Lamar Alexander Slams Cheney, Defends Obama Posted by Adam Blickstein

Dick Cheney was pretty unhinged last night as he struggles to defend his failed record in Afghanistan. Needless to say, several government officials and a retired military officer more serious about national security than partisan sniping responded forcefully to Cheney's absurd attacks. Call me surprised, then, when one of those level-headed politicians offering a sobering rebuttal of the former Vice President turned out to be Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, who today said:

"I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what  our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan. Then I think he should come to  Congress and say to the American people what that plan is and see if he can  persuade us and all of the American people of the rightness of it because he  needs to have support all the way through to the end of that mission, so I want  him to take the time to get it right." 

Maybe the water's edge just got a little closer to the Capitol building? Full video below:

 

Gen. Eaton: Dick Cheney Was "Incompetent War Fighter" Posted by The Editors

This statement is from the National Security Network's Senior Advisor Major General Paul Eaton:

Washington, D.C. - Today, National Security Network Senior Adviser Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who served more than 30 years in the United States Army and from 2003-2004 oversaw the training of the Iraqi military, responded to Dick Cheney's Afghanistan accusations from last night:

"The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it.  2.  Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

"As one deeply invested in the Armed Forces of this country, I am grateful for the senior military commanders assigned to leading this fight and the men and women fighting on the ground. But I dismiss men like Cheney who inject partisan politics into the profound deliberations our Commander-in-Chief and commanders on the ground are having to develop a cohesive and comprehensive strategy, bringing to bear the economic and diplomatic as well as the military power, for Afghanistan—something Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld never did.

"No human endeavor can be as profound as sending a nation's youth to war.  I am very happy to see serious men and women working hard to get it right."

Which do they care more about? Posted by James Lamond

So the Senate voted 64-35 for cloture on the defense authorization conference report, with a final vote scheduled for sometime tonight.  The Defense Authorization Bill will then go on to president Obama for his signature. 

Conservatives in the Seante filibustered the defense authorization because it contains an amendment meant to protect homosexuals from hate crimes.  Chris Johnson at the Washington Blades describes the amendment: 

"The hate crimes provision, known as the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, would make illegal hate crimes based on actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity, among other categories, and would allow the Justice Department to assist in the prosecution of such crimes.'

Imagine that.  Thirty five conservative members of congress are voting against funding our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and providing the Pentagon with the resources it needs to protect America's national security.  And why? All because they feel that it is more important to deny rights to American citizens than it is to protect America and provide for our troops.

Imagine what would happen in a reverse situation: Progressives in congress voting against a defense authorization bill at a time of war because a measure meant to protect and enhance the rights of American citizens... I can hear the cries of treason.

A Tale of Two Afghanistans Posted by Michael Cohen

There are two very interesting stories out today in the LA Times and Washington Post about the state of the fight against Taliban forces in Afghanistan. First the good news from Rajiv Chandrasekaren who reports from Nawa in Helmand Province where things are apparently looking up:

In the three months since the Marines arrived, the school has reopened, the district governor is on the job and the market is bustling. The insurgents have demonstrated far less resistance than U.S. commanders expected. Many of the residents who left are returning home, their possessions piled onto rickety trailers, and the Marines deem the central part of the town so secure that they routinely walk around without body armor and helmets.

But at the same time, we see the limitations of the US military's counter-insurgency strategy - the lack of Afghan support:

The turnaround here remains fragile. Marine commanders in Nawa acknowledge that their gains could melt away if the Afghan government and security forces do not move quickly to deliver essential public services, or if U.S. troop levels are reduced here before stability is cemented. Many of the insurgents who left Nawa in July have taken refuge 10 miles to the northwest.

 . . . Despite repeated requests, the government in Kabul has not sent officials to Nawa to help on issues that matter most to local people: education, health, agriculture and rural development

This seems a rather large fly in the ointment - and suggests that any gains made in Helmand could be transitory even if more American troops are sent to Afghanistan. There is plenty of reason to have confidence in the US military's ability to clear an area of Taliban fighters. It's the hold and build part that is tricky and from every indication we simply don't have Afghan support or the political will to make that happen.

Case in point, this article from the LA Times, which suggests that the Taliban are making dangerous inroads in the North:

Reporting from Kunduz, Afghanistan - The hulks of burned-out fuel tankers on the doorstep of this provincial capital stand as scorched testament to the growing reach of the Taliban and other insurgents across Afghanistan's once-stable north . . . residents of a widening arc of territory a half-day's drive from the capital, Kabul, describe daily lives fraught with danger as the militants' foothold becomes stronger.

Just beyond the Kunduz city limits, insurgents brazenly tool around in Ford Rangers stolen from the Afghan police. A Taliban-run shadow administration, complete with a governor, a court system and tax levies, wields greater authority than its official counterpart in much of Kunduz province.Local Afghan officials are frustrated. Their own security forces are spread far too thin, they say -- in Kunduz, fewer than 1,000 police officers safeguard a province of 1.4 million people. Attacks against the Afghan police are relentless: In August, Gov. Omar's brother, a district police commander, was killed in a clash with the Taliban.

Now I realize that you can only read so much into two articles, but these pieces do seem to suggest that perhaps there is a greater need for prioritization by US forces in Afghanistan. The challenge of pacifying Southern Afghanistan is clearly enormous and without a serious influx of American troops it's unlikely to happen (and even then I'm not so sure). Even if we do send, say 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, it will be quite a while before they are in country. With little hope of the ANSF turning into a modern army any time soon -- and not to mention the fact that Taliban fighters in the South can easily slip across the border into safe havens in Pakistan -- I just don't understand why we have made pacifying Helmand and extending the writ of the government there the focus of our military operations. 

Why not focus energy and resources on places like Kunduz where support for the Taliban is weaker and where the size of their fighting force is smaller? If the price of building up forces in the South is that the situation in the North and West becomes destabilized (a point that the article suggest is happening) then it seems the foray into Helmand is actually doing more long-term harm than good.

One thing seems clear: without the support of the Afghan Army and police; without enough ISAF troops, without proper backing from the Afghan government, the US and NATO cannot be everywhere in Afghanistan. So perhaps the focus should be on being in the places that we can be the most successful.

Sec Clinton: You Can Have Too Many Nuclear Weapons Posted by David Shorr

For former speechwriter reasons, no doubt, Heather really liked the way Secretary Clinton used the verb cling, as in "Clinging to nuclear weapons in excess of our security needs does not make the United States safer." Heather and I agree that this was a key passage in Clinton's excellent major address on nonproliferation today at US Institute of Peace, but I actually think the adjective excess is more important and links to other favorite points in the speech.

The perennial question of whether you can be too rich or too thin is a subject for another blog, but I'm glad Clinton has clarified the matter of having too many nuclear weapons. I'm glad because the question of how many you need leads to the question of why you have them. And then of course the issue of the consequences of having too many.

Not only is this where the debate needs to go, it represents a significant shift. Because most arguments you hear for keeping (or adding new) high levels of nuclear weapons treat them as symbols of (a very strange notion of) strength. It's high time we talked about why our country has history's most destructive weapons in our arsenal. Only when we've clarified the role and purpose of nuclear forces 20 years after the end of the Cold War can we make sound decisions about how many we need -- and how many are excessive.

Oh, Secretary Clinton's speech. Sorry. Here's how she talked about it:

But we must do more than reduce the numbers of our nuclear weapons. We must also reduce the role they play in our security. In this regard, the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review will be a key milestone. It will more accurately calibrate the role, size, and composition of our nuclear stockpile to the current and future international threat environments. And it will provide a fundamental reassessment of U.S. nuclear force posture, levels, and doctrine. Carried out in consultation with our allies, it will examine the role of nuclear weapons in deterring today’s threats and review our declaratory policies with respect to the circumstances in which the United States would consider using nuclear weapons.

There is another important dimension, though:

As part of the NPR, the Nuclear Posture Review, we are grappling with key questions: What is the fundamental purpose of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal? Will our deterrence posture help the United States encourage others to reduce their arsenals and advance our nonproliferation agenda? How can we provide reassurance to our allies in a manner that reinforces our nonproliferation objectives? [Emphasis added.]

Right, our nonproliferation agenda. This is another essential difference of perspectives with hard-liners. The way they look at it, moral authority and holding up our own end of the bargain make no difference. It should be so obvious that the other guys are worse that we're morally superior regardless of our own actions. Back to Secretary Clinton:

We are under no illusions that the START agreement will persuade Iran and North Korea to end their illicit nuclear activities. But it will demonstrate that the United States is living up to its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty obligation to work toward nuclear disarmament. In doing so, it will help convince the rest of the international community to strengthen nonproliferation controls and tighten the screws on states that flout that their nonproliferation commitments.

I couldn't have said it better.

Sec Clinton: Don't "Cling" to Outmoded Weapons Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Secretary Clinton has just delivered abotu four speeches in one at the US Institute of Peace.  will post transcript when I get it:

Speech 1:  aimed at the international community, laying out how the US is committed to a range of jont actions and negotiations that will rejuvenate the global consensus toward controling and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons.

Speech 2:  a firm push on Iran to make good on the deal it made today, including the statement5 that Iran should understand that the US will "never" have normal relations with a weaponizing Iran.

Speech number 3:  opening the debate outside defense circles (where it's been going on for a while) about how we think about the role and relative importance of nuclear weapons.  much too much of the defense establishment hasn't thought about this in more than a decade -- during which we've seen 9/11, the emergence of information warfare, a renewed focus on counter-insurgency and other developments -- for none of which nuclear weapons are relevant.  I think Clinton's use of the word "cling" with respect to weapons gives an important hint on where she's going.

I've missed some nuggets, but as this speech will be parsed for all these little bits -- and right now Alex Thier is trying to get her to make news about Pakistan in the Q&A, there's a danger that the coverage will misst he bigger point -- the nonproliferation agenda is an umbrella which pulls under it a large number of countries and conerns, and by including them and their concerns helps channel their energy and willingness to work on the issues of highest concern to us.    

Obama won a Nobel and he deserved it Posted by Joel Rubin

Last November, Americans voted overwhelmingly for change. We elected a man who represented that change, both in his personal story and his political outlook. Less than one year since that historic election, the man that Americans sent to the White House has dramatically improved how our country is viewed overseas while setting in motion a significant number of events that are advancing both our national security and the cause of peace.

For these efforts, he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

In particular, it is remarkable how President Obama has shifted the way that the United States conducts its foreign policy:

• He has eliminated the hostile language of the previous Bush administration, instead showing respect to others.

• He has demonstrated a deliberative management style geared toward making decisions that are well informed.

• He has sought to root American foreign policy in international legitimacy, thus strengthening our ability to advance our interests through collective action.

Each of these moves has strengthened our country’s standing and ability to promote peace, yet unfortunately, the Obama critics are out in full force, unable to accept these changes.

For example, Jay Bushinsky recently wrote on these pages that the Obama Middle East peace policy would not work (echoing similar recent statements made by Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, no paragon of peace himself), because, as he argued, Hamas might win a Palestinian election and take over the West Bank. Yet instead of trying to figure out how to avoid this potential calamity, he only argued that Obama would fail.

While it is easy to predict failure, it is harder to actually implement good ideas that will help lead to a different outcome.

Right now, we should be calling for a Palestinian unity government that would both rein in Hamas and ensure that the Palestinians are negotiating with one voice. We should also be calling for a lifting of the siege of the Gaza Strip and the removal of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank; this would allow for the Palestinian economy to grow, leading to an improvement in Palestinians’ daily lives and increased grassroots support for peace. And we should also be calling for a halt to settlement construction in order to strengthen President Abbas and the Palestinian moderates by showing that they can get real results through diplomacy, not violence.

These are the types of policy innovations that President Obama has been pursuing and for which he earned the Nobel Prize. Unlike his critics, who create a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, we should advocate for these ideas in the pursuit of peace.

President Obama also won the Peace Prize because he stands in stark contrast to the previous administration and its failed national security policies, which left us in dire straits in the Middle East.

Specifically, Iraq has cost more than $1 trillion, left tens of thousands American soldiers dead or wounded, and killed nearly 100,000 Iraqis while displacing millions more. And Saddam Hussein didn’t even have weapons of mass destruction.

During the previous administration, we also alienated potential allies around the world in the fight against terrorism with macho talk about being “with us or against us.” And while we invaded Afghanistan to go after al-Qaida, we never caught Osama bin-Laden largely because the resources that should have been used to find him and destroy his network were diverted to Iraq.

It is also worth emphasizing that on Iran, President Obama has shown that he, unlike President Bush, knows how to strategically employ diplomacy for real effect. Unlike Bush, who spent years verbally assaulting Iran, only to allow the resumption of its nuclear weapons program on his watch, Obama has ramped up scrutiny on the Iranians by consistently calling for diplomacy and international pressure. Obama is now pushing Iran into a diplomatic box, as the Russians and Chinese are finally making noises of support for American efforts to get the Iranians to come clean. When Bush was in office, they opposed such efforts. Obama’s welcome change in policy deserves credit for creating a situation where the Iranians may just realize that their nuclear games are coming to an end.

Finally, after less than a year in office, President Obama has restored our country’s international legitimacy by ending the use of torture, pledging to close Guantanamo Bay, and securing a commitment from the international community to seek a nuclear free world.

One could say that these were easy choices, bound to be popular overseas. But they weren’t. They have been challenging to implement and are just now beginning to bear fruit. For these reasons, and because of the president’s change in direction for our country’s foreign policy, he deserves both our praise and the Nobel Peace Prize.

(This piece was first published in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle on October 15, 2009)

Honduras Embraces America Posted by Adam Blickstein

After his "fact-finding" trip to Honduras, Sen. Jim DeMint wrote:

Hondurans are therefore left scratching their heads. They know why Hugo Chávez, Daniel Ortega and the Castro brothers oppose free elections and the removal of would-be dictators, but they can't understand why the Obama administration does.

They're not the only ones.

Reading this, it seems clear that Sen. DeMint purported to see a lot of aggravation and decreased goodwill between the people of Honduras and America. That is, of course, until America handed Honduras one of the most sacred gifts any nation can bestow upon another: a trip to the World Cup. And in the aftermath of America's 2-2 tie with Costa Rica, elevating Honduras to South Africa 2010, Hondurans defiantly chanted USA! USA! and proudly waved the red, white and blue throughout the streets of Tegucigalpa.

In the end, soccer, not partisan hackery, is the great equalizer. Franklin Foer would be proud.

Washington Post Declare Gen. Schwarzkopf Illegally Knighted Posted by Adam Blickstein

Well, that would be the argument of Ronald D. Rotunda and J. Peter Pham who inanely write in tomorrow's Washington Post that President Obama is constitutionally barred from accepting the Nobel Prize:

An opinion of the U.S. attorney general advised, in 1902, that "a simple remembrance," even "if merely a photograph, falls under the inclusion of 'any present of any kind whatever.' " President Clinton's Office of Legal Counsel, in 1993, reaffirmed the 1902 opinion, and explained that the text of the clause does not limit "its application solely to foreign governments acting as sovereigns." This opinion went on to say that the Emolument Clause applies even when the foreign government acts through instrumentalities. Thus the Nobel Prize is an emolument, and a foreign one to boot.

One problem: the hero of the first Gulf War, Gen. Normon Schwarzkopf, received an honorary Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth (which technically makes him a "Knight of the British Empire") in May of 1991 while still on active duty. According to Rotunda and Pham's argument, this violated all kinds of constitutional constraints, Emolument Clause notwithstanding. He retired at the end of August 1991, meaning the General was clearly a foreign agent for the British Empire for approximately 3 months, because how can you be a Knight and an American General at the same time? Where would his loyalty really be? Under this Op-Ed's logic, Schwarzkopf's retirement South should have sent him to the Naval Brig at Charleston, not the golf courses of Florida.

Another government luminary who should have fallen victim to the Emolument Clause as the authors of the Op-Ed envision it? Alan Greenspan, who received his Honorary British Knighthood in 2002 while still serving as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. How could President George Bush sit there idly as the Chairman overseeing America's treasury was more a servant of Britain's Queen Elizabeth than the Commander-in-Chief of the United States? I'm shocked that the entirety of America's money supply didn't end up alongside the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London. But apparently, there was concern in Conservative circles over the legality of Greenspan's ascension in the British Empire. According to Newsmax, the Federal Reserve's General Counsel cleared Greenspan under the Emolument Clause:

[N]o person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [the United States], shall without the consent of Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or title, of any kind whatsoever, from any King, Prince or foreign state

Congress gave its consent to the acceptance of certain gifts and decorations in the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act (originally enacted in 1966)....The Act defines "decoration" to include "an order, device, medal, badge, insignia, emblem or award." The Department of Justice has ruled that an honorary knighthood is an "order" as permitted by the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act.

Even Conservatives acquiesced that a Knighthood was not in violation of the Emolument Clause. I assume the same logic applies to a Nobel Prize.

I Got Your Platitudes Right Here Posted by Michael Cohen

So last night my wife and I watched the new Frontline documentary on counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. As others have noted it is fascinating and absolutely a must watch. A few observations that jumped out at me.

I've commented before that General McChrystal is damn good when it comes to media relations, but you really have to watch this show to see it firsthand; he really does mouth COIN platitudes like he's a politician. "It's ambitious but important;" "one step at a time;" "it's enormously complex . .  there will be many frustrations . . . but there is no alternative."

Now I realize that its a documentary and you have some selective editing at work here, but what's really fascinating is that beyond McChrystal every military officer interviewed spouts the same sort of platitudinous rhetoric that is straight out of FM 3-24. General Mayville tells us that ending corruption is a military necessity (why the military would be equipped to solve this problem is less clear); another officer declares "the people are our objective"; another captain declares that the goal is to "connect with the people" so the US troops can work with them; and the Frontline producers do a nice job of highlighting some of the same platitudes being uttered at the CNAS conference over the summer.

But then you see the reality that actual Marines are facing on the ground. I couldn't help but sympathize with one Marine telling a somewhat incredulous Afghan that he should "Tell the Taliban to stay away" because now the US Marines are in Helmand.  Later they show the same soldier browbeating local citizens for not going to a local market that US soldiers have secured and cooperating with US troops. The disconnect between COIN rhetoric and the reality on the ground is sobering and disturbing.

Stephen Walt captures the sense of frustration one gets watching these Marines fighting an enemy they can't see and trying to secure a population that doesn't really trust them:

Watching the footage of U.S. Marines attempting to do the impossible made me admire their dedication and raw courage and resent like hell the strategic myopia that sent them on this fool's errand.

Yup. Beyond that, the most striking element of the documentary was the absolute cascade of lies coming out of the mouths of Pakistani officers and government ministers. Listening to the Pakistani Interior Minister tell Martin Smith that there is no Haqqani group in Pakistan; and listening to a Pakistan Army spokesman declare that Mullah Omar is no longer in Quetta was beyond sobering - it was maddening. It also make this Washington Post editorial yesterday about how the US can't leave Afghanistan because it will convince the Pakistan government to give up the fight against the Taliban even more bizarre. They're not fighting them now!

Anyway, watch the whole thing here; it's great.