Mitt on START

Kaplan has a comprehensive takedown of Mitt Romney's critique on the new START treaty.

Senator Lugar(R) went to town on him as well.  Here's a quick quote:

Governor Mitt Romney's hyperbolic attack on the New START Treaty in the July 6 edition of The Washington Post repeats discredited objections and appears unaware of arms control history and context. In advancing these arguments, he rejects the Treaty's unequivocal endorsement by the Defense Department led by Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also distances himself from prominent Republican national security leaders, including Jim Schlesinger, Henry Kissinger, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft, who have backed the Treaty after thoughtful analysis.

Rough.

Waiting for the Attack...

If you look at Al Qaeda's timing, a striking pattern emerges which makes perfect sense in light of their strategic goals.  Remember, bin Laden said:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.

He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."

"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

Al Qaeda thinks they won the Cold War, thank you very much!

In order to achieve these goals, they need reactionary, traumatized Presidents.  Therefore, they strike at the beginning of President's terms.  They were founded in 1990, and their first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center came in 1993, at the beginning of Clinton's term.  Clinton dealt with the pressure brilliantly - prosecuting and imprisoning those responsible.  Who knows what his reaction would have been if they had succeeded in bringing down the tower, however.

Bush, we all know, watched as 9/11 occurred 20% into his first term in office, and he did not handle it nearly so well.  He played right into bin Laden's hands, giving him the economically draining and Muslim-radicalizing war he wanted.

So, the question is, when is Obama's attack scheduled?  It'll come in the first year, if the pattern holds.

... Unless, of course, the terrorists see what I do in this young President.  I don't think he'll play into their hands the way our Cowboy President did, so they might be better served in waiting to attack in Q2-Q3 2012, thereby removing him from office in the elections.  If I were them, that's what I'd do.  Obama is never going to serve their strategic goals.

RedState Checkin

Here's an interestingly dumb story from Redstate:

LATimes: Obama’s New Muslim Appointment is Hope… for Egyptians?

I will begin this right at the top by saying that I don’t care a whit if the appointment of any American official brings hope to Egyptians. After all, an American official should be concerned with America’s interests not Egypt’s.

...

However, apparently the L.A. Times thinks that it is germane to U.S. interests that Egyptians are “rejoicing” that President Obama has appointed a female American Muslim to his administration. In, “Muslim woman’s appointment as Obama advisor draws cautious optimism” from April 22, Noha El-Hennawy is reporting from Cairo that Egyptians are happy with Obama’s purported outreach to Muslims.

Oh yes, I agree with Red State!  In a war against a decentralized, stateless enemy who relies on radicalizing Muslim youths to fill their ranks, there's absolutely no point in America making those Muslim youth's feel better about America.  Indeed, as RedState tells us, how Muslim youths feel about America isn't "germane to U.S. interests."

What a bunch of toolbags.

RedState Thinks Armed Forces Command Themselves?

Obama gave the order for violent escalation last Friday, and today everything was in place for the operation to go forward.

A senior US official tells me that President Barack Obama approved a recommendation by Defense Secretary Bob Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen to dispatch special forces to the US scene on Friday.

These special forces were authorized to take action "in extremis" against the Somali pirates holding Maersk Captain Richard Phillips, 53, hostage on a motorized lifeboat off the coast of Somalia.

A senior official tells me that when the fourth Somali pirate was on the Bainbridge ship, Phillips moved to side of the lifeboat to relieve himself.

At that point, U.S. special forces saw their opportunity and took other three pirates out.

Captain Phillips is now safe aboard a U.S. vessel.

It's "going to make a great movie," a U.S. official adds.

RedState is having none of it:

In the end, Captain Phillips wasn’t saved by the President, but by his own courageous plunge and the deadly professionalism of our men with guns. The President, you see, was saved by the Captain.

They spin a story of the President paralyzed with fear, unable to contemplate that most horrible option of using force.  Then, when the deed is done all they can muster is "Obama doesn't deserve credit!"  

Once again, this is an utter failure of expectations management by the GOP.  They have to learn that Obama is playing long ball here, and that by trying to react with maximum indignation within every newscycle they end up looking like craven, waffling idiots, unable to craft any sort of coherent message and clearly uninterested in the task of governing.

Will this sort of frantic attack on every front eventually result in Obama's approval ratings falling, or will it serve to help keep the GOP isolated to the Talk Radio extremes?  We'll see.

What Digby Said

Keeping It Quiet

by digby

Over the week-end, I wrote a bit about the latest torture revelations concerning Abu Zubayda and the fact that everything they got from him under "enhanced interrogations" turned out to be garbage. I mused that they didn't really care what the torture revealed, merely that they got lots of "metrics" that could show they were making progress in the GWOT with their macho tactics. Reader Sleon pointed me in the direction of this post by Bmaz at Emptywheel which adds another intriguing bit of speculation along the same lines:

Such is the clincher as to why the torture tapes had to be destroyed. It wasn't just that Bush/Cheney et. al wanted to keep evidence of their torture program secret, there was never any complete way to do that. But there was only one thing that could prove they tortured for nothing and got nothing - the tapes. Cheney and his coterie of fellow Torquemadas were fiends proud of their handiwork; if they had evidence that it worked, they would have kept it. They burn spies for fun, crow on television about their willingness to torture and what they have accomplished, do you really think for one second they wouldn't retain proof if they had it?

And let us not forget just who we are talking about here - it is the White House Principals group:

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet and Ashcroft. Means, motive and opportunity. Who could have imagined?

This certainly explains why it was top White House lawyers including Gonzales, Addington, Bellinger and Miers, with "vigorous sentiment", assisted the CIA in the decision and process to destroy the torture tapes of abu-Zubaydah and others.

(Every time I am reminded of that principles group watching "choreographed" torture before signing off on it, I am shocked and appalled all over again. )

As to the question at hand, considering the fact that Cheney and Rummy spent their entire careers trying to correct what they considered the sins of the Nixon administration, Bmaz's speculation makes sense. After all, they believed that Nixon's catastrophic error was failing to destroy the ... tapes.

No International Vacations for the Bush Admin.

It looks like Spain might be getting ready to give the Bushies the Pinochet treatment:

A high-level Spanish court has taken the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation against six former Bush administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify the use of torture of American prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an official close to the case said.

The case was sent to the prosecutor's office for review by Baltasar Garzon, the crusading investigative judge who indicted the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The official said that it was "highly probable" that the case would go forward and could lead to arrest warrants.

No international vacations for any of the National Security "Principles" that approved torture.

Predator's Cat Outta the Bag

Back in 2006, the following image of a Pakistani airstrip was taken and merged into Google Earth:

This comes on the heels of Sen. Boxer's embarrassing slip that she understood the drone flights were based out of Pakistan.  She did a good job of covering for herself, saying that she was referencing a new story, not any privileged intelligence, but this seems to confirm the story.

The Pakistanis are not going to be happy.

(h/t Wired)

Obama Learns his Lessons

Obama on Bipartisanship:

They were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about the tax cut that were presented in that framework. Those tax cuts are still in there. I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that’s the lesson I learned.

That's what we've been saying, but Obama is too damned sincere in his desire to change Washington. Making a deal with the Republicans for votes in exchange for 35-40% tax cuts would have been a better political tactic, but it also would have been closer to business-as-usual in Washington. Obama, to his credit, started out with something that "pleasantly surprised" the Republicans.

I think he'll continue in this vein, continuing to burnish his bipartisan cred with the public, and only thwack Republicans over the head when he's in a commanding enough position.  He's not good on the attack - he's good on the counter-attack.

Terrorist Watchlist Edits

We've known for years the the Terrorist Watch List has millions of names on it, rendering it worse than useless as a tool for preventing actual terrorism.  Well, the Congress has finally gotten the ball rolling on fixing the program:

The House passed a bill Tuesday aimed at helping people who have been misidentified as terrorists clear their names from government watch lists and databases.

The bill (HR 559), sponsored by Yvette D. Clarke , D-N.Y., passed by a vote of 413-3....“This is a good bill,” said Pete Olson , R-Texas. “This is a bipartisan bill.”

It's always been sort of Kafkaesque that a gigantic security bureaucracy could stick your name on a terrorist watchlist and basically give you no way to get it off. It's long past time for Congress to address this.

About time.  Everyone agreed it was a problem, but the Republicans couldn't bring themselves to vote for it until Bush left town.

Hearts and Minds!

Now this is how you fight the War on Terror:

Al-Qaeda chiefs are raping young male converts to shame them into becoming suicide bombers, it emerged yesterday.

The intense social stigma and fear of more gay sex attacks leaves Muslims prepared to die.

The warped new tactic was revealed by a reformed Algerian militant. Abu Baçir El Assimi said: “The sexual act on young recruits aged between 16 to 19 was a means to urge them to commit suicide operations.”

Brilliant Psy-Ops!  I don't begin to care if this is true.  I'm sure that the CIA could engineer enough first-hand evidence to make it appear true enough for some Arab new outlets to run the story.  If we could push this meme into the consciousness of the Arab Street, we'll have won the war without dropping another bomb.

Terrorists in our Neighborhoods

It shouldn't require explanation, but we already have a bunch of terrorists "in your neighborhoods."  Greenwald provides a helpful list:

1. Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted, 1996, U.S. District Court (before then-U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey) -- plotting terrorist attacks on the U.S. (currently: U.S. prison, Butler, North Carolina);
2. Zacarias Moussaoui, convicted, 2006, U.S. Federal Court -- conspiracy to commit the 9/11 attacks (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
3. Richard Reid, convicted, 2003, U.S. Federal Court -- attempting to blow up U.S.-bound jetliner over the Atlantic Ocean (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
4. Jose Padilla, convicted, 2007, U.S. Federal Court -- conspiracy to commit terrorism (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
5. Iyman Faris a/k/a/ Mohammad Rauf, convicted, 2003, U.S. Federal Court -- providing material support and resources to Al-Qaeda, conspiracy to commit terrorist acts on behalf of Al Qaeda (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado);
6. Ali Saleh al-Marri, accused Al Qaeda operative -- not yet tried, held as "unlawful enemy combatant" (currently: U.S. Naval Brig, Hanahan, South Carolina);
7. Masoud Khan, convicted, 2004, U.S. Federal Court -- conspiracy to commit terrorism as part of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Islamic jihad (currently: U.S. prison, Terre Haute, Indiana);
8. John Walker Lindh, convicted, 2002, U.S. Federal Court -- providing material support to the Taliban (currently: U.S. prison, Florence, Colorado).
   

It should go without saying that if some Gitmo detainees cannot be convicted, they wouldn't be released in America since they aren't American citizens.

That doesn't stop Republicans from being idiots about it:

Republican lawmakers, who oppose Mr. Obama’s plan, found a talking point with political appeal. They said closing Guantánamo could allow dangerous terrorists to get off on legal technicalities and be released into quiet neighborhoods across the United States. If the detainees were convicted, the Republicans continued, American prisons housing terrorism suspects could become magnets for attacks.

These people are morons.

Update:  Why is the Daily Show smarter than the entire Republican Caucus?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Guantanamo Baywatch - The Final Season

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Gitmo's Superb Treatment of Prisoners

For those Republicans who like to cite the Halal meals provided to Gitmo detainees as proof that the place isn't so bad, and is in fact nicer than domestic prisons, I'd direct you to this statement by the Lead Prosecutor in the case of Mohammed Jawad. Mr. Jawad was picked up in Afghanistan when he was between 15 and 17 years old, and has been held since 2002.

Remember, this is from the Lead Prosecutor, not a defense attorney:

"As early as November 2003, Joint Task Force-GTMO ("JTF-GTMO") personnel used sleep deprivation to disorient specific detainees for intelligence purposes. Pursuant to this technique, euphemistically referred to as the "frequent flyer" program, a detainee would be repeatedly moved from one cell to another in quick intervals, throughout the day and night, to disrupt sleep cycles.

48. Military records show that Mohammed was subjected to the "frequent flyer" program from May 7 to May 20, 2004. Over that fourteen-day period, Mohammed was forcibly moved from cell to cell 112 times, on an average of about once every three hours, and prevented from sleeping. Mohammed's medical records indicate that significant health effects he suffered during this time include blood in his urine, bodily pain, and a weight loss of 10% from April 2004 to May 2004."

Something that causes blood in the urine could never be described as Torture.  Heavens, no.

"During the interrogation, Mohammed allegedly made incriminating statements and a document, purporting to be a confession, was prepared for him to "sign" with his thumbprint. Mohammed did not know what the document was, did not read it, and was told he needed to put his thumb print on it to be released.

25. The written statement allegedly containing Mohammed's confession and thumbprint is in Farsi. Mohammed does not read, write, or speak Farsi. There are several factual assertions in the statement that are false, including Mohammed's name, his father's name, his grandfather's name, his uncle's name, his residence, his current residence, his age, and an assertion that he speaks English. The statement's account of the grenade attack -- the responsibility for which the statement ascribes solely to Mohammed -- conflicts with the eyewitness accounts of the American victims. Yet, it was this statement that Respondents and their agents primarily relied on as a basis for Mohammed's detention, and for the charges brought against him in the Guantanamo Military Commissions.

Ahhhh, false confessions - the one thing that torture is good at producing.  In fact, the Communist program, from which our torture programs have been developed, was explicitly designed to produce false confessions.

"7. It is important to understand that the "case files" compiled at OMC-P or developed by CITF are nothing like the investigation and case files assembled by civilian police agencies and prosecution offices, which typically follow a standardized format, include initial reports of investigation, subsequent reports compiled by investigators, and the like. Similarly, neither OMC-P nor CITF maintained any central repository for case files, any method for cataloguing and storing physical evidence, or any other system for assembling a potential case into a readily intelligible format that is the sine qua non of a successful prosecution. While no experienced prosecutor, much less one who had performed his or her duties in the fog of war, would expect that potential war crimes would be presented, at least initially, in "tidy little packages," at the time I inherited the Jawad case, Mr. Jawad had been in U.S. custody for approximately five years. It seemed reasonable to expect at the very least that after such a lengthy period of time, all available evidence would have been collected, catalogued, systemized, and evaluated thoroughly -- particularly since the suspect had been imprisoned throughout the entire time the case should have been undergoing preparation.

8. Instead, to the shock of my professional sensibilities, I discovered that the evidence, such as it was, remained scattered throughout an incomprehensible labyrinth of databases primarily under the control of CITF, or strewn throughout the prosecution offices in desk drawers, bookcases packed with vaguely-labeled plastic containers, or even simply piled on the tops of desks vacated by prosecutors who had departed the Commissions for other assignments. I further discovered that most physical evidence that had been collected had either disappeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, the Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty. The state of disarray was so extensive that I later learned, as described below, that crucial physical evidence and other documents relevant to both the prosecution and the defense had been tossed into a locker located at Guantanamo and promptly forgotten. Although it took me a number of months -- so extensive was the lack of any discernable organization, and so difficult was it for me to accept that the US military could have failed so miserably in six years of effort -- I began to entertain my first, developing doubts about the propriety of attempting to prosecute Mr. Jawad without any assurance that through the exercise of due diligence I could collect and organize the evidence in a manner that would meet our common professional obligations."

Amazing.  This was America engaging in this type of behavior.  America.

This makes us less safe, plain and simple.  This type of behavior gives moral justification to our enemies, strengthening their hearts and causing recruitment to explode.  In a war that has no centralized enemy, the only path to victory is through hearts and minds - and that's not some liberal peacenik saying that, that's Admiral Mullen.

Update: The Daily Show has been indispensable:

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Gitmo's World - Death to America

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Torture Motivates Our Enemies

From one of the lead interrogators in the War on Terror.

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

It's so obvious... the soldiers volunteered.  The all-volunteer force allowed the Bush Administration to use them in ways that no government with a conscripted force would ever contemplate.  They are expendable, both in the field and once they return home.  The GI Bill and the Walter Reed scandal is all the proof you need on that last point.  "Support the Troops" really means "Support All Wars."

I'd say it is equally obvious that these practices have made our homeland less secure as well as our troops in the field.  In the mythical Jack Bauer situation, where we know there is an imminent attack and we know that someone in custody knows how to stop it, then no jury would convict a Bauer-type for doing what they thought they needed to do to avert the attack.  The problem is enshrining that torture as legal.  If it's legal, it'll happen routinely.  It will become the norm rather than the exception, and then America will cease to be a Shining City on the Hill, and join the ranks of ordinary nations and tinpot dictators.  In fact, that is exactly what has happened under the Bush Torture Regime.  To think that these dirt-poor, illiterate youths that are susceptible to radicalization will only strike in Iraq against US Forces is naive.  If they had the chance to strike America itself, I don't think there is much doubt as to which target they would prefer.

This concern isn't borne out of some liberal hippie-dippie desire to be nice to everyone and drop flowers instead of bombs.  Being seen as the Shining City is the greatest Strategic Weapon America has at its disposal.  It is a weapon we can use freely, for it creates no blowback.  Ronald Reagan understood this, but the Republican Party that worships him has decided he was wrong.  They're still on board with the deficit-spending, favor-the-rich, tax-cuts-solve-everything policies, but the Shining City - that's liberal mushiness and naivete.

AP: Al Qaeda Endorses McCain!

Al Qaeda knows who will play into their grand strategy.  The Republicans:

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

As I said.

bin Laden's GOTV Effort

Isn't it about time for a Osama bin Laden to release a video?  He's the Republican's best Get Out The Vote organization.

I wonder, do you think bin Laden knows the saying "The friend of my enemy is my enemy?"

Incidentally, McCain's campaign manager has said an attack or bin Laden video would be good for the campaign, and McCain himself, after the video released right before the 2004 election, said "Bin Laden may have just given us a little boost. Amazing, huh?"

Petraeus thinks McCain is Wrong on Foreign Policy

General Petraeus, hippie liberal that he is, thinks John McCain is wrong on the Foreign Policy of not talking with our enemies.



Remember, this is the man who wont use the word "victory" to describe our goal in Iraq. It seems like he doesn't see America the way you and I see America. I bet he's about to start palling around with Terrorists! [/Palin]

Competing Visions of Debate Prep

This is just precious.

McCain's going to prepare for the first debate with a nap, and Obama will prepare with a workout.

Powell Smacks McCain

Powell says that Georgia provoked this conflict foolishly, and if they had been advised differently by the people they were talking to it might have been avoided.  Remember, McCain was talking to the Georgian President "every day."

He says that "one of our candidates" jumped in on one side of the conflict "inappropriately" and "emotionally."

I can't wait for his endorsement of Obama.

Bush Gives Order Allowing Attacks in Pakistan

This is yet another instance in Foreign Policy where the Bush Administration has come around to Barack Obama's view:

President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.

Remember that McCain mocked Obama for exactly this policy. I wonder, will he be grilled on whether or not he supports this latest move by the increasingly realist Bush Administration?

Brits Disapprove of McCain's Reckless Georgia Reaction

The WaPo reports:

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly proclaimed that it is time to kick Russia out of the "Group of Eight" organization of industrial powers, even before Russia's recent conflict with Georgia. But the idea has not been embraced by many foreign policy experts, who tend to view it as needlessly provocative.

Today, the top diplomat of one of the U.S.'s closest allies, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, weighed in, calling the notion "knee-jerk," though he did not mention McCain's name.

In a tough speech delivered in Kiev, Ukraine, Miliband said Russia will face consequences for its actions in Georgia. But he added: "In all international institutions, we need to review our relations with Russia. I do not apologize for rejecting knee-jerk calls for Russia to be expelled from the G8, or for EU-Russia or NATO-Russia relations to be broken. But we do need to examine the nature, depth and breadth of relations with Russia."

The Brits want Obama, just like everyone else in the world except those who thrive on division, like Al Qaeda. They see him as reckless, shooting from the hip. So does everyone else.