Update: The Torture Blame Game

Yesterday we noted the Senate Armed Services Committee's report concluding that top Bush Administration officials authorised the abuse and, dare you use the word, torture of detainees. Dan Froomkin, the outstanding blogger for The Washington Post, has an excellent round-up of the report and coverage.

It is his personal question, however, that is most striking:

There's...the obvious question that comes to mind after considering the sequence of events: How are these not war crimes?

Zimbabwe Update: The Ripples Reach America

Almost a week after Enduring America noted that the Zimbabwe story was absent from the US media, in contrast to coverage indicating Sudan as a priority for the Obama Administration, reporters for the New York Times and Washington Post have noticed the crisis in the country.



The Times story is more dramatic with the headline "Cholera is Raging, Despite Denial by Debate" and a personalised story of the five youngest children dying in a family. The Post story is less subjective in framing, "Mugabe Calls Cholera Crisis Over as Deaths Rise to 783", as it --- unlike the Times --- notes:

Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called on African nations to use force to depose Mugabe. This week, President Bush, echoing calls from France and Britain, said it was "time for Robert Mugabe to go.

Beyond that reference, however, neither story offers any indication of a change in US policy towards intervention.

War on Terror Strategy: Let's Make Stuff Up

In today's Washington Post, Richard Clarke, formerly Counter-terrorism Coordinator under Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, takes on the War on Terror in a different way: instead of considering the present, he projects the future.

Clarke, who left the Bush Administration in 2002, later said --- in publication and before the 9-11 Commission --- that Bush and advisors paid little attention to the terrorist threat before September 2001 because they were focused on a showdown with Iraq. After 11 September, they got that showdown in part by creating a fantasy alliance between Iraq and Al-Qa'eda.

So it is hyper-ironic that Clarke, to advise the US where to strike next, creates a fantasy alliance between Al-Qa'eda, the Taliban, other Pakistani insurgent groups, and elements of the Pakistani Government:



Perhaps the leaders of al-Qaeda, the Taliban movement that is again on the march in Afghanistan and some Pakistani terrorist groups obsessed with Kashmir [will] also come together...in a safe house owned by a sympathetic retired Pakistani leader of the country's powerful and shadowy military intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI).

Clarke the Clairvoyant then creates a conversation led by Osama bin Laden and joined by Taliban leader Mullah Omar, "Hakimullah Mehsud, a leader of a Pakistani group also known as the Taliban" (which, to say the least, is a bit confusing for the reader), "the red-bearded Sayeed" of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Al Qa'eda Number Two Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The climax of the discussion?

Bin Laden raises his head, and a wry smile passes briefly over his face. "[Obama's] economy is badly ill. If it gets much worse, he will have to bring all of his troops home. So . . . we may have to increase their pain level. We have done that before."

While I love a good story, I wouldn't have recommended, say, Tom Clancy as a guide for dealing with the Soviets in the Cold War or J.K. Rowling as a blueprint for my children to make it through school. And so Clarke's made-up intelligence of "reports that al-Qaeda has created joint fighting units with the Taliban, which are attacking U.S. bases in Afghanistan from their sanctuary inside Pakistan" --- and the judgement of the editorial staff of The Washington Post --- should be shelved under Fantasy.

Why? Because such imaginary wanderings disregard the complexities of the local and regional situation. One could make the argument that Al Qa'eda --- as strategist, as planner, and even as ideological leader --- is now peripheral. Other groups, drawing their inspiration from conflicts closer to home --- the de facto civil wars in Afghanistan and possibly in Pakistan, the unresolved and still destabilising "grey areas" such as Kashmir --- are waging their battles.

Why? Because Clarke's response to those battles is the snap recommendation that drops a bomb on any consideration of those issues:

We must now eliminate the new terrorist safe haven in Pakistan. But that will require effective action from a weak and riven Pakistani government.

Since unilateral US actions against the "safe haven" are likely to weaken and possibly fragment the "weak and riven" Pakistani government, it's a self-fulfilling fantasy. No one will be safer, but Mr Clarke can return with a sequel to his fantastic tale next year, offering us more "terrorists" in lieu of any thought of how to deal with the causes behind that terrorism.

Pilot Podcast: The (Continuing) War on Terror

Enduring America history: following up on yesterday's post about The (Continuing) War on Terror: Kill All the Crazies, this is our pilot podcast.

The Washington Post proposes, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, “a crackdown on terrorists”.

But how shall we crack down on terrorists? Certainly not by treating them as rational and thus understanding how they could justify these killings.

Listen to podcast

The (Continuing) War on Terror: Let's Kill All the Crazies

Later today, Enduring America's inaugural podcast will be on the following topic:

The Washington Post proposes, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, "a crackdown on terrorists".

But how shall we crack down on terrorists? Certainly not by treating them as rational and thus understanding how they could justify these killings --- for David Aaronovitch, "There isn't anything - whatever the explanatists say - we can concede to the zealots of Faridkot that will persuade such people, once radicalised, not to try to kill us. " Certainly not through any process of international law, enforcement, or co-operation, as Robert Kagan argues --- apparently oblivious of the consequences, including the possible reinforcement of "terror", of US bombing and targeted assassination amongst local populations --- we should be "establishing the principle that Pakistan and other states that harbor terrorists should not take their sovereignty for granted".

By treating the terrorists solely as men and women "brainwashed by an ideology of hatred", we can adopt violent measure in response, set aside any notion of law, morality, and ethics, and conduct a war without end. Indeed, we can honour ourselves for doing so. As William Kristol advocates, we can "be vociferously praising--everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror", be this through waterboarding, surveillance, rendition, and even assassination --- "but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points".*

President Bush, in his apology which wasn't really an apology this week, said, "I wish the intelligence had been different" on Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. If the intelligence had been different - in other words, if it could have magically produced those WMDs --- then there would have been a rational basis for an invasion to overthrow the evil and irrationality of Saddam Hussein.

Maybe five years from now, an Aaronovitch or Kagan or Kristol --- after there is more violence, more terrorism, more conflict --- will admit some recognition that your enemy is rational and that he/she sees a cause for their violence. Maybe they will recognise that dealing with the cause, while it may or may not deter a particular individual from his/her path, will in long run drain the swamp that supports the mosquitoes.

Then again, probably not.

*Not-so-tangential note: Like Kagan, Kristol has a warning for those who aren't patriotic enough to deal with the crazies in their midst:

"In a nation like Pakistan, the government will have to be persuaded to deal with those in their midst who are complicit. This can happen if those nations’ citizens decide they don’t want their own country to be dishonored by allegiances with terror groups. Otherwise, other nations may have to act."