The Contradictions of Marjah - pt.2 Posted by Michael Cohen

As DA readers are no doubt aware, the US counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan is focused, above all else, on protecting the lives of Afghan civilians and providing them with security. The people are the center of gravity we are told. In fact, General McChrystal has put in place rules of engagement in Afghanistan that restrict the use of airstrikes in order to limit civilian deaths and McChrystal has made clear that if protecting civilians means letting enemy fighter escape - then so be it.

Clearly that's why the US and ISAF has for several weeks now been telling civilian to get out of the town of Marjah before they attack it. And tens of thousands have fled their homes and many others are trapped in the town. 

Forgive me for asking, though, if the goal was to protect civilians . . . shouldn't we not be attacking Marjah in the first place?  Take a look at how some of this is playing out on the ground. According to Nasima Niazi, an MP for Helmand:

“We do not have the facilities to cope with war. The plans are good, but the civilians are farmers and we cannot keep their lives safe or protect their agriculture and fields, and we cannot care for the refugees or those who stay inside Marjah.”

Beyond that the article notes that "Hundreds of refugees from southern Afghanistan already inhabit a squalid camp on the outskirts of Kabul. They often accuse both the Taliban and foreign troops of showing little regard for civilian life and complain that nothing has been done to improve their miserable living conditions."

And here are the calming words of the spokesman for Helmand's governor. 

Speaking via telephone, Daoud Ahmadi acknowledged that civilians could suffer in the short-term. “It’s a war, and war is war,” he said. However, he added that those fleeing Operation Moshtarak would be offered adequate temporary shelter and would benefit in the long run.“We will have some fighting, but we will bring opportunities and chances to the people of Marjah with our reconstruction programs.”

So you see, we have to destroy Marjah to save it. 

But there's more; this according to the AP:

The U.S. goal is to quickly retake control of Marjah, a farming community and major opium-production center, from Taliban forces. That would enable the Afghan government to re-establish a presence, bringing security, electricity, clean water and other public services to the estimated 80,000 inhabitants.

Over time, American commanders believe such services will undermine the appeal of the Taliban among their fellow Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in the country and the base of the insurgents' support.

Calling his hometown of Marjah a "ghost village," resident Mohammad Hakim said he tried to leave with his family this week before the military offensive began but he was stopped by a group of 30 to 40 Taliban fighters who were patrolling the area.

"I already packed. My family was ready. It was difficult to find a car but I got one," he said in a phone interview. "But the Taliban stopped me and told me not to come out because they had already planted mines on the road. 'It's safer for you to stay in your houses.'"

Does any of this make sense? How will "supplying services" undermine the appeal of the Taliban when American forces are forcing Afghan civilians to leave their home and bringing violence to a town that is today relatively peaceful.  Add that to the fact that the Taliban have, according to this report, trapped much of the population in a war zone marked by "belts of improvised bombs, which have rendered the road network impassable."  This is not to mention the fact that there is precious little evidence to suggest that the Afghan government is up to the task of supplying services to Marjah or anywhere else in Southern Afghanistan.

Look, if the US believes that it must attack Marjah to undermine the Taliban in Helmand that's one thing; but the notion that we are doing this to "protect civilians" is a completely bizarre.  How is what we are doing not, in the near term, driving more Afghans into the Taliban's arms? We're causing civilians in Marjah untold suffering . . . in the name of protecting them from the Taliban. This is nothing more than an absolute contradiction of our declared mission in Afghanistan.

Why So Serious? Posted by Patrick Barry

One irritating aspect of Iran adopting a diplomatic style marked by the alternating use of concessions\provocations is that it does little to tamp down alarmism about its nuclear program. Take yesterday’s reports that Iran will move to enrich its LEU stockpile (enriched to 3.5%) to medical levels (enriched to 20%.)  Before going on, I should make clear that I think this is a serious step by the Iranians, for reasons David Albright lays out in this Washington Post story (though the piece requires some help translation from Jeffrey Lewis). Basically, according to Albright, it’s much easier to go from uranium enriched for medical purposes to uranium enriched for weapon’s purposes. This plan would bring Iran closer to nuclear breakout capacity, and so at some level, it should be concerning.   

But announcing an action is not the same as actually doing it.  That’s why my housemates and I don’t react very strongly when one of us declares something like, “this is the week when we get serious about cleaning the living room.”   So while Glenn Kessler may have a point that its very scary to imagine that Iran could make the “significant step” toward “possessing the raw material needed to build a nuclear bomb,” the less-frightening reality is that enriching uranium to levels consistent with medical use is a rather complicated and lengthy process. According to the Associated Press, “enriching to 20 percent would take about one year and require up to 2,000 centrifuges.”  And as Reza Aslan points out, “not only has Iran thus far barely managed to enrich uranium to 5 percent, it can hardly keep its one enrichment plant in Natanz—which took many years to build—up and running full time.”    All in all, it's not clear whether Iran has the ability to see its plan through to fruition, making its somewhat troubling declaration rather hollow.

A more accurate analysis of the announcement would read something like “Iran takes step in the direction of year-long process, which, if successful, would result in the uranium necessary for further enrichment to weaponization levels.”  But no, instead Iran is “one step closer to a bomb.”  

How to Talk to Islamists (Without Getting Frightened) Posted by Shadi Hamid

If you've ever wondered whether we've engaged with Islamists, whether we can, and, perhaps more importantly, whether we should, then you're in luck. I've co-authored with Amanda Kadlec a new policy paper on "Strategies for Engaging Political Islam," published by the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. You can read it here.

In the paper, we assess existing polices toward political Islam and argue that engaging with mainstream Islamist groups is in the national security interest of the US and EU countries (yes, really). We look at three levels of Western engagement - low-level contacts, strategic dialogue, and partnership - and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each.

The paper has an interesting genesis. We thought that instead of talking about Islamists, why don't we talk to them, and let them talk to us. Yea, I know - it's a pretty weird idea. Anyhow, the paper draws on discussions held in Washington last year with Ruheil Gharaibeh - Deputy Secretary-General of the Islamic Action Front and leading member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood. During his time in Washington, Gharaibeh met with members of the policy community to discuss the relationship between Islamists and the West.

In any case, you probably should read the whole thing.

The Contradictions of Marjah - UPDATED Posted by Michael Cohen

So have you heard about this big Marine offensive in Marjah? Of course you have, because the US military and ISAF practically can't stop talking about it! 

Why you might ask is the military taking away any element of surprise in attacking a major Taliban stronghold; because we want to spare the lives of Afghan civilians.  In fact, according to smooth-talking Stanley McChrystal the element of surprise really isn't as important "as letting Marjah's estimated 80,000 residents know that an Afghan government is on its way to replace Taliban overlords and drug traffickers."

Of course, for this to work one needs an Afghan government to actually come in and replace the Taliban. But is seems worth remembering the last big Helmand offensive - a mere six months ago - and the words of the Afghan governor there:

“I don’t get any support from the government,” said the governor, Massoud Ahmad Rassouli Balouch. Governor Massoud has no body of advisers to help run the area, no doctors to provide health care, no teachers, no professionals to do much of anything. About all he says he does have are police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for “vacation.”

And here's what General McCrystal had to say less than six months ago in his 'secret' review:

The Afghan government has been unable to provide sufficient security, justice, and basic services to the people. Although the capacity and integrity of some Afghan institutions have improved and the number of competent officials has grown, this progress has been insufficient to counter the issues that undermine legitimacy.

. . . There is little connection between the central government and the local populations, particularly in rural areas. The top-down approach to developing government capacity has failed to provide services that reach local communities. GIRoA has not developed the means to collect revenue and distribute resources. Sub-national officials vary in competency and capability and most provincial and district governments are seriously undermanned and under-resourced.

What has changed in the past six months to make anyone believe that these issues won't be serious problems in Marjah and that the Afghan Army and government is able to support the "build" and "hold" elements of a counter-insurgency effort in Helmand Province?  This is contradiction #1. (Perhaps instead of wasting time with breathless reports of how the US military is doing in clearing Marjah reporters might want to come back in 6 months or a year or 18 months and see how the "hold" and "build" part is going.) 

Over at the Danger Room, Noah Schachtman isolates contradiction # 2. After weeks of telling residents to leave Marjah, the message from NATO headquarters is now "Please, please, pretty please don't leave the warzone." Hmm. I would note a further contradiction (#3); we're telling the residents of Marjah that the US has come to bring security and stability at the same time that we are telling them to get the hell out of Dodge. I wonder if the Afghan citizens of Marjah are perhaps getting a mixed message. As Josh Foust notes, "it doesn't seem the Coalition cares much about how its activities hurt and terrify the Afghans. Only the Taliban's intimidation matters. That doesn't strike me as a very sustainable way of designing operations." Clearly Josh is confused here; when America intimidates it's for the greater good.

But for all the talk about civilian casualties; what about the Taliban? Here we have contradiction #4. The Taliban appear to have adopted a military strategy that - wisely - avoids, at all costs, direct combat operations with American troops and focuses instead on ambushes, IED attacks etc. Yet here we have a military operation that plays directly into the Taliban's hands; gives them fair warning to avoid engaging with US troops and provides them ample opportunity to lay tons of IEDS and set ambushes against US troops.

Of course, overarching this entire offensive is contradiction #5; waging a major military offensive without sufficient support from the Afghan government in a densely populated province directly contradicts the President's guidance that no troops should be sent into places that cannot potentially be handed over to the Afghan security services by June 2011.

UPDATE: Over at the Af/Pak Channel, Norine MacDonald makes another smart point about the strategic incoherence of the Marjah operation

Although the political decision to provide advance warning of Operation Moshtarak has allowed civilians to leave the conflict zone, steps to resettle these people temporarily are nonexistent. Thousands of Afghans are fleeing to Lashkar Gah and the ungoverned refugee camp outside it. This camp does not have sufficient food, medical supplies, or accommodations for the families who have already fled there -- a shocking state of affairs which has persisted since March 2006 -- and is already far beyond any original holding capacity, full of unemployed and angry men unable to provide for their families. Creating a situation which will lead to thousands more to take refuge at this camp is not only disastrous from a humanitarian point of view; it is a very poorly conceived plan from a counter-insurgency viewpoint.

How a mission oriented around convincing Afghans that ISAF and their government will guarantee security  - and has pushed Afghans to leave Marjah before escalation - could ignore the issue of temporary refugee resettlement is truly beyond me. 

An Update on the De-Ba'athification Crisis Posted by Michael Wahid Hanna

My post from last week on the Iraqi de-Ba’athification crisis (“An End to the De-Ba’athification Circus?) was titled with a question mark, meant to express a bit of hesitation in asserting that the pre-election vetting circus had truly come to an end. While there were at that time emerging indications that the electoral commission was unsure of the binding nature of the decision, it appeared that there were limited options in challenging the decision. This initial uncertainty was later amplified by a host of Shi’a politicians who were more forceful and explicit in their denunciations of the ruling (and U.S. interference), fueling a direct political intervention in the appeals process.

I had hoped that Iraqi politicians would use the court decision as a face-saving way to exit the country’s political crisis, particularly because those who orchestrated the electoral disqualifications had already managed to achieve many of their central aims: politicizing the environment on the basis of exaggerated fears of a Ba’athist re-emergence; creating a distinctly sectarian electoral narrative capitalizing on the understandable fears of their core constituency who suffered grievously under the Ba’athist regime; and limiting the acceptable room for operation of their Shi’a rivals who fear appearing to be weak on an issue that is central to post-war Shi’a identity.

But the Shi’a political class has rebelled against the appellate panel’s ruling. Instead of challenging the legality of the initial ruling through judicial channels, namely the Federal Supreme Court, these political actors have come to rely on ad hoc and non-transparent deals, which have now come to define the de-Ba’athification process. By thoroughly politicizing the current legal proceedings, these actions will have implications beyond the course of the campaign and will hamper the possibility of cross-sectarian government formation and inclusive governance. 

A brief update: following the announcement of the appellate decision delaying full adjudication of the disqualifications until after completion of the electoral process, various prominent Shi’a politicians, including the prime minister, attacked the propriety and legality of the decision and condemned interference by the United States, with pointed attacks on Vice President Biden and Ambassador Christopher Hill. This was accompanied by increasingly shrill rhetoric about Ba’athist penetration of the Iraqi state.

Al-Maliki had initially called for an emergency session of parliament to deal with the decision, with others suggesting that the meeting might result in a no-confidence motion against the seven-judge appellate panel. Calls for the emergency session were later dropped after a highly unusual meeting convened by Maliki with other key leaders and the head of the Higher Judicial Council, Medhat al-Mahmoud. Following the meeting, the appellate panel was directed to immediately recommence its review of all case files with decisions having to be announced prior to the start of the official electoral campaign period on February 12. It appears, based on the public statements of al-Maliki and others, that the impending decisions of the panel on the de-Ba’athification status of these individuals will bring this entire affair to a close.

Al-Mahmoud is a competent and respected jurist, but his decision to attend this overtly political meeting created a clear impression of political interference in judicial affairs and the instructions to the appellate panel to complete the review process prior to the start of the electoral campaign were based on unclear legal grounds. If in fact there was a serious complaint about the legality or the constitutionality of its decision, such determinations would have been properly made through formal petition of the Federal Supreme Court as opposed to ad hoc meetings with political leaders with no regard for transparency.

Sarah Palin Vs. John Brennan on Counterterroism Posted by James Lamond

For those who missed it this weekend, Sarah Palin put on quite a show.  At the teabagger conference the former vice presidential candidate touched upon national security, specifically counterterrorism.  About the Abdulmutallab case she said:

The choice was only question him for 50 minutes and then read his Miranda rights. The administration says then there are no downsides or upsides to treating terrorists like civilian criminal defendants. But a lot of us would beg to differ. For example, there are questions we would have liked this foreign terrorist to answer before he lawyered up and invoked our U.S. constitutional right to remain silent... There are questions that we would have liked answered before he lawyered up, like where exactly were you trained and by whom. You are bragging about all these other terrorists just like you, who are they? When and where will they try to strike next?

Palin joins her colleagues in the Senate, Senators Collins, Bond and McConnell -who said Larry King gives a tougher interview than the FBI -in insisting to go against the facts to push the meme the U.S. did not properly interrogate the Underwear Bomber.  It has been shown time and again that this is not the case.  In fact the FBI only read him his rights after he had stopped talking.  In addition, they continue to ignore the fact that Richard Reid was read his Miranda Rights when in 2001 -during the Bush administration -he was arrested for similarly trying to blow up a commercial flight.  So why the continued misleading on the facts and double standard?

John Brennan -the career CIA official, who describes himself as neither a Democrat nor a Republican -explains:

On Christmas night, I called a number of senior members of Congress.  I spoke to Senators McConnell and Bond, I spoke to Representative Boehner and Hoekstra.  I explained to them that he was in FBI custody, that Mr. Abdulmutallab was, in fact, talking, that he was cooperating at that point.  They knew that "in FBI custody" means that there's a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point.  They didn't say, "Is he going into military custody?" "Is he going to be Mirandized?" They were very appreciative of the information, we told them we'd keep them informed, and that's what we did.  So there's been a--quite a bit of an outcry after the fact where, again, I'm just very concerned on the behalf of the counterterrorism professionals throughout our government that politicians continue to make this a political football and are using it for whatever political or partisan purposes, whether they be Democrats or Republicans.

For some reason conservatives, who claim to be the ones who take national security so seriously, are the ones who don't seem to respect the men and women who serve in America's national security apparatus .  From the FBI to the intelligence community to the foreign service to America's veterans and even active military, conservatives in congress have continued to seek political gain at the expense of the the people serving in America's national security apparatus.

The War War War War War on Terror Posted by David Shorr

It's obvious that the administration doesn't take the terrorist threat seriously. Know how we can tell? Well, they refuse to outfit commercial airliners with air-to-air missiles and put armed commandos on board. They don't have military checkpoints at our international airports and border crossings. Oh, and what's the hold-up on invading Yemen, by the way? We hear a lot about Britain's homegrown and immigrant terrorists, yet Obama keeps stubbornly refusing to insert the 82nd Airborne into London. Doesn't he realize we're at war? And if he realized these terrorists mean to do us harm, he'd use the word war a lot more. "War war war war war war allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy war war war war war." See? Now I'M someone who takes terrorism seriously.

Okay, maybe all that is a slight exaggeration. But hyperbolic irony aside, isn't this the unexamined assumption underlying the whole law-enforcement-versus-war debate? Look back over the last several weeks, don't you feel like the war-fighting approach has gotten a free ride in terms of its proponents not being asked how it really works? Boy, talk about sound and fury. Hopefully the pendulum will swing the other way. After all, the American public did figure out that the Iraq War was creating more terrorists than it was stopping.

[See Richard Clarke to expose what the Republicans are really up to.]

Sen. Shelby Posted by David Shorr

Blanket hold:

While Nukes Proliferate, Bolton Repackages Failed Arguments Posted by The Editors

This post was written by Benjamin Loehrke, Research Assistant at Ploughshares Fund.

For more on Bolton's piece, see David Shorr's piece from Thursday.

While nukes proliferate, Obama Bolton fiddles Repackages Failed Arguments

By A Response to: John Bolton
Op-Ed Contributor Neo-con Pundit

Washington Examiner
February 5, 2010

In his lengthy State of the Union address Op-Ed, President Obama John Bolton was brief on national security issues nuclear terrorism, which he squeezed in toward the end beginning. Nonetheless, Obama Bolton boasted insinuated that "the United States and Russia are should not completeing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades" and that he President Obama is doesn’t really need trying to secure "all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years, so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists."

Then came Obama's Bolton’s critical linkage weak political hook: President Obama was wrong to say that "These diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons."

Obama Bolton described slighted the increasing "isolation" of both North Korea and Iran, the two most conspicuous -- but far from the only -- nuclear proliferators. He also mentioned slighted the increased sanctions imposed on Pyongyang, neglecting to mention he was in the Bush administration after during its North Korea’s second first nuclear test in 20069 and overlooking the lack of "growing consequences" he says put on Iran as its nuclear program accelerated will face because of his under the Bush administration’s policies.

Reducing Keeping our a massive nuclear arsenal will not somehow persuade Iran and North Korea to alter their behavior or encourage others to apply more pressure on them to do so. Obama's Bolton’s remarks reflect a complete misreading of strategic realities.

We have no need for further arms control treaties with Russia, especially ones that reduce our nuclear and delivery capabilities to Moscow's economically and strategically sustainable forced low levels on the road to a world without nuclear weapons. We have international obligations, moreover, that Russia does not, requiring our nuclear umbrella all of our military and diplomatic capabilities to afford protection to friends and allies worldwide as we work to reduce and prevent the nuclear threats we face.

Obama's Bolton’s policy tired narrative artificially inflates Russian the nuclear elements of the United States’ influence and, depending on the final agreement using the insightful logic that more nukes is good nukes, will likely hollowly posits that reducinge our nuclear and strategic delivery capabilities from 2200 to a meager 1500 nuclear is somehow dangerously and unnecessarily.

Meanwhile, Obama Bolton is relies on factually incorrect statements considering about treaty restrictions on our missile defense capabilities more damaging than his own previous unilateral reductions factually incorrect statements that the Bush administration’s European missile defense plans even had a chance at affecting the Iranian threat.

What warrants close attention is the jarring naïveté of arguing that reducing our nuclear capabilities will could ever inhibit nuclear proliferators. That would certainly surprise Tehran and Pyongyang.

Obama's Bolton’s insistence reminder that the evildoers – yes, evildoers - are "violating international agreements" is also startling, as if he believes that this were of equal importance predicament corrupts as the goal and means of the nonproliferation regime itself.

Conveniently validating the President’s argument, the premise underlying these Bolton’s assertions may well be found in Obama's smug earlier grown-up comment that we should "put aside the schoolyard taunts about who is tough. ... Let's leave behind the fear and division."

By reducing misrepresenting to the level of wayward boys the debates over whether his our national security policies are making us more or less secure, Obama Bolton reveals a deep disdain misunderstanding for that the decades of strategic thinking that kept America safe during the Cold War and afterward can somehow immediately be applied to the post-Cold War world. Even more pertinent, Obama's Bolton’s indifference and scorn for real threats are chilling auguries of what the next three years of his breathtaking failure of a public career may hold.

Obama Bolton has now explicitly chronically rejectsed the idea that U.S. weakness military aggression as an ends to itself is provocative, arguing instead that weakness regime change – despite the objections of our military’s top commander’s – will is the most efficient way to convince Tehran and Pyongyang to do the opposite of what they have been resolutely doing for decades -- vigorously pursuing their nuclear and missile programs just as easy as it was with Iraq. Obama's Bolton’s first five years in the Bush administration amply demonstrates that his approach will do did and can do nothing even to retard, let alone stop, Iran and North Korea.

Neither Bush nor Obama administration Bolton’s efforts toward lampooning of international sanctions while unambiguously lobbying for war have will not had have any measurable positive effect on American’s national security. While three sets of Security Council restrictions against Iran have only glancingly affected isolated Tehran's and constrained its nuclear program, and the Obama administration's Bolton’s threats of "crippling sanctions" monotonous drumbeat that Israel should bomb Iran have disappeared flared up along with each of last year's series of "deadlines" that Iran purportedly faced.

In response, Tehran's Bolton’s authoritarianism pontificating and belligerence have only increased.

With his counterproliferation strategies policy recommendations, such as they were while in the Bush administration, in disarray, Obama Bolton now unfailingly pins his hopes on moral suasion regime change, which has never influenced Iran, North Korea or any other determined proliferator. Perhaps it would have been better had the president's Bolton’s speech Op-Ed not mentioned national security at all.

----------------

John Bolton, the former interim U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who was never confirmed by a Republican Senate, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option."

How's That Counter-Terror Debate Working Out? Posted by David Shorr

God bless our own Adam Blickstein, who is on the case, right on the ball. He's there at every turn, exposing the deceit, hysteria and all-around ridiculousness of the opposition's fear-mongering. Adam and others have built up an overwhelming arsenal of facts about how effectively the justice system handles terrorists -- not only in prosecuting but in collecting actionable intel-- and examples showing the Bush Administration didn't even do what's being asked for. Boy,the voices of reason are mopping the floor with theoe shameless and dishonest manipulators.

Wait, revealing the facts hasn't sent the fear pushers running for the hills? What's going on here? In all seriousness, doesn't this debate have a weird through-the-looking glass feel to it? What's the way back to a right-side-up world?

Maybe part of it is to pull back from the trees of the facts to see the forest of the overall deception. I don't think the idea of politicizing national security really captures the bald mendacity at work here. These arguments are vapor. There's nothing to them. They're wild fantasy, being pulled out of conservatives' -- I mean pulled out of the air. (Of course, it would help if these points weren't given the media space so that they look simply like one side of an honest disagreement.)

I like to read foreign policy books. I particularly like to read foreign policy books by journalists. One of my favorites is Ron Suskind's One Percent Doctrine, which might point toward the answer here. The main theme of the book is to draw a contrast between the day-to-day work of hunting down terrorists and the maniacal do-what-looks-and-feels-the-toughest crusade of Vice President Cheney and the cabal.

I know we can't all be Stephen Colbert, but we could at least take inspiration from his send-up of conservatives outrage over Obama's failure to say "win" in his Afghanistan speech. Perhaps more than any other issue, the law enforcement v. war debate is a battle between reality-based seriousness and utter unseriousness.