Obama Press Conference: Nailing Torture, Trashing the Pakistani Government

Related Post: Pakistan - Who's in Charge?
Video and Transcript: President Obama “Day 100″ Press Conference (29 April)

President Obama offered an excellent presentation in Wednesday night's press conference. He was in command, fluently moving from his opening agenda on swine flu and the economy to questions on foreign policy, the US auto industry, and the financial sector. He even dealt effectively with the puffball question, courtesy of a New York Times correspondent, "What has surprised you the most about this office? Enchanted you the most from serving in this office? Humbled you the most? And troubled you the most?"

Obama said little about foreign policy and security in his initial statement, dealing with the immediate health crisis and the Federal Government's budget, but the third question put him on the spot over torture:

You’ve said in the past that waterboarding, in your opinion, is torture....Do you believe that the previous administration sanctioned torture?

I half-expected the President, given the Administration's back-and-forth over the last 10 days on whether to press charges against any Bush officials, to flinch. He didn't. To use baseball language, he knocked the question out of the park.

What I’ve said — and I will repeat — is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture.... And that’s why I put an end to these practices.

I am absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do, not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways, in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are.

Yes, it was torture. And whether it had any effect is tangential, given the damage done to America's counter-terrorist efforts and its standing in the world.

Obama invoked Winston Churchill --- and who in the US could hate Churchill? --- who "said, 'We don’t torture,' when the entire British — all of the British people were being subjected to unimaginable risk and threat". The President avoided the trap of commenting on which Bushman "sanctioned torture", but he turned the main talking point of Bush defenders, "Torture helped win the War on Terror", against them:

[Banning torture] takes away a critical recruitment tool that Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians. And it makes us — it puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks.

I am sceptical that Obama will be closing Guantanamo Bay this year. And I still have concerns --- serious concerns --- about other US detention facilities, such as Camp Bagram in Afghanistan. But, at least on the narrow issue of whether there is any rationale for "torture", the President signed, sealed, and delivered the appropriate response.

In foreign policy, two specific cases arose: Iraq and Pakistan. On the former, Obama easily held the line, despite the continuing bombings and political instability in and beyond Baghdad:

Athough you’ve seen some spectacular bombings in Iraq that are a — a legitimate cause of concern, civilian deaths, incidents of bombings, et cetera, remain very low relative to what was going on last year, for example. And so you haven’t seen the kinds of huge spikes that you were seeing for a time. The political system is holding and functioning in Iraq.

(The questioner, Jeff Mason, let Obama off the hook. The emerging issue is whether the US military will have troops in and just outside Iraqi cities well past the summer deadline for withdrawal.)

Pakistan, however, offered a far more serious exchange, the significance of which has been missed so far by the media. It started with a sensationalist, and thus potentially useless question:

Can you reassure the American people that if necessary America could secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and keep it from getting into the Taliban’s hands or, worst case scenario, even al Qaeda’s hands?

The President batted that scenario straight back, "I’m confident that we can make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure." Then, however, he offered two very clear signals.

First, his Administration is standing behind the Pakistani military and encouraging it to take the lead in the fight against insurgency. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is safe "primarily, initially, because the Pakistani army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons falling into the wrong hands. We’ve got strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation." What's more....

On the military side, you’re starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally. And you’re starting to see the Pakistani military take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists.

Second, while Obama and his advisors are placing their strategic chips on the military, they have little faith in the current Pakistani Government:

I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan....The civilian government there right now is very fragile and don’t seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services: schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people.

Obama's statement was not off-the-cuff. It was the next step, after statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, that Islamabad better get its act together to take on "the Taliban" and "Al Qa'eda" or its politicians can be put to the side.

If Pakistani President Zardari is not convinced, he will do well to consider Obama's concluding challenge:

We will provide them all of the cooperation that we can. We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.

Of course, Obama never said "coup", but as Washington ramps up the fight against insurgents in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, he sent out the message.

Zardari is disposable. The Pakistani military is not.

Text: Hillary Clinton Remarks to House Foreign Affairs Committee (22 April 2009)

Related Post: Video - Hillary Clinton Says “Existential Threat” in Pakistan (22 April 2009)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member. Greetings to many friends and former colleagues. It is a pleasure to be here with you this morning. This Committee has been the source of many advances in our nation’s foreign policy and I look forward to working with you to continue that tradition.

When I appeared before the Senate – that’s that other body on the other side of the Capitol – I spoke during my confirmation hearing of a commitment to pursue a policy that would enhance our nation’s security, advance our interests, and uphold our values. Today, nearly 100 days later, I am pleased to report that we have begun making progress toward achieving that goal.
I want to begin by recognizing and thanking the men and women of the State Department and USAID, who are serving our country around the clock and around the world. I’m extremely proud of their work. With their talents, and under President Obama’s leadership, we have put forward a new diplomacy powered by partnership, pragmatism, and principle.

Our priorities are clear. We are deploying the tools of diplomacy and development along with military power. We are securing historic alliances, working with emerging regional powers, and seeking new avenues of engagement. We’re addressing the existing and emerging challenges that will define our century: climate change, weak states, rogue regimes, criminal cartels, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, poverty, and disease. We’re advancing our values and our interests by promoting human rights and fostering conditions that allow every individual to live up to their God-given potential.

Now, I know that many of your questions today will deal with longstanding concerns: Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, certainly the Middle East, the fallout from the global financial crisis. I will speak briefly to those, and I look forward to answering any questions you might have.

As you know, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the President has outlined a strategy centered on a core goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida, and to prevent their safe return to havens in Afghanistan or Pakistan. We combined our strategic review with intensive diplomacy, and nations from around the world are joining our efforts. More than 80 countries and organizations participated in the international conference in The Hague, and a donors’ conference just concluded in Tokyo raised over $5 billion.

In Iraq, we’re working toward the responsible redeployment of our troops and the transition to a partnership based on diplomatic and economic cooperation. We’re deploying new approaches to the threat posed by Iran, and we’re doing so with our eyes wide open and with no illusions. We know the imperative of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. After years during which the United States basically sat on the sidelines, we are now a full partner in the P-5+1 talks.

In the Middle East, we engaged immediately to help bring the parties together to once again discuss what could be done to reach a two-state solution. We’re maintaining our bedrock core commitment to Israel’s security, providing economic support, security assistance, and we are also doing what we can to bolster the Palestinian Authority, and to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

More broadly, we’re working to contain the fallout from the global financial crisis. Our efforts at the G-20 focused in large measures on the poorest and most vulnerable countries. We need to provide support for the International Monetary Fund. We need to provide direct assistance to countries such as Haiti, where I traveled last week. These resources will help democratic, responsible governments regain their economic footing and avert political instability with wider repercussions.
Now, these challenges demand our urgent attention, but they cannot distract us from equally important, but sometimes less compelling or obvious threats, ranging from climate change to disease to criminal cartels to nonproliferation.

In today’s world, we face challenges that have no respect for borders. Not one of them can be dealt with by the United States alone. None, however, can be solved without us leading. All will have a profound impact on the future of our children. As daunting as these challenges are, they also offer us new arenas for global cooperation. And we’re taking steps to seize these opportunities.

First, we are pursuing a wide-ranging diplomatic agenda premised on strengthening our alliances with democratic partners in Europe, Asia, Africa and our own hemisphere. We are cultivating partnerships with key regional powers. We’re building constructive relationships with major nations that will have a lot to say about what happens in the world to come – China, Russia, India.

We’re working with longtime allies like Japan and South Korea to address not just regional concerns, but a host of global issues as well. I want to say a special word about Asia. You know, advancing our relationship with India – which I know the Chairman and the Ranking Member and others mentioned – is essential. It’s the world’s largest democracy. It’s an important ally in so many efforts. I made my first overseas trip as Secretary of State to Asia, a signal that we are not just a transatlantic power, but also a transpacific power, and that Asia will be an indispensable partner in years to come.

But we haven’t forgotten our traditional allies. We have worked hard with the European Union and with NATO, and then just a few days ago, we did go to Latin America to meet with nations who share a common home, a hemisphere, a heritage, and a common future. We discussed a new energy partnership, fighting drug trafficking and the drug cartels, consolidating democratic gains, and so much more.

We’re also building closer ties with regional anchors, including Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey. These are not only partners, but they can be leaders on issues ranging from deforestation to democracy. We will work with China and Russia wherever we can, and we’ll be candid about our areas of disagreement. We will be starting a strategic and economic dialogue with China very shortly. We’ll be working with them to develop technologies to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. And we have committed ourselves to working with Russia on finding a successor agreement to the START arms control agreement.
But we also understand that redefining diplomatic engagement is not just between governments. Policies and political leaders change over time. But ties between citizens, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, universities, NGOs, all of those endure. And these are very effective tools of diplomacy, and we’re committed to engaging these groups.

And so finally, we will work to expand opportunity and protect human rights, strengthen civil society, live up to the ideals that define our nation, work to advance education and healthcare, the rule of law and good governance, fight against corruption, expand opportunities for women and girls, and those on the margins of society.

As we promote responsible governance abroad, we have to invest more in our tools here at home. As the Chairman said, I’m working hard to create a more agile, effective Department with the right staffing and resources to fulfill the President’s agenda. That’s why I have filled, for the first time, the position of Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources.
I’ve also challenged the Department to reform and innovate and save taxpayer dollars. We’re turning our ambassadors into in-country chief executives with authority and responsibility for the programs on the ground. We’re consolidating IT support services that will yield savings of tens of millions of dollars. We’re deploying new media technologies to carry our message more effectively.

And I am determined to see that the men and women of our Foreign and Civil Service get the resources they need to do their jobs safely and effectively. Even Secretary Gates has pointed out our country has underinvested in diplomacy. That must end. Just as we would never deny ammunition to American troops headed into battle, we cannot send our diplomats into the field in today’s world with all of the threats they face, 24/7, without the tools they need. We don’t invest in diplomacy and development; we end up paying a lot more for conflict and all that follows.

So Mr. Chairman, we’re pursuing these policies because they’re the right thing to do. We believe that no country benefits more than the United States when there is greater security, democracy, and opportunity in the world. Our economy grows when our allies are strengthened and people thrive. And no country carries a heavier burden when things go badly. Every year, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars dealing with the consequences of war, disease, violent ideologies, and vile dictatorships.

So let’s invest in the type of world that we want. We have no shortage of challenges or opportunities. The world is looking for leadership and looking to see how this new Administration meets this moment. I believe if we follow our plans and our principles, we will succeed. We can lead the world in creating a century that we and our children will be proud to own, a century of progress and prosperity for the whole world, but especially for our beloved country.

But to achieve these goals, we need your help, we need your advice, and we need your support. And I look forward not only to the formal hearing today, but to the informal, ongoing dialogue that I’ve started with some of you and look forward to having with all of you. We’re in this together. We have to row in the same direction for the benefit of our country and our children.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Video: Hillary Clinton Says "Existential Threat" in Pakistan (22 April 2009)

Related Post: Text of Hillary Clinton Remarks to House Foreign Affairs Committee (22 April 2009)
Full video of Clinton testimony to House Committee on Foreign Affairs

Hillary Clinton has made headlines this morning with this warning: "I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state, a nuclear-armed state."

Clinton has called on the Pakistani people to rise up against the threat in the Northwest Frontier Provinces: ""I don't hear that kind of outrage and concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan."

<script src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/js/2.0/video/evp/module.js?loc=int&vid=/video/politics/2009/04/22/sot.clinton.on.pakistan.cnn" type="text/javascript"></script><noscript>Embedded video from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video">CNN Video</a></noscript>

We're working on an analysis of this extraordinary intervention by the US Secretary of State, but the video of the full hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is on C-Span.

Pakistan: Who's in Charge? (Clue from Washington: General Kiyani)

Question of the Day: Who is the most important "reliable" leader in Pakistan?

No, it's not --- at least if you're a key official in the Obama Administration --- President Asif Ali Zardari. The correct answer is General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani (pictured).

How do I know this? Because I read David Ignatius in The Washington Post.

Ignatius is a sharp, smart journalist who writes well. He's also best considered, with his access to highly-placed Government sources and his re-presentation of their thoughts, as the media auxiliary of the State Department and the Pentagon.

When Ignatius snuck this into the conclusion of his 10 April opinion piece, "A Short Fuse in Pakistan", it was more than a throw-away comment:

If there's a positive sign in all this [political] chaos, it's that the Pakistani army isn't intervening to clean up the mess. Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the army chief of staff, has been telling the feuding politicians to get their act together. But he seems to understand that the route to stability isn't through another army coup, but by making this unruly democracy work before it's too late.

Six days later, Ignatius extended his comment with this revelation about the Long March, "A month ago, Pakistan came close to a political breakdown that could have triggered a military coup." He explained with this account of events:

The lawyers' movement began its march on March 12, pledging to occupy Islamabad until the government restored [Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar] Chaudhry to his post. Zardari sent a police force known as the Rangers into the streets of Lahore, apparently hoping to intimidate [opposition political leader Nawaz] Sharif and the marchers. But Sharif evaded the police and joined the protesters as they headed north toward Islamabad.

Kiyani then faced the moment of decision. According to U.S. and Pakistani sources, Zardari asked the army chief to stop the march and protect Islamabad. Kiyani refused, after discussing the dilemma with his friend Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Meanwhile, Kiyani called Sharif and told him to return home to Lahore, according to one source. And he called the leader of the lawyers' movement, Aitzaz Ahsan, and told him to halt in the city of Gujranwala and wait for a government announcement.

Although Ignatius was careful to give credit to Zardari and Sharif as well as Kiyani and although he made clear that US officials were "hoping that the three could form a united front against the Taliban insurgency in the western frontier areas", he closed with this first-amongst-equals assessment:

On the political scorecard, Zardari came out a loser and Sharif and [Prime Minister Yousuf Raza] Gillani as winners. But the decisive actor was Kiyani, who managed to defuse the crisis without bringing the army into the streets.

And who is behind this analysis? That's not so difficult to discover: in both opinion pieces, Ignatius refers to the "visit to Islamabad by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke [Obama's envoy to Afghanistan-Pakistan] and Admiral Mike Mullen [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]" two weeks ago. As their spokesperson, he gives their impression of the weakness and division in the Pakistan political leadership:

Anne Patterson, the highly regarded U.S. ambassador, had assembled some of the nation's political elite to welcome the visiting Americans. During a question-and-answer session, a shouting match erupted between a prominent backer of President Asif Ali Zardari and a supporter of dissident Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

On some major security and intelligence issues, [Zardari] claimed no knowledge or sought to shift blame to others, and the overall impression was of an accidental president who still has an uncertain grasp on power.

This is far from the first time that Ignatius has been the conduit for Washington's view of the "right" Pakistani Government. The day of Barack Obama's election, he wrote:

What's different on the Pakistani side isn't just the secret cooperation with America. There was lots of that under the previous president, Pervez Musharraf. What's new is that Zardari and Kiyani are working openly to build popular support for their operations against the Muslim militants....And Kiyani seems determined to stop [former President Pervez] Musharraf's practice of using the [Pakistani intelligence service] ISI to maintain contact with the Afghan warlords.

What has changed in the last five months is that Zardari is no longer reliable, both in his domestic political manoeuvres and his apparent willingness to make concessions to the "militants" in northwest Pakistan. So Washington cannot expect him to implement the proper programme, again put forth by Ignatius, to curb the insurgency:

America should channel its aid through the tribal chiefs, known as maliks, rather than the corrupt Pakistani government. It should help train the Frontier Corps, a rough-hewn tribal constabulary, rather than rely on Pakistani army troops who are seen as outsiders. To curb the militant Islamic madrassas, the United States should help improve the abysmal public schools in the region.

But that, of course, raises the dilemma lurking in Ignatius's recent columns. Like it or not, the unreliable Zardari is still the legal head of state in Pakistan. Toppling him with a military coup --- even if Kiyani wanted to make the move --- would give a most un-democratic appearance to Washington's campaign in the region, as well as raising memories of the Bush Administration's ultimately ill-fated co-operation with General/President Musharraf.

So Ignatius --- speaking for Holbrooke, Mullen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Obama --- has to be clear that Washington helped prevent a coup last month. At the same time, the question is still hanging: what if Zardari continues to be ineffective and uncooperative?

What if, to repeat but slightly adjust Ignatius's words, Washington concludes, "this unruly democracy [can't] work before it's too late"? The least bad option, as perceived by US policymakers, may be that it's time for General Kiani to take over the top spot --- in public rather than behind the scenes --- in the Pakistani Government.

Combating Somali Piracy: How Many People Can We Afford To Kill?

Related Post: After the Rescue: What Now with Somalia?

“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates” – Mark Twain

You don’t have to be a serious news junkie to know that there is currently a lively debate ongoing in the media on the issue of combating Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. Commentators from across the political spectrum have laid out countless detailed plans for fighting the pirates both at sea and on land, and some such as CNN’s Jack Cafferty and Rick Sanchez have even put the question directly to their audiences. However, all of the solutions presented seem to involve some level of military force used against Somalia, specifically US military force, and the major differences between the plans are over questions of financial cost and political willpower. To put it bluntly, the real question at hand is how many Somali people we really feel like killing right now.

But why do we insist on making this debate so narrow and yet still complicated when it doesn’t have to be either? Unlike the conventional wisdom of US military violence and nation building, which has an atrocious rate of success, there is a myriad of solutions available which have not yet even been attempted with Somalia, yet are far more likely to produce the desired long-term stability. Given the huge challenges facing the United States from its two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the global financial crisis, isn’t it time we explored some of these other options?



The conventional wisdom is very simple. While they all agree that the Navy SEAL snipers killing the pirates was really cool, the generally liberal, realist, soft power crowd is pushing for an increased naval presence, that is ships with weapons, in the Gulf of Aden, the hawkish, bold-faced imperialist folks are asking for air strikes and special forces strikes against pirate sanctuaries in Somalia, and the population at large is especially craven, calling for public hangings of pirates and shoot-on-sight rules of engagement for US Navy ships in the region. Typically when presented by experts and commentators, these plans will also feature a data set debunking the other side’s plan, which means that when put side by side, they cancel each other out with no shortage of irony.

The consequences of these plans are also simple. The end result of all of them, no matter whether they succeed or fail, is that the US is going to kill a lot of Somalis. None of the plans even attempt to address the root causes of piracy in the gulf, like hellish poverty, illegal over-pollution, and the absence of basic human services in Somalia. So in order for these options to succeed, you’d have to believe that these desperate, armed-to-the-teeth gangsters from an apocalyptic-level failed state will be so incensed at the sight of a dead body that they’ll permanently abstain from the only profession that brings their family any shred of dignity and sustenance. Amazing logic, right? If you knew how much people were paid to come up with ideas like that, your head would explode.

But there are other options available. Rather than falling back on the usual tool of military violence, they instead focus on the seeds of instability and piracy in Somalia.

Seemingly the most obvious idea would be to ask the Somalis themselves what to do about piracy.  Are they asking for food, money and an end to illegal toxic waste dumping in their fishing grounds? Or are they asking for 200lb JDAMs to be dropped on their villages? You could ask even the most destitute, illiterate among them, and I’m sure they’d have an opinion either way. However, I’ve yet to see one actual Somali in the mainstream discussion, it’s mostly the usual suspects in the media foreign policy elite whose opinions are deemed worthy of consideration. At the very least they could lay out a clear, concrete set of grievances to be acknowledged in whatever response the US eventually chooses.

Instead of special forces, why not deploy diplomats to Somalia? The European Union would be the most desirable, as the catastrophic circumstances of Somalia would require the most skilled negotiators available. Director of the Global Governance Initiative Parag Khanna writes of their prowess, “Charlemagne’s efforts to resurrect the Roman Empire have been succeeded, over a millennium later, by the multipronged armadas of Brussels Eurocrats steadily colonizing Europe’s periphery, in the Baltics, the Balkans, and, eventually, Anatolia and the Caucasus. The Eurocrats’ book is not the Bible but rather the acquis communautaire: the 31 chapters of the Lex Europea, which is rebuilding EU member states from the inside out.” Great, if they can do all that, why couldn’t they handle building a state in Somalia?

Provided they are dispatched with the same resources and support as their military counterparts are, these diplomats could succeed in laying some framework for a sovereign Somali government. Aid agencies and other NGO’s have shown they are capable of operating in extremely hostile environments with only a hint of a functioning state, such as Rwanda and Sudan. It’s possible that a skilled diplomatic mission could assist the Somalis in creating enough of a foundation of statehood for these aid agencies to join with humanitarian assistance.

However, the idea of using a European solution to an American foreign policy problem is almost unthinkable, and multilateral coalitions are, at best, frowned upon. That doesn’t mean the US only has to use its military might though. It has other powerful, untapped resources at its disposal. Namely, the massive organized Peace Movement.

The Peace movement, as with any organized political movement, comes complete with its own elite policy wonks, its own intelligentsia, and even its own media and social systems with which to organize and direct broad and diverse groups of people. The American Peace Movement also has the added benefit of never being allowed into mainstream political debate, and is therefore free of the corrupt hypocrisy and institutional apathy that typifies other foreign policy sects. Likewise, it also means that they’re not currently tied up with other issues like Iraq and Afghanistan like the rest of the foreign policy elite.

The price of utilizing American peace activists would be dramatically less than any of the other options currently up for debate. While the cost of US military power is in the trillions, and even skilled EU bureaucrats can charge exorbitant salaries, peace activists have shown they are capable of operating highly effectively with little to no funding available.  Given a small amount of funding and protection, the results they could achieve in Somalia might be quite groundbreaking. Perhaps its time to constructively engage them in the task of stabilizing Somalia. They may have some very interesting ideas particularly as it concerns mobilizing Somali citizens into a coherent bloc capable of projecting statehood.

Of course these options are very vague and untested, nowhere near as precise as the options laid out in the mainstream debate. Some might even find it absurd or ridiculous to suggest dispatching a phalanx of European diplomats or appointing Cindy Sheehan as Special Envoy to Somalia, but my point is only to show that there may be other options worth exploring and debating besides the standard military response.