has shifted. In the space of a year—Obama’s year, no less—it has moved from Candidate Obama’s brave articulation of a bold new strategy for attacking terrorists to the NGOs’ preferred narrative of a cowardly, secretive American CIA dealing collateral damage from the skies. Here’s the thumbnail version of drone warfare, as portrayed in the media.

Focus first on the dozens of civilian victims in a Predator strike, particularly wives of the (merely alleged) al Qaeda suspect and many, many children. You don’t actually have to go to Waziristan, by the way, al Jazeera will have done all the “reporting” for you (relying on local, Taliban-influenced sources). Emphasize the casualties, without, however, comparing the casualties that would result from realistic military alternatives, which include bombing or perhaps a rolling artillery barrage by the Pakistani Army. Insinuate strongly that it is not known for sure (at least with courtroom levels of proof) if the target was al Qaeda.

more : http://weeklystandard.com/articles/predators-over-pakistan?page=4

The Most Unethical Act: Losing a War

Jonathan S. Tobin Web Exclusive

Monday, PBS’s American Experience series broadcast a documentary titled The Bombing of Germany, about the strategic-bombing campaign carried out against the Nazis by American forces in World War II. Coming from the liberal-leaning PBS and in an era where denunciations of American military actions — even in the “good war” against Nazi Germany — have become commonplace, it would have been no surprise if the film had proved to be yet another revisionist attempt to decry Allied tactics as immoral. This impression is reinforced by the introduction to the film on PBS’s website, which highlights the number of German civilian casualties incurred by Allied bombing and the “defining moments that led the U.S. across a moral divide” that would make it easier to drop a nuclear bomb on Japan. Indeed, the narration heard during the opening moments of The Bombing of Germany goes straight to this conclusion when it says that by the time the war ended, the bombing left “both German cities and America’s lofty ideals in ruins.”

But, fortunately, there was more to this documentary than the facile conclusion that the bombing of Germany was so immoral that it cannot be defended even in a war in which the future of civilization was at stake. By the time the 50-minute film was over, liberals expecting another trashing of America were left with some conclusions that not only reinforce the morality of American tactics during that war but also could affect the way we think about contemporary conflicts.

The story of the bombing offensive is complex. During the war, Britain’s Royal Air Force believed that the key to knocking German war industries was to burn down the cities where the factories existed. From their frame of reference, there was no moral distinction between the factories themselves and the homes of the defense workers who created the material that enabled the Nazi regime to commit the crimes against humanity that made the war a matter of life or death for the free world.

But the United States Army Air Force, equipped with more sophisticated planes and bombsights, as well as a more romantic notion about the distinction between government and civilian targets in a totalitarian state, disagreed. The Americans believed that by flying during the day when visibility was obviously better (the British flew at night), their planes could knock out strategic targets without having to attack entire cities. The results produced by this theory were not that good. Much damage was caused to the German war effort, but the losses of American planes (especially before the introduction of a long-range fighter plane in 1944 that would make it safer for U.S. bombers to fly over Germany) made it too expensive to continue. By contrast, the British weeklong raid on Hamburg in 1943, in which the entire city was hit, was a major blow to the German war effort. At the time, Nazi armaments minister Albert Speer told Hitler that a few more raids like Hamburg would bring the German war effort to a halt.

It is telling that the documentary treats the achievement of air superiority over Normandy before the D-Day landings in France as the Allied Air Forces' greatest achievement. But it does not mention that both American and British air commanders bitterly resented being distracted from their plans to level Germany in order to support the landings by softening up military targets in France. But that is just the prelude to what the filmmakers and some of their consultants see as the moral turning point of the war for America — the bombings of Berlin and Dresden in February 1945 in which there was no pretense that the attack was anything but an attempt to destroy the city. The Dresden raid, immortalized in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five, has been widely represented by many American, English, and German historians as immoral because the beautiful medieval city was not considered a military target and heretofore had been spared the devastation that rained down on other German cities. It is here that author Don Miller, one of the prominent voices heard in the film, describes the raid as the crossing of “a moral threshold ... that we will not deliberately bomb civilians … once we crossed the moral divide in Berlin, it made everything else, including the atomic bomb, a little bit easier.”

But Miller is not the only voice heard about the raids against Berlin and Dresden. The film goes on to credit these devastating attacks for helping to make the Soviet assault on Eastern Germany, including the conquest of Berlin, easier. Moreover, the film points out that in a total war against a ruthless foe, half measures are of no use. After all, the ordinary Germans who served in Adolf Hitler’s army and worked in the factories that produced the weapons and other material that made his crimes possible never wavered in their loyalty to the Nazi regime, even as the Reich was reduced to ruins around them. This fact undermines the notion that Allied air-war theorists fervently believed in: that bombing could break the will of a nation. But Allied bombing attacks that literally destroyed the physical structures of the enemy’s war effort did work and, in fact, helped shorten the length of the bloodiest war in history.

The most devastating line of the film is its last, in which historian Conrad C. Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, confronts the moral dilemma of killing civilians in a righteous war against an immoral opponent. While the question of the deaths of civilians is one we must ponder, Conrad insists, “The most unethical act for the Allies in World War II would have been allowing themselves to lose.”

This is a concept that applies not only to the war against Hitler but also to the one that America is currently fighting against Islamo-fascists. We have heard a great deal in the past few years about unethical tactics both in terms of attacking terrorist strongholds and in dealing with prisoners who possess information about future threats. As the Obama administration tries to avoid further debacles like its reaction to the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit and to maintain pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the conclusion of The Bombing of Germany should haunt them. It is all well and good to try to earn applause for being more moral than our opponents. But when facing an enemy whose goal is the destruction of our society and the murder of countless innocents, the prime objective must remain the same as it was in World War II. Allowing ourselves to lose such a war is the most unethical act imaginable.

About the Author

Jonathan Tobin is executive editor of COMMENTARY.

Kabul Street Scene (McCain - Palin sign in window)

February 05, 2010

Kabul Street Scene

A reader in Kabul who prefers to remain anonymous sends us a very interesting picture taken Wednesday, Feb. 3. He writes:

It is good to see that when it comes to expressing political opinions on the streets of Kabul not everyone is captivated by the Obama mystique. Maybe there is hope for Afghanistan after all.

Here is the picture:

And here is an enlargement of the rear windscreen:

Pakistani Scientist Convicted of Trying to Kill Americans

Wednesday, 03 Feb 2010 03:44 PM

NEWSMAX.com

NEW YORK – A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist was convicted Wednesday of charges that she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008, shouting with raised arm as jurors left the courtroom: "This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America."

A jury deliberated three days in federal court in Manhattan before finding Aafia Siddiqui guilty in the third week of her attempted murder trial, which she often interrupted with rambling courtroom outbursts.

After declaring the verdict came from Israel, she turned toward spectators in the packed courtroom and said: "Your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof."

Siddiqui, 37, was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, though the crime was not found by the jury to be premeditated. She was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

Before her arrest, U.S. authorities had called Siddiqui an al-Qaida sympathizer. She was never charged with terrorism, but prosecutors called her a grave threat who was carrying bomb-making instructions and a list of New York City landmarks including the Statue of Liberty when she was captured.

The defendant — a spindly neuroscience specialist who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University — "is no shrinking violet," Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher La Vigne said in closing arguments.

"She does what she wants when she wants it," he said. "These charges are no joke. People almost died."

Testifying in her own defense, Siddiqui claimed she had been tortured and held in a "secret prison" before her detention. Charges that she attacked U.S. personnel who wanted to interrogate her were "crazy," she said. "It's just ridiculous."

In court, Siddiqui veiled her head and face with a white scarf and often sat slumped in her chair. She openly sparred with the judge and her own lawyers, insisted she could single-handedly bring peace to the Middle East and lashed out at witnesses in tirades that got her kicked out of the courtroom.

"I was never planning a bombing! You're lying!" she yelled while an Army captain testified.

In her closing argument, defense attorney Linda Moreno accused the prosecutors of trying to play on the jury's fears.

"They want to scare you into convicting Aafia Siddiqui," she said. "The defense trusts that you're much smarter than that."

During the two-week trial, FBI agents and U.S. soldiers testified that when they went to interrogate Siddiqui at an Afghan police station, she snatched up an unattended assault rifle and shot at them while yelling, "Death to Americans." She was wounded by return fire but recovered and was brought to the United States to face charges attempted murder, assault and gun charges.

A chief warrant officer, who testified in uniform but did not give his name, told jurors he had set down his M4 rifle after being told Siddiqui had been restrained. He testified he was shocked when she suddenly appeared from behind a curtain wielding his M4 rifle and yelling, "Allah akbar," Arabic for "God is great."

"It was pretty amazing she got that thing up and squared off," he said. "She was looking at me and aiming dead at me."

Hearing the rifle go off, the officer said he followed his military training and pulled his pistol. Siddiqui was wrestling with an interpreter when he shot her in the stomach.

"I operated within the rules of engagement to eliminate the threat," he said.

The defense told jurors there was no ballistic, fingerprint or other physical evidence proving the weapon was "touched by Dr. Siddiqui, let alone fired by her."

Siddiqui testified she was shot shortly after she poked her head around a curtain to see if there was a way she might slip out of the room where she was being held. She said she was desperate to escape because she feared being returned to a secret prison.

"I wanted to get out. ... I was afraid," she said.

© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

UK Afghanistan ambassador Mark Sedwill given Nato role

BBC NEWS
January 26, 2010

The UK's ambassador in Kabul is to be the new Nato senior civilian representative for Afghanistan.

It is expected Mark Sedwill, who has been based in Afghanistan for about a year, will work on its development and the implementation of civilian aid.

He will also work closely with the commander of the Nato-led force there, Gen Stanley McChrystal.

And he will direct the non-military work of the 43 nations involved in the Nato-overseen operation.

Western countries engaged in Afghanistan are set to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and scores of other officials from the region in London on Thursday to discuss how to reinvigorate civilian and military operations in the country.

BBC Security Correspondent Gordon Corera described the role as "potentially a very important job".

He said: "The idea will be for this job to have more enhanced power and responsibility to make sure that the aid money in particular that goes to Afghanistan actually gets to people on the ground and is tied into the military strategy, is winning over people and is having a real effect."

Pakistan’s Rebuff Over New Offensives Rankles U.S.

By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: January 24, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Pakistani Army’s announcement last week that it planned no new offensive against militants for as long as a year has deeply frustrated senior American military officers, and chipped away at one of the cornerstones of President Obama’s strategy to reverse the Taliban’s gains in Afghanistan and Pakistan. When Mr. Obama announced his decision in December to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, he and his aides made clear that the chances of success hinged significantly on Pakistan’s willingness to eliminate militants’ havens in its territory, including in the tribal region of North Waziristan. United States officials described the American and NATO surge of troops as a hammer, but they said it required a Pakistani anvil on the other side of the border to prevent the Taliban from retreating to the mountains.

Now that strategy appears imperiled by Pakistan’s latest statement. On Thursday, soon after Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived on a two-day trip to the country, the Pakistani Army’s chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, rebuffed American pressure to step up attacks in North Waziristan. That area is the main base of operations for the Haqqani network, which stages operations against American and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. It is believed to be responsible for many of the attacks on Kabul, including a devastating assault early last week near the presidential palace.

Fighters from Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban have also been concentrated in North Waziristan, including many who were driven out of their positions in South Waziristan by recent Pakistani Army operations.

“This has become the center,” a senior administration official said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss American strategy publicly.

American officials said they had not been surprised by the Pakistani announcement. Since the last two years of the Bush administration, the United States has been arguing for a far more active Pakistani military presence in North Waziristan. But some said they had been surprised that the rebuff was issued while Mr. Gates was in the country, rather than after he left.

General Abbas told reporters it could be 6 to 12 months before the army consolidated its current operations and began any new offensive. Some American officials think it could be longer.

The critical question is how much the Pakistani decision will undercut Mr. Obama’s strategy. During a speech at West Point on Dec. 1, he said his administration would reassess the plan at the end of 2010, after all the troops deployed as part of the increase were in place. But if the Pakistani position does not change, the operations on Pakistan’s side of the border will not have begun by the time Mr. Obama has made his assessment.

Mr. Obama made no public demands on Islamabad when he announced the troop increase at West Point, but he said he was acting “with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.” He quickly added: “We need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.”

Mr. Obama praised the Pakistani Army for waging an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan, where the Pakistani Taliban were taking aim at the country’s fragile government. He promised to work with the Pakistanis to strengthen their ability to combat the militants, but he said the United States had “made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.”

Pakistani officials have not refused to go after Qaeda or Taliban fighters in North Waziristan. But they have made it clear that their forces are too tied up now to conduct new, larger operations on Washington’s schedule.

As a practical matter, American officials said, Pakistan’s inability or reluctance to open a new front in North Waziristan will increase the reliance on missile strikes from drones operated by the C.I.A. to disrupt attacks aimed at Afghanistan.

American officials said that Pakistani military leaders had never promised a specific timetable for beginning a new offensive, but that announcing a delay of as much as 12 months could aid the militants’ planning and morale on both sides of the border.

“It’s disappointing, but not entirely surprising,” said a senior Defense Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his ties with Pakistani counterparts.

Mr. Gates and other American officials sought to put the best face on the situation last week, saying that the Pakistani Army was stretched thin from its previous offensives against militants.

“Pakistani leadership will make its own decisions about what the best timing for their military operations is, about when they are ready to do something or whether they are going to do it at all,” Mr. Gates told Pakistani journalists on Friday, the day after General Abbas’s comments.

“The way I like to express it is, we’re in this car together, but the Pakistanis are in the driver’s seat and have their foot on the accelerator,” Mr. Gates said. “And that’s just fine with me.”

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the military’s Central Command, said at a conference in Washington on Friday that American officials must be mindful of the limitations facing Pakistan’s military.

General Petraeus said that the Pakistani leaders would need to negotiate agreements with local tribal leaders to hold the gains that the Pakistani military has achieved in places like Swat and South Waziristan. But he emphasized that any deals must be more resilient than previous pacts in the tribal areas, which fell apart and allowed the militants to regain control.

Senior American officers in the region said that cooperation with their Pakistani counterparts had improved in recent months.

NATO military leaders, for instance, recently provided a detailed briefing on the campaign in Afghanistan to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani army chief of staff, a senior American officer said. Pakistani officers reciprocated last week with a briefing for NATO officers on their campaign plans, the American officer said.

7 Bodies Found With Warnings

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The bodies of seven people accused by the Taliban of spying for the United States were found in North Waziristan on Sunday, officials and residents said.

Notes attached to the bullet-ridden bodies accused the victims of working with the United States as it carries out a wave of drone strikes in the region, and warned that anyone else who did so would meet the same end.

Drone attacks in the region have increased significantly since the bombing of a C.I.A. base in Khost, Afghanistan, that killed seven Americans on Dec. 30.

Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.

CIA Homicide Bomber was an UNRWA employee

Atlas Shrugs
Pamela Geller

CIA Homicide Bomber was an UNRWA employee

There will come a day that the UN will be declared an enemy entity. Trust me, it's only a matter of time. That's if the good guys win, of course.

This is a good indication of what the UN traffics in.

Suicide bomber Al-Balawi struck a key CIA base Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border last week, killing seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer. (AP Photo/Nader Daoud) Photo: Nader Daoud / AP2010 (hat tip James)

A general view of the neighborhood near to the UNRWA clinic, where Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi used to work as a physician in Zarqa city, East of Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010. Suicide bomber Al-Balawi struck a key CIA base Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border last week, killing seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer.(AP Photo/Nader Daoud) Photo: Nader Daoud / AP2010

[Flashback] Surge of Suicide Bombers The Iraq war has turned into a veritable 'martyr' factory, unlike any seen in previous conflicts.

Raed al Bena, a Jordanian who blew himself up in Hillah , Iraq , was a former United Nations employee in Jordan . He had obtained a visa to the United States , where he went to work, illegally, at a Los Angeles airport. Found out and deported, he returned home depressed, railing at the U.S. immigration officer who "destroyed my future," recalls his father, Mansour. He denies reports in Jordanian papers that the family celebrated Raed's suicide bombing, but his wife, Nareman, promptly takes offense. "Why do you say 'suicide bombing'?" she asks. "It's 'martyrdom.' One who wants to commit suicide will kill himself [even] in the house."

MSNBC

Columnist in Syrian Government Daily: The Afghanistan Fire Will Roast U.S. Leaders

MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH

In his column in the official Syrian daily Al-Thawra, Dr. Jihad Taher Bakfalouni mocks senior U.S. officials, claiming that they have realized their mistake in entering Afghanistan yet are unwilling to take responsibility for it. He added that the American public's criticism of the continued presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan would only increase.

The following are excerpts from his column:[1]

The "Afghan Restaurant" Has Disappointed the U.S. Politicians

"After all these years, the American politicians are discovering that the Afghan restaurant, of whose tempting dishes they dreamed, has disappointed them, dashing their hopes publicly. Today, their only way to express the bitterness that seized them after their dreams were shattered is to curse the moment in which their feeble spirit aroused their greed and they responded to it, thinking that [the food] served at this restaurant is delicious and would spark their appetite.

"Their ongoing lament over their bad fortune in Afghanistan emanates first and foremost from the steep increase in the price of the dishes at this restaurant – an increase that will get worse as the Afghan winter sets in and the fierce cold and snow accumulate around their strangled and shriveled souls, and as the dishes [served] become lower and lower in fat, down to nearly zero percent – not to mention the [restaurant's] terrible management."

The U.S. Leaders' Criticism Is Directed at the Plans They Themselves Drew Up

"In light of the embarrassing situation of the U.S. forces that invaded Afghanistan, the only way in which the American politicians and senior military personnel can express their abysmal despair is with relentless criticism. Their harsh lashes of criticism are directed at the plans that were drawn up and circulated as a 'philosopher's stone' that would make the Afghan rebels obey the American master of the [Aladdin-style] lamp, more than his own fingers obey him. But the [American leaders] were surprised to find that the situation was completely different – instead of the rebel obeying and being loyal to the bearer or owner of the lamp, he aimed to put the owner of the lamp into the lamp, to torture him with the harshest of torments...

"The strange thing is that the criticism of [the U.S.] plan [for Afghanistan] – criticism that will later become curses and invective – came from those who made this plan it in the first place. In order for the reader not to be confused, he must know that this [criticism] is not self-criticism, but rather an attempt to evade responsibility and avoid an accounting in the future, after the American citizens' resentment escalates because of the [war's] heavy financial price and because their husbands and sons are falling in Afghanistan with no clear purpose."

"[America's] Exit from the Afghan Stewpot Will Not Be Like its Entrance"

Bakfalouni then cites as an example the criticism by the U.S.'s chief intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Major General Michael Flynn, on U.S. intelligence operations there, and concludes by saying:

"[America's] exit from the Afghan stewpot will not be like its entrance. The U.S. forces involved in breaking into the Afghan restaurant will be forced to pay a heavy price – one that they will be able neither to hide nor to [pay]. The food will emerge from the intestines of the American soldiers, sent by his leaders to destroy Afghanistan, as a fire whose flames will roast these leaders. American public opinion will further fan this fire, making it even more deadly.

"The only way left for American politicians and military personnel to mitigate the impact of this fire is to return to their country, accompanied by the curse of history and the contempt of an [entire] Afghan generation that saw them sowing corruption and destruction in its land – for which loathsome crime they will never forgive them."

Endnote:

[1] Al-Thawra (Syria), January 8, 2010.

'Killing the Enemy Is Not The Best Route to Success'

General Stanley McChrystal, 55, is the top US and NATO
commander in Afghanistan

General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, talks to SPIEGEL about his new approach to the war, negotiations with the Taliban and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

SPIEGEL: General McChrystal, a couple of months ago you said, "Since 9/11, I have watched as America tried to first put out this fire with a hammer, and it doesn't work." What did the Americans do wrong in Afghanistan?

Stanley McChrystal: At the end of the day, a counter-insurgency is decided by people's perceptions and by how people feel. I think any war like this is not a battle between material. It's not about destroying the enemy's cities. It's not even about destroying their army, their fighters. You have to weaken the insurgency. But it's really about convincing the people that they want it to stop and they ultimately will. The most effective way for us to operate is to be really good and effective partners with our Afghan counterparts, because it's not a technical problem, it's a human problem.

SPIEGEL: Your 66-page assessment of the situation in Afghanistan was the basis for US President Barack Obama's decision to send 30,000 additional American soldiers to the country next year, coming on top of the 68,000 which are already there. In your report, you wrote that the situation is serious but doable. Is it doable?

McChrystal: I think it is doable. But it is going to be a significant effort on everybody's part and it will be very complex. Here is a resilient insurgency with elements of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Hekmatyar network that threaten the existence of the state. But there is also a crisis of confidence in the people which comes from expectations that were not met after 2001, regarding development and governance and positive things. Additionally, you have a disappointment in what they have seen from local and national governance and a sense that it's not a fair system, that they are not getting basic justice. Those two things feed each other.

SPIEGEL: In your assessment you wrote that the key weakness of ISAF is that it doesn't aggressively defend the Afghan population. This sounds like a big misunderstanding, because in our countries everybody believes the troops are here to protect the Afghans.

McChrystal: The protection of the people is the crucial point. If the coalition comes in and protects the Afghan people from a larger conventional threat with a conventional force, then we could feel we'd been successful. But that is really not the threat to the Afghan people. That comes from shadow governance, night letters (editor's note: anonymous notices posted by the Taliban), coercion, improvised explosive devices (IEDs). And so the protection they really need, we can't do in a strictly conventional sense. We can't do, when we stay on installations and guard ourselves from all harm. We have to be closer and interact with people to do that.

SPIEGEL: Do you mean that the coalition troops need to take bigger risks?

McChrystal: In a counter-insurgency, your security ultimately comes from the people, because they help deny the insurgents support, then they provide you intelligence. Here is the conflict. To protect yourself perfectly, you get behind big forts, you wear body armor and travel in armored vehicles. But then you can't interact with people. And if you can't interact with people, the people will not protect you ultimately. If you want to swim, you have to let go of the side of the pool. You have to get in and amongst the people and build that relationship. In the long run you will suffer fewer casualties and you'll be more successful.

SPIEGEL: Your intelligence chief, Michael Flynn, just came up with a provocative document claiming that US spies in Afghanistan are totally clueless. They only focus on the insurgency, he says, and do not understand the most fundamental questions of people's lives and their environment. Is he right?

McChrystal: Understanding unconventional warfare is typically understanding the terrain, the physical terrain, and understanding the enemy. In a counter-insurgency the terrain is the people, rather than bridges and hills and forests. You have to understand tribes, leaders and the economic forces at work. Otherwise you can't deny the insurgency. What General Flynn has pointed out correctly is the fact that we need to widen our understanding. We need to understand how the enemy interacts with the people.

SPIEGEL: Coming from your background in special forces, where targeting and killing people is actually the nature of the business, your tactical directive to avoid casualties which came out in July was quite a surprise. It says that killing the enemy is not effective and therefore needs to be avoided.

McChrystal: Well, the tactical directive was designed not just to give people specific guidelines, but to give them intent. That was to explain that killing the enemy was not the best route to success. If you kill two enemy fighters who are in somebody's house, and in doing so you destroy their house, then the individuals who own the house probably have very conflicted feelings about whether you did the right thing. If you take an action that has the risk of harming civilians, you have to carefully consider that decision, because you can't bring a civilian who has been killed back to life.

SPIEGEL: But what if commanders on the ground do not follow your guidance?

McChrystal: I haven't had the experience of commanders who don't follow guidance. What I've found is that in any big organization, people interpret guidelines or intent differently. However as long as I'm in command here, I will be making some of those same points, constantly.

SPIEGEL: More than 2,000 civilians died last year in Afghanistan, the highest number since 2001. One-third of them were killed by Western coalition troops or the Afghan security forces. Why can't the killing of civilians be avoided?

McChrystal: Two-thirds of the casualties are in fact caused by the enemy who is theoretically trying to liberate parts of the Afghan people. In fact what they are doing is killing the Afghan people. Also, remember that it's an extraordinarily difficult, complex environment. You put young soldiers out in positions in small numbers, and you put them with suicide bombers and you put improvised explosive devices around them -- it's difficult, and mistakes will be made. But we'll fight hard to reduce them. Zero is a goal.

SPIEGEL: As the director of US Special Forces operations in Afghanistan and Iraq you killed the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and found the dictator Saddam Hussein. What effect would it have if Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar were killed by a Predator drone tomorrow?

McChrystal: I think leaders of the insurgency like Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden need to be brought to justice. You would hope they'd be captured alive, they might be killed. It will not guarantee immediate success. In Iraq, even after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed, there was still a significant effort to finish it. But what we really need to do is to go after very serious committed enemy leaders and we need to take them out of circulation -- capture or kill. At the same time we need to push forward with good counter-insurgency measures and offer fighters a chance to reintegrate back with the government.

SPIEGEL: What was the key to locating al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein at that time? And what can we learn from that regarding Osama bin Laden who, after eight years, has still not been caught?

McChrystal: Operations like that are very similar to police work. It is intelligence, it is very, very good analysis and at the end of the day it is persistence, it is staying with it. Someone like Osama bin Laden clearly feels that if he surfaces he is likely to be arrested or killed. So just the hunting has a certain good effect. As you remember, we found Saddam Hussein in a hole in the ground. He was not leading a resistance from that hole.

SPIEGEL: Everybody is currently talking about negotiating with the Taliban. What would an effective reconciliation program look like?

McChrystal: Reconciliation would be higher level talks between the leadership of the insurgent organization and the government of Afghanistan. Re-integration would be individual fighters or groups of fighters, not the entire Taliban, who decide to come back into the government, into the society of Afghanistan under the constitution of Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan is working hard on a policy for this and it's going to come out with that pretty soon. We're prepared to support them because I think we sense in the Taliban ranks there's a tremendous number of fighters and commanders who would like to come back in. We just need to craft the kind of program that supports that.

SPIEGEL: What would be needed for these people to switch sides?

McChrystal: I think they need protection first of all. Protection from the Taliban, protection for their families as well and an opportunity to either go back to the village from which they came and an opportunity to make a living again, to re-enter the workplace in their society. They also need respect. It's important that they are not ashamed as they do this because they are making an honorable decision.

SPIEGEL: Would Pakistan support a solution which guarantees them at least some kind of influence in the south of Afghanistan?

McChrystal: Even though every country follows its national interests, there are shared strategic objectives between the government of Afghanistan, the government of Pakistan and the coalition. These are closer today than they have been in the past. There are still very difficult issues, clearly, and I in no way would minimize those. But at the end of the day people are rational and I am optimistic that we'll be able to work out solutions together which ultimately will be much more durable and effective than separate solutions.

SPIEGEL: Afghanistan is famously known as "the graveyard of empires." Alexander the Great failed in the 4th century, the British in the 19th century and the Soviets only 20 years ago. All of them lost their status as a world power shortly afterwards. Why do you think you will succeed?

McChrystal: Well, I won't succeed, the government of Afghanistan will succeed, and that is the essential difference. This may be the graveyard of empires, but there is not an empire here, there is a coalition of 44 nations. And a coalition of 44 nations is never going to try to occupy a country and that's the big difference. That's why we are not viewed as occupiers. That's why the people haven't risen up like the mujahideen did against the Soviets.

SPIEGEL: How big is the risk of failure?

McChrystal: There is always risk of failure and it would probably come from not understanding the problem well enough, not recognizing the problem well enough and then therefore not crafting the appropriate solutions.

SPIEGEL: What is required from the civilian side to turn the tide in Afghanistan?

McChrystal: When we talk about surges of civilians we should never compare numbers of people. What you need is expertise: agricultural experts, economic experts, sometimes engineering, water engineering experts. You need people who can come in and they need to be skilled in identifying the problem and working with their Afghan partners. You don't want a flood of people -- you want just enough people to help the Afghans do it themselves.

SPIEGEL: The region of Afghanistan and Pakistan is not the only place where terrorists and extremists use lawless territory as safe havens. There are many others, like Yemen, Sudan and Somalia. Should Western troops also go to all these places and wage wars?

McChrystal: What defeats terrorism is really two things. It's rule of law and then it's opportunity for people. So if you have governance that allows you to have rule of law, you have an environment in which it is difficult to pursue terrorism. And if you have an opportunity for people in life, which includes education and the chance to have a job, then you take away the biggest cause of terrorism. So really, the way to defeat terrorism is not military strikes, it's going after the basic conditions.

SPIEGEL: Support for the mission in Afghanistan is evaporating in Europe and in the US. The Canadians and the Dutch will pull out next year. The Germans are reluctant to increase their troop levels. What do you need and what do you expect from your allies, especially from the Germans?

McChrystal: It's not numbers of soldiers, it's not particular capabilities -- it's a willingness to be a part of a team and to adapt ourselves to this mission. Good partnership is key. Each of the 44 nations brings different capabilities, different strengths. The Afghan people can feel it, they take strength from it. And the enemy can also feel it.

SPIEGEL: President Obama himself has announced that the US will start to bring their troops back home from 2011 on.

McChrystal: To my mind, he has not signaled any lack of commitment or lack of resolve regarding Afghanistan. In fact, he has signaled a very strong resolve. He said that we have offered the people of Afghanistan a strategic partnership. As we provide this near-term bridge with additional forces, what will happen is that the requirement for all coalition forces will decrease over time. At some point it will be a longer term strategic partnership, which will involve less military than civilian assistance.

SPIEGEL: General McChrystal, we thank you for this interview.

Interview conducted by Susanne Koelbl in Kabul.

British journalist killed in blast in Afghanistan

www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-11 06:45:05

LONDON, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Britain's Sunday Mirror defense journalist Rupert Hamer has been killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defense said here on Sunday.

The 39-year-old Hamer was the first British journalist to die in the Afghanistan conflict. He was blown up Saturday by a roadside bomb as he accompanied U.S. Marines patrolling near Nawa, southern Afghanistan, the ministry said.

Philip Coburn, 43, a photographer also with Sunday Mirror working alongside Hamer, was injured in the explosion, the ministry said, he was "in a serious but stable condition."

A U.S. marine was also killed in the blast and five marines were seriously injured.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he was "deeply saddened by this tragic news." "My heartfelt thoughts and sympathies are with the families, friends and colleagues of Rupert and Philip."

Hamer was the second foreign journalist to be killed in Afghanistan in the space of 10 days. The other was the 34-year-oldMichelle Lang, a female journalist with Canada's Calgary Herald newspaper, who was killed in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan alongside four soldiers when a roadside bomb exploded beneath their armored vehicle on Dec. 30 last year.

Hamer and Coburn flew to Afghanistan on New Year's Eve for a month-long assignment. They worked as defense journalists in Iraq.

A total of 1,576 troops in the military coalition including 246British soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the war started in2001. In 2009 alone, 109 British soldiers were killed in that country.

Editor: yan

US sends 12 Gitmo detainees to their home nations (AP)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has transferred a dozen Guantanamo detainees to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region as the Obama administration continues to move captives out of the Cuban facility in preparation for its closure.

The Justice Department said Sunday that a government task force had reviewed each case. Officials considered the potential threat and the government's likelihood of success in court challenges to the detentions.

Over the weekend, four Afghan detainees were transferred to their home country. Two Somali detainees were transferred to authorities in Somaliland, the semi-autonomous northern region of Somalia. Six Yemeni detainees also were sent home.

The Justice Department said that since 2002, more than 560 detainees have departed the military prison in Cuba and 198 remain.

The Justice Department identified those sent home as:

_Afghans Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim and Mohammed Hashim.

_Somali detainees Mohammed Soliman Barre and Ismael Arale.

Yemenis Jamal Muhammad Alawi Mari, Farouq Ali Ahmed, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher, Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami and Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf.

The administration has announced that five detainees will be tried in a New York federal court and more are likely to be tried in this country.

Up to 100 detainees will be sent to a nearly empty prison in Thomson, Ill.

In Rome, state-run and private television stations said a third Tunisian detainee from Guantanamo Bay is being moved to Italy to face international terrorism charges for having allegedly recruited fighters for Afghanistan.

Private TG5 identified the man as 40-year-old Moez Ben Abdelkader Fezzani, also known as Abou Nassim, and said he was expected to land Sunday night at Milan's Malpensa airport. A prosecutor confirmed Fezzani's name on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

President Barack Obama says he won't set a new deadline for closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison, but does expect the facility to shut down sometime next year.

The administration has abandoned the January 2010 deadline Obama set for closure soon after taking office. Obama has said he realized that things move more slowly in Washington than he expected.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

US sends 12 Gitmo detainees to their home nations

The US has released 12 prisoners from the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. The six Yemeni, four Afghans and two Somali detainees have been sent to their home countries.

US President Barack Obama wants to close down Guantánamo Bay next month but it is highly unlikely that the deadline will be met and due to diplomatic and political problems. Far too few countries are willing to grant the detainees residence permits.

At the moment, there are still 198 terrorism suspects being held at the infamous detention camp in Cuba. Several dozen of the inmates are scheduled to be transferred to a prison in the US state of Illinois.

Congress Probes Alleged U.S. Bribes to Afghan Warlords

U.S. would be unintentionally involved in a protection racket and indirectly financing the enemy


WASHINGTON -- Congress is investigating allegations that U.S. tax dollars are being paid to warlords and the Taliban for security on supply routes used to truck food, water, fuel and ammunition to American troops in Afghanistan.

If the allegations are true, then the U.S. would be unintentionally involved in a protection racket and indirectly financing the enemy, Rep. John Tierney, the Massachusetts Democrat leading the inquiry, said Wednesday.

The Obama administration is escalating the U.S. mission in Afghanistan amid concerns that corruption throughout the country is a major roadblock to progress.

Bribes and kickbacks are frequently used to do business there, raising worries among many Democrats on Capitol Hill that the U.S. investment will fall short of stabilizing Afghanistan's shaky government.

Tierney is seeking documents from the Defense Department and companies connected to a $2.1 billion U.S. contract to transport goods and materiel through Pakistan to Bagram Airfield, the U.S. military's main hub in Afghanistan. From Bagram, the supplies are distributed to several hundred smaller camps and bases spread throughout the country.

Tierney said his staff has been told by credible informants that security guards hired by the trucking companies funnel money to the local warlords or the Taliban to ensure the convoys get to their destinations unscathed.

"It's protection money," said Tierney, who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform national security subcommittee. "Early indications are payments are either made as a lump sum for a period of time, or payment per container."

Multiple layers of subcontractors are often used in these transactions, making it difficult to follow the trail of cash, Tierney added.

The Defense Department had no immediate response to Tierney's investigation.

At a Dec. 2 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged the long, rugged supply lines to landlocked Afghanistan through Pakistan's port city of Karachi offer numerous opportunities for fraud and corruption that pad the Taliban's accounts.

But Clinton said the problem is not solely an Afghan one and neither is the solution. "We just have to be honest here about how complex and difficult this problem is," she said.

The arrangement for moving supplies throughout Afghanistan, known as the Host Nation Trucking contract, began in May 2009. There are eight companies handling the work.

Before this umbrella contract was in place, there were far more contractors involved and less oversight, according to John Dawkins, chief executive officer of the Mesopotamia Group in Kabul, one of the current contractors.

But he also said it's no secret that payments are made to ensure safe passage through dangerous patches. Without U.S. or NATO security to guard the convoys and the routes, which is a risky and time intensive task, there's no other option.

"We have to pay certain security companies to get from one place to another place," Dawkins said. "And everybody's interconnected and there's huge money involved. If you don't pay for your security, you're on your own."

Dawkins also downplayed the notion that much of the money flows to the Taliban. "Most of the people are just bandits on the road," he said. "I think you'd have a really hard time defining exactly who the Taliban are."