Thursday, May 30, 2002

[11:16 AM] This Christian Science Monitor story just caught my eye. The article follows Sgt. Mike Dickinson, a "half-Mexican, half-black American" and his psy-ops team 913 as they move through the Afghan "heartland." Dickinson is a convert to Islam and how this affects his service in Afghanistan is the focus of the mildly interesting story. What I can't figure is what is the significance of his being a "half-Mexican, half-black American." The story goes on to mention his devout Catholic Mexican mother. Again I can't see what ethnicity has to do with anything, and if I'm dense, the article doesn't enlighten me. The story also mentions his two Humvee mates -- a Spaniard who has become an American citizen, and a fellow from Colorado. No mention of his ethnicity, so I'll go out on a limb and guess that he's white -- if that consititutes ethnicity. Not sure what to make of this. The story also mentions how his conversion to Islam helps ease tense situations with the locals. But the story doesn't contemplate whether his skin tone also helps. Maybe I was supposed to infer that myself.

# posted 11:25 AM

[11:00 AM] Amnesty International just released its annual report and parts of it are highly critical of the precedents that U.S. actions have set since September 11. The introduction of the report expresses "growing concern towards the end of the year that governments were introducing draconian measures curtailing human rights and civil liberties. For example, the US authorities introduced legislation which enables the government to detain indefinitely foreign nationals facing deportation orders and to establish 'military commissions', which lack fundamental guarantees for fair trial, to try foreign nationals." Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke responded to some of the criticism (she noted that she hadn't read the report yet) saying "in terms of treatment of the detainees, they continue to get excellent care. They continue to get culturally appropriate food. They continue to get excellent medical treatment. They continue to get the right to worship as they want, which is not something, at least the last time I checked, the Taliban and the Al Qaeda wanted others to have."

Here we go again with the Donald Rumsfeld moral relativism. The response to questions concerning the status of the detainees is answered by a description of how well they are being treated. And perhaps the most egregious part is the caveat that "they're being treated better than the Taliban treated people in Afghanistan." True, but irrelevant.

In January, when the first prisoners arrived in Cuba, Donald Rumsfeld said "I do not feel even the slightest concern over theirtreatment. They are being treated vastly better than they treated anybody else." But responses like this always come as answers to questions about the legal status of the prisoners. Sure concerns over whether the detainees will receive prisoner of war status are important for how they are physically treated, but also for their legal rights. These continual comments about how much the prisoners enjoy Fruit Loops and the fact that they never would have had Fruit Loops in Afghanistan intentionally ignore the legal issue. And this is not to say that I agree with all the arguments on either side concerning how to classify the prisoners. But to respond to these questions with statements of how well the prisoners are being fed is arrogant and has negative implications (as Amnesty notes) when other countries follow suit by eroding civil liberties in their own countries.

# posted 11:01 AM

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

[9:37 AM] Libya may or may not have offered $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the people killed in the crash of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988. A U.S. State Department official confirms the offer according the New York Times.

Libya, however, wants all U.S. and U.N. sanctions removed and wants to be taken off the State Department’s list of states that sponsor terrorism. Assuming that the offer actually stands, it will be interesting to note if enough families accept the offer for U.S. officials to consider easing or dropping sanctions against Libya. I say interesting because if Libya were given a clean bill of health as far as terrorism goes, it is still a major human rights violator.

Here is an excerpt from the State Department's 2001 human rights report on Libya:

“Libya's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens do not have the right to change their government. Qadhafi uses summary judicial proceedings to suppress domestic opposition. Security forces torture prisoners during interrogations and as punishment. Prison conditions are poor. Security forces arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, and many prisoners are held incommunicado. Many political detainees are held for years without charge. The Government controls the judiciary, and citizens do not have the right to a fair public trial or to be represented by legal counsel. The Government infringes on citizens' privacy rights, and citizens do not have the right to be secure in their homes or persons, or to own private property. The Government restricts freedom of speech, press, assembly, association, and religion. The Government imposes some limits on freedom of movement. The Government prohibits the establishment of independent human rights organizations. Violence against women is a problem. Traditional attitudes and practices continue to discriminate against women, and female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced in remote areas of the country. The Government discriminates against and represses tribal groups. The Government continues to repress banned Islamic groups and exercises tight control over ethnic and tribal minorities… The Government restricts basic worker rights, uses forced labor, and discriminates against foreign workers. In October Libyan mobs killed at least 150 African workers. Government authorities put down the violence, but then expelled hundreds of thousands of African migrants. There have been reports of slavery and trafficking in persons.”

The question is whether this will be enough to keep some arrangement of sanctions in place as there are with regards to Cuba. Or will oil interests win out. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the importance of those issues. The point I’m trying to make of course isn’t about Libya, but about Cuba, where the United States has the utmost concern for human rights, freedom, and personal liberties. Let’s see if the same holds true for Libya. Because after all, this is about human rights and political freedom—not about Florida now is it.

# posted 9:41 AM

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

[10:18 AM] Two contrasting headlines appeared in the New York Times concerning the election of Alvaro Uribe to succeed Andres Pastrana as president of Colombia. On Monday, the day after the election, an article titled "Hard-Liner Elected in Colombia With a Mandate to Crush Rebels." Today the same author reports "Colombian President-Elect Softens Tone on Rebels." President-elect Uribe (the hard-liner to the dovish Pastrana) is already opening the door for UN sponsored peace negotiations. Latin American analysts interviewed for the article note that Uribe might be trying to soften his belligerent  tone to assuage U.S. and European concerns. I wonder if now that he is set to take the reins, he realizes what a daunting task defeating a guerrilla army with over 15,000 troops will actually be.

# posted 11:48 AM

Friday, May 24, 2002

[2:09 PM] "Friends really don't need weapons pointed at each other," President Bush declared as he and President Putin signed an "historic" treaty to reduce the number of strategic warheads each country possesses. Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace skewers among others, the New York Times for not recognizing how worthless the treaty actually is. "Ten years from now, when the treaty concludes and expires, the United States and Russia will each have over ten thousand nuclear weapons-exactly what they have today." Cirincione writes. Another Carnegie analysis marvels at the slim 493 words of the treaty. My word processor brings the total in at 475 words, but hey I'm using Microsoft Office XP.

# posted 2:12 PM

[9:53 AM] The Wall Street Journal (requires subscription) runs a short item on Sunday's presidential elections in Colombia. It notes that the United States should get along well with presumed winner Alvaro Uribe versus second place candidate Horacio Serpa who served in President Ernesto Samper's administration. The paper concludes this because of U.S. criticism of the Samper administration as being weak on drug trafficking.

The article amazingly does not mention the accusations that Samper took drug money from drug cartels. The article also does not mention Uribe's alleged ties to right-wing paramilitaries while governor of Antioquia. It seems that this should worry the Bush administration as much presidential ties to drug cartels worried previous administration, especially since the paramilitaries are responsible for the majority of political murders in Colombia.

Of course Uribe's attractiveness is his promise to take a much harder line approach with guerrillas than current President Andres Pastrana. Hopefully the U.S. Congress and the administration will hold Uribe strictly accountable for severing all ties between the Colombian army and paramilitaries. But it wouldn't surprise me if objections to any alleged links between a Uribe administration and right-wing paramilitaries receive muted repsonses in the administration.

# posted 10:07 AM

Thursday, May 23, 2002

[11:55 AM] Colombians will go to the polls to elect a new president on Sunday. Recent polls show that frontrunner Alvaro Uribe, who promises to get tough on the country's insurgent guerrillas, still has a slight chance of winning an outright majority to avoid a runoff. All the polls show that he would win a runoff easily however. Uribe has been the target of assassination attempts by the FARC. The Economist Intelligence Unit (subscription required) raises and interesting point. These assassination attempts will likely continue after Uribe presumably becomes president. His running mate, Francisco Santos, is a journalist and former editor of ElTiempo, Colombia's largest daily newspaper. He has also received death threats from the guerrillas and only recently returned to the country after leaving for safety reasons. The EIU notes that should Uribe be assassinated, Santos is "a political lightweight with no experience in office." More on the elections throughout the weekend.

# posted 11:57 AM

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

[2:26 PM] An interesting sidenote to the previous post -- the front page story in the New York Times today, quotes administration officials describing the progess President Bush has made in understanding foreign policy and international diplomacy. Most telling/frightening line: "Even today, some of Mr. Bush's Republican allies describe his foreign policy as disjointed, with Mr. Bush talking about his faith in building alliances one day and warning that he will deal with Iraq with or without the help of Arab states the next."

# posted 2:36 PM

[1:53 PM] I wondered at the time whether President Bush's "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt," comments in a private meeting with senators were simply bravado or a dig at former President Clinton. I interpreted it as mostly the latter -- Bush signaling that the gloves would be off in his approach to going after Osama Bin Laden. Over the next few months later though, stories emerged about Clinton's efforts to get capture or kill Bin Laden both in Sudan and in Afghanistan (click here, here, here, and here). The reports suggest that the Clinton administration far from trying take the cruise missile approach, had come up with some creative ideas to eliminate Bin Laden.

This raises some questions in my mind. First, either President Bush knew of these efforts and yet disingenuously implied Clinton didn't do much about Bin Laden or he was never briefed on the covert efforts of the previous administration. Some in the current administration have not hidden the fact that they blame intelligence failures during the Clinton administration for contributing at least somewhat to September 11. But given the recent revelations about what the President hadn't been briefed on prior to 9/11, I have to somewhat incredulously believe that Bush had not been briefed on the Clinton covert exploits.

# posted 2:23 PM

[9:39 AM] Yesterday, the State Department released its 22nd annual report on terrorism. Releasing the report, Secretary of State Colin Powell said "Terrorists are trying every way they can to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, whether radiological, chemical, biological or nuclear.” This sentiment has been echoed rather loudly the past week. At the same time we’ve been told that a suicide bomb attack is just about inevitable in the United States. These two warnings contrast in an interesting way.

Since September 11, we have rightly scrutinized terrorists, particularly Al Qaeda’s attempts to obtain weapons of mass destruction. However most reports that initially describe a “new” discovery of evidence that Bin Laden and cohorts had a WMD program later on fall apart. Many of the “nuclear manuals” found in Afghanistan turned out to be information easily available from open sources. There is some merit, as we’ve discovered recently, in taking even the most remote threats seriously, but a distinction is not being clearly made between desire to obtain WMD and feasibility. This article in the journal Commentary outlines the significant hurdles terrorists would face in obtaining a nuclear or radiological device.

But terrorists’ weapons of choice are clearly small arms and explosives. Yet we don’t hear the same clamor to control the flow of these types of weapons. When Israeli commandos seized the weapons-laden Karin A ship, which was bound for Palestinians, the U.S. response focused exclusively on the political angle.

Small arms are easily available on the black market in so many developing nations. This is a problem the United States should address systematically (they subverted the opportunity at last year's UN conference on small arms trafficking). It is too easy to obtain grenades and assault rifles for terror campaigns. These are the weapons that will continue to be utilized in terrorist attacks. The attack on the Indian parliament; the church bombing in Islamabad; and the car bombing that killed French engineers in Karachi were all terrorist attacks that used small arms and explosives.

The simple fact is that these types of weapons are much easier for non-state actors to obtain and use than "traditional" WMD. While lack of imagination shouldn't restrain efforts to prevent terrorists from obtaining WMD, it shouldn't ignore the threat of the readily available tools of terror.

# posted 10:07 AM

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

[2:17 PM]The just released State Department report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, notes that "Israel’s destruction of the PA’s security infrastructure contributed to the ineffectiveness of the PA. Significantly reduced Israeli-PA security cooperation and a lax security environment allowed HAMAS and other groups to rebuild terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories." This seems to run somewhat counter the clamor coming out of Washington that Arafat just wasn't doing enough to control extremists. More later.

# posted 2:18 PM

[11:49 AM]The debate continues over how the Bush administration should have or could have handled pre-9/11 reports of Al Qaeda threats. This article in Slate takes an interesting approach using an analogy of threats to the United States posed by the Tamil Tigers, which are discussed in the 1999 Library of Congress report, The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism. William Saletan tries to make the point that a lot defenders of the White House are as well -- that it's easy to second guess in retrospect about what dots should have been connected, what warning signs should have been heeded, etc. I have a couple of problems with his argument though. Examining the details of the Tamil Tiger's modus operandi is useful, but the parallel is limited.

The report states that "[t]he LTTE is not known to have engaged in anti-U.S. terrorism to date..." Herein lies a limitation to this line of reasoning. Al Qaeda had engaged in anti-U.S. terrorism by the time this report was written. The report continues warning that it "should not be underestimated in the terrorist threat that it [the Tamil Tigers] could potentially pose to the United States, should it perceive this country as actively aiding the Sri Lankan government's counterinsurgency campaign." Again a difference here is threat perception on the part of the Tamil Tigers. Al Qaeda had already declared war on the United States. I think this would have had to fundamentally alter strategic planning for an attack by Al Qaeda. Based solely on this report, I would sleep fine knowing that the president had not been briefed on threats to the United States posed by the Tamil Tigers. The Slate article also mentions, but largely glosses over the "[o]ther government reports [that] hinted at the same culprit..." As I mentioned in a previous post, this is the limitation of Condoleezza Rice's "we couldn't have imagined" argument. There were other "dots" out there. It doesn't bother me that they weren't connected, but it does bother me that the fact that they weren't connected is being passed off a minor detail. Of course all of this presupposes that the Bush administration had read the 1999 report before September 11.

# posted 11:49 AM

Monday, May 20, 2002

[9:45 PM] Both the New York Times and Washington Post ran stories the past two days about the frontrunner in the upcoming Colombian presidential elections, Alvaro Uribe. Uribe is the favorite to win and may win a majority in the May 26 election, thus avoiding a runoff, promises a hard-line approach to Colombia’s continuing struggle against left-wing insurgents. Uribe is promising to double the size of the army’s combat force. Neither article makes mention of the fact that increasing the size of the army’s combat force would not be difficult if the law excluding high school graduates from combat were changed. The Times article though does a much better job exploring Uribe’s nefarious links to brutal right-wing paramilitaries, which constitute a vigilante force that the Post somewhat hyperbolically describes as “fight[ing] alongside the U.S. backed army against the two Marxist guerrilla groups.” The Times reports that while Uribe was governor of Antioquia, paramilitary groups thrived in the region, working in some cases with the military.

I am torn over increasing military aid to Colombia. Currently, U.S. military aid and hardware can only be used for counternarcotics efforts. Congress is considering removing this restriction, which has always been criticized because the guerrilla groups finance themselves in part from the drug trade inextricably linking narcotics trafficking and insurgency. Obviously a negotiated solution to the conflict would be preferable. However, outgoing President Andres Pastrana (Colombian presidents can only serve one term) gave his it best shot and exposed the FARC – Colombia’s largest rebel group – as not being particularly serious about negotiating peace. What many critics gloss over is the Colombian armed forces’ lack of hardware for use in combating the insurgents. Uribe wants to double the size of combat forces. A larger army however wouldn’t have prevented the killing of 117 civilians earlier this month in Bellavista as they sought shelter from combat between left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries in a church. A crude rebel-made missile collapsed the roof of the church killing many the civilians, which included women and children. It took the army several days to reach the site of the devastation, which was in a remote area accessible only by air or river.

The geographic component of the Colombian conflict is one that critics of U.S. involvement there under appreciate. Colombia’s largest urban areas are separated from the mostly poor rural areas by rugged mountains and jungle. This historically has not only led the government to ignore many of the needs of the countryside, but has also allowed drug traffickers an guerillas to operate with impunity in these areas. It’s a complicated situation and one that does not receive the proper attention it should from a president who promised to make Latin America a priority in his foreign policy.

# posted 9:44 PM

Sunday, May 19, 2002

[11:21 AM] Discussing what the White House might have done in response to terrorist threats before September 11, George Will on ABC’s This Week mentioned that investigating flight schools and searching out Muslim students would have raised the ire of civil liberties advocates. Question to Mr. Will: Do flight schools usually require disclosure of religious affiliation? Of course I’m being facetious, but it irks me that so many journalists and commentators carelessly equate Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim.

# posted 11:22 AM

[11:10 AM] “Connect the dots” is one of the current buzz phrases making the rounds in reference to what information the Bush administration, intelligence agencies, and the FBI had about potential terrorist attacks. One of the latest “dots” concerns a 1999 report that the Library of Congress prepared for the National Intelligence Council titled “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism.” The report specifically mentioned Al Qaeda crashing and aircraft into the Pentagon, CIA headquarters, or the White House stating:

"Al-Qaida's expected retaliation for the U.S. cruise missile attack against al-Qaida's training facilities in Afghanistan on August 20, 1998, could take several forms of terrorist attack in the nation's capital. Al-Qaida could detonate a Chechen-type building-buster bomb at a federal building. Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters."

The administration says it learned of the report only this past week. Fields Report wonders if the administration had been aware of the report if it would have connected the dots with the non-specific hijack threats the president was briefed about in August.

And although it has been referenced since September 11, I haven’t read lately any mention of this testimony given by Robert Walpole to the International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services Subcommittee of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. In his prepared remarks, Walpole states

"In fact, we project that in the coming years, US territory (original emphasis) is probably more likely to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction from non-missile delivery means (most likely from non-state entities) [emphasis added] than by missiles, primarily because non-missile delivery means are less costly, easier to acquire, and more reliable and accurate."

I will concede that these remarks were made in testimony about Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities but similar sentiments have been expressed in previous National Intelligence Estimates. My question to the Bush administration is why didn’t the mention of Al Qaeda and hijacking raise the sense of urgency. I understand the vague “non-specific” threat argument. But hadn’t Al Qaeda already shown its willingness to engage in mass-casualty terrorism? This wasn’t a “non-specific” threat from a random militia group.

# posted 11:10 AM

Saturday, May 18, 2002

[12:14 PM] Not much has been reported about this item (in Spanish) out of Colombia. The Colombian army accused that country's largest rebel group, the FARC, of using chemical weapons. The accusation came after several soldiers of the 3rd Brigrade based in Cali suffered symptoms of asphyxia. It is interesting that this item has not received more attention since the Bush administration has emphasized the desire of terrorists to obtain weapons of weapons of mass destruction and the recent allegations of a Cuban bioweapons program. Perhaps the chemical weapons in question may not have been particularly insidious but an insecticide or some sort of readily available toxin.

# posted 12:14 PM

[9:59 AM] Lots of action in South Asia as India expelled the Pakistani ambassador as tensions rise between the two countries after Pakistani militants killed 34 people in Kashmir on Tuesday. The Bush administration is contemplating sending Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to the region to help ease the standoff. I noted in this opinion piece that the Bush administration has always been slow to engage diplomatically in crisis situations not only in the India-Pakistan situation — especially since the attack on the Indian parliament in December — but in the Middle East, Colombia, and North Korea as well.

The Pakistani paper Dawn reminds that U.S. officials were concerned enough pre-9/11 about Pakistan’s support for the Taliban and amid intelligence chatter about an Al Qaeda operation against the United States, that ISI chief General Mahmud Ahmad was summoned to Washington in September. The general, ironically, became stuck in the States after the attacks when all flights were grounded and was said to have had “chilly sessions with U.S. officials” about Pakistan’s ties to the Taliban.

# posted 9:59 AM