Matthew Duss

Of Churchills, Chamberlains, and Hitlers

My latest in the Guardian:

Nearing the end of his presidency, and saddled with a record of unmitigated foreign policy disaster, George Bush seems to have discovered a way to reestablish his national security bona fides, a peg upon which to hang his legacy: steadfast opposition to Nazi Germany.

Speaking to the Israeli Knesset last week, President Bush attacked those who "believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals." Bush stated: "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

On one hand, this is understandable. Despite his facade of self-assurance, President Bush is a man who craves affirmation and applause. And let's face it: if there's one place in the world where coming out strong against Nazi Germany is sure to get you a nice standing ovation, it's the Knesset.

On the other hand, the spectacle of an American president using a speech in a foreign capital to attack his domestic political opponents is the latest example of this president's divisive tendency to politicise national security. President Bush has consistently tried to divide Americans through fear because he has neither the ability nor inclination to unite us with hope and aspiration. This is part of his legacy.

The president's attempt at argumentum ad hitlerum was useful, however, in that it clearly displayed, once again, the simplistic national security mentality of conservatives. In their uncomplicated worldview, every actor can be cast in one of three roles: Hitler, Chamberlain or Churchill.

Read the whole thing.

More Gasoline For The Fire

Just what the Middle East needs, more high-tech weapons floating around:

The Joint Direct Attack Munition is a kit that, when added to the back end of a 500- or 2,000-pound "dumb" bomb, turns it into a lethal, all-weather "smart" weapon. The bomb can hit within four feet of a target when launched from a fighter aircraft more than 10 miles away. The kits and bombs are a prominent part of the $20 billion U.S. arms package for Persian Gulf states that has been in the works since last summer. President Bush discussed the package with Arab leaders during his recent trip to the Gulf.

[...]

[The Congressional Research Service] notes that "significant arms sales, prolonged military training programs, material pre-positioning and basing arrangements, joint exercises and direct military interventions have characterized U.S. policy toward the Gulf region." In short, without much public debate, the Bush administration has expanded previous multilateral cooperation with Gulf states on defense, including "discussion on securing key sites, in spite of historic sensitivities regarding sovereignty and foreign participation in the regional energy industry," the CRS report says.

I commented on the arms deal last August, noting that it represents a clear admission of failure of President Bush's Iraq-centric Middle East security strategy. It also represents an abandonment of Bush's program of democracy promotion for a return to a policy of supporting the Arab authoritarians we know, in an effort to contain the numerous, and not yet fully comprehended, bad effects of the Iraq war.

(c/p to TAPPED)

What We Need Is Awareness, We Can't Get Careless.

I strongly recommend Brian Katulis's article from yesterday. As he indicates, we are in a key moment for progressives on national security right now. Given the momentous and comprehensive failure of conservative ideology in the Middle East, progressives have an opportunity to redraw the boundaries of the national security debate in the U.S., and it's imperative that we recognize and make the most of it. Katulis offers some very smart suggestions on how to begin to do that.

I think a big test for progressives is how we continue to deal with the myth of the surge. It's a tough one: people like hearing good news better than bad news, and tend to be more forgiving of sunny BSers than they are of hard truth-tellers. We're also confronted with an administration and a deep-pocketed neoconservative faction whose reputations are tied to Iraq, and who have proven time after time that they have no compunction about hiding behind the troops in order to advance astonishingly dishonest claims about the war's progress, or about mau-mauing the press into accepting those claims. But make no mistake: What is being sold as the surge's success is in reality simply the result of a reversal in policy toward empowering Iraqi warlords and militias and entrenching the forced segregation and fragmentation of the country toward achieving a short-term drop in violence while preparing the ground for future conflicts. Promoting this as "success" is as cynical and mendacious as anything this administration and its enablers have done.

Michael Massing has a devastating article collecting the accounts of many Iraqis' experiences under the American occupation, and how this has discredited America in their eyes for at least a generation. This, as well as the rise of Iran, the vindication of Osama bin Laden's claims about Western intentions, the proliferation of new, cheaper, and deadlier guerrilla tactics, the strengthening of anti-Americanism throughout the region, and not any "Anbar miracle," is George W. Bush's true legacy in Iraq. Any suggestion of where to go from here should begin with that.

Another Kind Of Iraq Blowback

Negar Azimi explains how, rather than continuing to pressure Egypt on human rights and democratic reform, the Bush administration has reverted to supporting Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship, treating it as an ally in the "war on terror" and a bulwark against the growing Iranian and Islamist influence which has resulted from the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Isn't that wonderful? By agreeing to be a recipient of extraordinary rendition detainees, you too can get the heat off your authoritarian regime.

There's no overstating how deeply dispiriting this sort of thing is to Arab political reformers, or how strongly it confirms al-Qaeda propaganda about American methods and intentions in the Middle East. Ayman al-Zawahiri was himself radicalized by the torture he endured in Mubarak's prisons, and now, after a head fake in the direction of political reform, the U.S. is back to underwriting that torture. Ring, freedom, ring.

No Appreciable Impact

The Beirut Daily Star's Rami Khouri commentson Karen Hughes' resignation as the State Department's Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs:

"Her office had no appreciable impact on improving global perceptions of the United States, and in some situations made things worse, especially when she and some of her colleagues spoke to audiences in the Middle East with a combination of political condescension, cultural arrogance, and aggressive moralizing. I had the chance to see her perform in person a few times, and it was always a painful experience. Those left behind in her wake should analyze the last two years honestly, and come up with policies and strategies that shed the sort of racism, fantasy communication and self-delusional political and moral evasion of responsibility that the hapless Hughes and her colleagues practiced with a gusto that was matched by their obvious irrelevance and failure.

[...]

The core, devastating flaw in her entire mission was to completely separate the world's critical views of the US government from the conduct of American foreign policy itself. She assumed that the problem was that foreigners misunderstood American values or foreign policy goals - but she never tried to understand Arab-Muslims in the same way she asked them to understand her country and its policies."

Indeed.

There Is No Way To Unscrew This Pooch

Yoram Schweitzer, writing in Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth, throws some cold water on claims of victory against al-Qaeda:

"Al-Qaeda has already achieved several of its goals in Iraq, and while these may be circumscribed, they will not be reversed entirely. The global jihad has indeed been reinvigorated and been granted a new pretext and new context for its continued struggle, for new recruitment, and for accelerated training of new combatants.

[...]

Moreover, Iraq for al-Qaeda is one of many theaters whose achievements can be transplanted elsewhere. The first of these alternate arenas, which is experiencing something of a revival in the last year, is Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda fighters, supported by the Taliban, have begun to recover and exploit the topographical advantages of the terrain to launch guerilla and terrorist attacks against the Karzai regime and the coalition forces. At the same time, al-Qaeda cells are operating in Pakistan against the Musharraf government and are using Pakistani cities as training grounds for terrorist cells that are to be dispatched around the world.

The risk, then, of the inevitable phenomenon of "Iraqi alumni" who are sent to execute terror attacks all over the world, poses a serious question as to the extent of the American victory against al-Qaeda."

Last July, a spokesman for Iraq’s Muslim Scholars Association (via Charles Levinson) put it this way:

"The Arabs went to Afganistan and got a masters in violent Jihad, but in Iraq they’re all getting PhDs."

This, once again, gets at the massive strategic blunder that was the invasion of Iraq. Remember, attracting militants and terrorists from around the Islamic world was sold as a feature, not a bug, of the Iraq war. Flypaper Theory, they called it. The idea was, we get all these militant extremists in one place, and then...kill them. In the words of Edmund Blackadder, there was just one small problem with this plan. It was bollocks.

Rather than simply coming to Iraq, dropping their suitcases, and then flinging themselves onto American bayonets, Islamic militants came and learned. They learned how to build bombs, and they learned where and how to most effectively use those bombs. And, as U.S. forces learned how to defend against those bombs, militants developed techniques to circumvent those defenses, and so on. Just as importantly, the Iraq jihad front created opportunities for Islamic militants to develop personal relationships and networks with other radicals, networks that they bring with them as they return to their home countries and continue to militate against U.S. allies and interests, as is already happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, and elsewhere. Just as the war against the Soviets in Afganistan was the defining experience for one generation of radical mujahideen, so the war against America in Iraq has become for another. Even if Iraq were, somehow, to become a functioning democratic state, this would not be reversed. I think we haven't yet begun to grasp the repercussions of this.

Criminalizing Charity

Stephen Emerson, arguing that the failure of U.S. prosecutors to convict the members of the Holy Land Foundation is actually proof that the members of Holy Land Foundation are guilty of the crimes with which they were charged:

"To be sure, the mistrial was portrayed as another in a series of setbacks for the government's anti-terror prosecution strategy. Notably, several jurors seemed to discount the testimony of an Israeli security expert, testifying under an assumed name, apparently on the belief that Israelis cannot be trusted on Palestinian matters."

Or, alternatively, on the belief that convicting Americans of supporting terrorism should require more than the word of an Israeli Shin Bet agent testifying under a pseudonym.

"Some jurors may even have bought the defense argument that anti-Israel terror isn't truly terrorism, but merely "resisting the occupation." One juror told the Dallas Morning News of his difficulty in describing Hamas as a terrorist group, stating, "Part of it does terrorist acts, but it's a political movement. It's an uprising."

The Dallas Morning News also noted that the juror "has lived in Europe," which is probably where his "moral clarity" was muddied, and which also might explain his immunity to arguments that portray every act of resistance against Israel’s illegal occupation, including support for medical clinics, as “anti-Israel terror.”

David Feige, writing in Slate:

"The indictment essentially conceded that the money HLF donated was used to build hospitals and aid the poor, yet it accused the charity and its officers and fund-raisers of aiding a terrorist organization by helping it spread its ideology and recruit members. Translation: Even those who support good works are guilty of terrorism if the good works make the terrorists look good.

[...]

One might hope that the government's utter failure to obtain even a single conviction in a 197-count indictment in a major terrorism case would prompt a re-evaluation of the evidence and the case—particularly after prosecutors have come up short in several other prosecutions. But the verdict in Texas is unlikely to provoke any prosecutorial second thoughts whatsoever. The truth is that when our sentencing schemes render partial acquittals virtually irrelevant, we've already done substantial damage to our criminal justice system and our essential notions of fairness."

Next time, the U.S. government won't make the same mistake: They're going to make darn sure that the jury is filled with dependable Gomers (remember to ask about any European travel!) who will be more receptive to the idea that feeding orphans is terrorism if the person ladling the soup has ever attended a Hamas rally.

Defending Democracy Through the Use of Khmer Rouge Torture

Cliff May:

"On one extreme of the debate over interrogating terrorists are the Jack Bauers, those who -- like the lead character in Fox’s hit series “24”-- think you do whatever it takes to get the information you need from someone plotting mass murder. At the other extreme is the anti-war left: They wouldn’t harm a hair on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s head to save Disneyland at Christmas."

Leaving aside the question of why it might be more desirable to save Disneyland on Christmas ("Oh, it's only Arbor Day? Hmm...better get the sheikh some more hot cocoa."), I should point out, once again, that the real difference between the two groups May describes is that the former actually exists. May sets up these two extremes, one which supports the electrocution of genitals and the other which supports reiki massage, in a transparently bogus attempt to locate a "reasonable, waterboard-supporting middle" to which he and all other serious and thoughtful people belong.

Here’s former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the US Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE) Malcolm Nance, with a Small Wars Journal entry entitled ”Waterboarding is Torture…Period":

”With regards to the waterboard, I want to set the record straight so the apologists can finally embrace the fact that they condone and encourage torture.
[…]

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again."

Read the whole thing.

Back to torture-supporter Cliff May:

"It has been widely reported that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding and, as a result, he surrendered intelligence that led to the foiling of terrorist plots and the saving of innocent lives. Do you regret that? Would you tell those sworn to protect and defend Americans never to do it again – accepting the consequences of that policy?

We won’t be able to answer such difficult questions unless the moral posturing and partisan maneuvering stop, and a serious debate begins."

What was "widely reported" were the Bush administration's claims that the torture of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad saved lives. Given that the "ticking time-bomb" scenario is purely an argumentative construct for the purpose of justifying torture (and for salving the consciences of people who support torture), and given the Bush gang's consistently strained relationship with the truth, as well as the utter lack of compunction they have shown over stoking Americans' worst fears for the slightest political advantage, I remain extremely skeptical.

In any case, I'd offer that the serious debate over torture has already begun. Malcolm Nance is a part of it. Cliff May is not. Until May and others quit playing rhetorical games around the waterboarding technique, until they recognize that waterboarding is, in fact, torture, and proceed from there, they won't be.

Clinton's Fresh Thinking

While I suppose it’s a commentary on the state of discourse on terrorism that I agree that Hillary Clinton’s recognition that “You can’t lump all terrorists together” actually does merit a headline, I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to recognize, as she does, that you shouldn’t lump the Tamil Tigers, Basque Separatists, and al Qaeda together. I’m not aware of anyone who claims you should lump those groups together. It would be more controversial, as well as helpful, if Clinton recognized that you shouldn’t lump Hamas, Hezbollah, the Mahdi Army, and al-Qaeda together, that there are substantial differences between these groups’ ideologies and political goals, and that treating them as if they were just different components of one big Islamofascist Voltron actually ends up working to al-Qaeda's benefit by strengthening bin Laden's claim to be leading a "war of civilizations."

IslamoFascism Awareness Week Awareness

Next week is IslamoFascism Awareness Week, David Horowitz's latest temper tantrum against the American university system for not recognizing his genius and offering him tenure. Advising the young conservative faithful to gird their loins for next week's battles, Horowitz typifies neoconservatives' tendency to present differences of ideas in the language of combat:

"We are all familiar with the way the left wages its political wars. If someone happens to disagree with its position on racial issues –if one believes, for example, that government enforced racial preferences are misguided or immoral –the left will denounce that person as a “racist.” In our culture, this is the moral equivalent of a bullet in the head. If the president of Harvard cites scientific data that women have different aptitudes for mathematics (lower) and verbal subjects (higher) than men, the left will denounce him as a “sexist,” another cultural bullet in the head. If a person believes that children should not be instructed about sex in public schools at the kindergarten level, the left will denounce her as a “homophobe” – one more mortal blow."

Yes, so many bullets in heads, it's almost as if David were really at war instead of sitting at a desk squeezing his Osama bin Laden stress toy, seething with resentment at every quiche-eating unpatriot who's ever said or written an unkind word about him. And I think that David actually means the rhetorical equivalent of a bullet in the head, not the moral equivalent. The moral equivalent of a bullet in the head would be, for example, lethal injection.

In regard to controversy over the term "Islamofascism," I think it's somewhat counterproductive at this point to allow oneself to be drawn into debates over the term, as it's beyond clear that its use has nothing whatever to do with accurately describing the nature of the threat of Islamist extremism. The primary function of the term "Islamofascism" is to signify the political and ideological affiliations of those who employ the term "Islamofascism." That is, it is a shibboleth that identifies members of the Warrior Right to each other as the potent, carnivorous, and extremely handsome heirs of Churchill, Reagan, and Braveheart, and to cast anyone who questions or objects to the term as either a Chamberlain, a Hitler, or a The Guy Who Betrayed Braveheart. As Yglesias noted a few weeks ago, based on Horowitz's own promotional materials, the clear goal of his stunt is not to engage with people with other views of the issue in the interest of better understanding it, but simply to identify those who think differently and define them as part of the out group.