A Gut Reaction to the Obama National Security Speech: Getting Stuck in A "Long War"

Obama Speech on “National Security” at the National Archives (21 May)
Dick Cheney Speech on “National Security” at American Enterprise Institute (21 May)

Halfway through President Obama's speech on national security, including torture, the Guantanamo Bay detention regime, and the tensions in transparency and state secrets, I thought:

He's nailed it. Flat-out nailed it.

Obama illuminated with flashes of rhetoric: "“We cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values." He used the setting of the National Archives, with America's founding documents: "We must never – ever – turn our back on [the Constitution's] enduring principles for expediency's sake." He turned inside-out the Bushian cloak of national security and "our boys" when he criticised waterboarding and other techniques of torture:

They undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.

In comparison to this powerful opening, the fear-mongering invocations, the evasions, and outright deceptions of Dick Cheney --- who is speaking as I type --- are not just tired and tiring excuses; they are close to obsolete.

But then, halfway through the speech, Obama got into trouble. Because it was then that he had to move from his powerful abstract of "values with security" to the realities of the Bushian policies that had wrenched them apart.

To solve the Guantanamo Bay riddle --- how to close the facility while maintaining the promise that not one "terrorist" would be free in America? --- Obama set out five categories of detainees. He was strongest when he spoke of the first category, those who would be tried in the US Federal criminal system: "Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear." And he was forthright on another category, the 21 detainees whose release has already been ordered by US judges: "The United States is a nation of laws, and we must abide by these rulings." He could just about get away with the category of 50 detainees who are not considered dangerous but who cannot be released to those home countries, setting aside the difficulty that no "third country" has yet accepted them.

But on two categories, Obama was vague to the point of contradiction. There are those who will be tried by the revived military commissions for "violations of laws of war". But which of the Guantanamo detainees are in this "war crimes" category? Is it the Al Qa'eda master planners like Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, whose terrorist actions do not fit the establshed category of war? Or is it Taliban commanders, who did wage war but did not necessarily carry out the atrocities --- which go far beyond fighting the US --- that are "war crimes"?

In fact, those above groups were covered in Obama's other, and most problematic category: "detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people", expanded later by Obama in examples such as "people who have received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans".

Obama's invocation of the category clearly covers cases, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, where the Bush Administration fouled up the possibility of successful prosecution through its mishandling of evidence and use of torture. however, the President's murkiness becomes evident when one notes the inclusion of Taliban commanders. As prisoners of war, they should have been released once the battle in Afghanistan was over, with the downfall of their movement at the end of 2001.

But there's the rub, isn't the it? The war is never over. Not in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, where "Taliban" are still fighting the US. And not beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan where, from Asia to Europe to the American continent, Al Qa'eda is always a menace.

That "long war", even perpetual war, definition is not a relic from the past. Before the powerful rhetoric that initially entranced me, Obama laid the trap:

We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history. We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.

It was the current President, not the past one, who renewed the declaration of war: "For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan." And it was Obama, and only Obama, who concluded his speech:

Unlike the Civil War or World War II, we cannot count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end. Right now, in distant training camps and in crowded cities, there are people plotting to take American lives. That will be the case a year from now, five years from now, and – in all probability – ten years from now.

This self-constructed admission --- we fight, we continue to fight, and we may always fight --- might explain why Obama's speech sagged badly in the second half as he discussed "transparency" vs. "security". To be honest, he should have left that section --- another attempt to justify both his decision to release the "torture memoranda" of the Bush Administration and his decision not to release photographs of abuse of detainees, his proposals to set guidelines for and oversight of "state secrets" --- at home. Although he may have the intention resolving this complex thicket, he gave the immediate game away when he said, in a time of "war", that he too can always invoke "national security": "Releasing these photos would inflame anti-American opinion, and allow our enemies to paint U.S. troops with a broad, damning and inaccurate brush, endangering them in theaters of war."

More immediately, long/perpetual war ensures that Guantanamo --- maybe with 50 or 100 detainees rather than 240 --- remains open past Obama's initial January 2010. Long/perpetual war has ensured that the tension of "values vs. security" has been taken from facilities in Iraq to other facilities and battlefields in Central Asia. And, even as Obama criticises the "fear-mongering" of the past, he can set up a binary of extremes to justify this middle-ground long/perpetual war:

There are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who...suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means.

For me, this is an intelligent President. This is a President with good intentions. But this is a President who errs in his artificial juxtaposition of a misguided "focus on the past" with his preferred "focus on the future". He does so because --- hanging over the past, over the future, and over now --- are the perpetual tensions in his mission to "forge tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals".

Others like Dick Cheney will claim that their "tough and durable approaches" were right. Others like Obama's military commanders will claim that their "tough and durable approaches" are working. And so --- as Guantanamo drags on, as Camp Bagram in Afghanistan expands, as hope for America turns to hostility against America in other parts of the world --- "national security" will sit along more abuses and more deaths.

Afghanistan Hearts-and-Minds Update: We're Sorry (But We Didn't Kill That Many of You)

New York Times, 20 May: "Acknowledging the pain inflicted on the Afghan people by American airpower, [US Ambassador to Afghanistan] General [Karl] Eikenberry...called the May 4 aerial bombardment in Bala Baluk district a tragedy and pledged to sharply reduce the chances of civilian casualties in future operations."

CNN, 20 May: "U.S. airstrikes in western Afghanistan this month killed up to 65 Taliban insurgents and 30 Afghan civilians, according to interim results of a military investigation released Wednesday. The civilian deaths were 'most likely' accidental, a U.S. military source told CNN."

Reuters, 20 May: A NATO-led air raid may have killed eight civilians in Afghanistan, the alliance said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan Document: US, Coalition Casualties Up 55%

Wikileaks has obtained a 26-slide summary from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan which compares casualties in insurgency in April 2009 vs. a year earlier:

There has been a 64% increase in insurgent attacks, an 80% increase in IED [improvised explosive device] attacks, a 90% increase in attacks on the Afghan government based in Kabul. ISAF deaths were up 55%, but recorded civilian deaths were down 44%.

The documents points to the concentration of insurgent attacks, with 80 percent of casualties occurring in 13 percent of Afghanistan's districts (there are almost 11 attacks in Helmand Provice each day), and the significance of IEDs, which caused 60 percent of the deaths and injuries. The decrease in civilian deaths in contrast to the increase in military casualties, particularly amidst the rising toll from US and NATO airstrikes, is not explained.

Wikileaks add the caution, "It should be noted that the statistics are likely chosen, with some exceptions, to produce a positive image."

Afghanistan: US Special Operations, Civilian Deaths, and the New US Commander

Related Post: Now It’s Petraeus’ War - US Replaces Top Commander in Afghanistan

On Friday, The Independent of London put together some pieces of a military puzzle, linking US special operations and Afghan deaths from American bombing and missiles, to declare, "The US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC...was behind at least three of Afghanistan's worst civilian casualty incidents."

Reporter Jerome Starkey explained that the unit, "created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld,...call[ed] in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children". In March 2007, after a suicide bombing close to the Pakistan border, a MarSOC company "fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people", while in August 2008 "a 20-man MarSOC unit, fighting alongside Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Herat province, leaving more than 90 people dead – many of them children".

Yet, for all the credit Starkey deserves for getting this story, The Independent's misses its significance in its headline, "Rumsfeld's Renegade Unit". The Secretary of Defense may have authorised the special force, but in 2004 it was for "targeted" operations in Iraq, identifying and then capturing or killing key insurgent leaders. The MarSOC Starkey is writing about is far different: it appears to be a ground commando force, carrying out attacks on its own or in combination with Afghan special units or acting as "spotters" for American air assaults.

The most important warning in the story is hidden instead in one sentence, "News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan."

Exactly. McChrystal's reputation was built as head of the Joint Special Operations Command as it developed during the Iraq occupation. For his supporters, he is the general who organised the capture and killing of key insurgent leaders; for his most ardent critics, he was at the head of an "executive assassination ring" that reported to Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Whatever the truth between these two views, which are actually more compatible than conflicting, McChrystal's significance is now in Afghanistan and his approach to this year's American "surge". And, as Starkey writes, "his surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban".

If McChrystal was moving sideways to becoming a supporting commander for Special Operations, with other military and civilian leaders putting a focus on reconstruction efforts and political, economic, and social development, there might be some hope --- as our readers have commented --- in US "counter-insurgency". He is, however, the commander.

Thus "special operations", with the targeting of insurgent units, will continue and probably escalate. And, from benefiting from a new American military strategy, the deaths of Afghan civilians may match that escalation.

Al-Qaeda In Pakistan: Making The Local Global

Today's Comment Is Free has a useful overview piece by Jason Burke which considers the involvement of al-Qaeda in conflict-strewn areas of Pakistan. As always it's a complicated relationship, with al-Qaeda's 'global' jihadis tapping in to local militancy and vice versa. Among Burke's findings (apparently sourced from insiders in the Pakistani intelligence community):

• Al-Qaeda may have operational links with Lashkar-e-Taiba (of the November Mumbai attacks) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (of the Sri Lanka cricket attack in March).


• Relationships between al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban are more personal in nature- fighting in the region is less about al-Qaeda-style global jihad and more about the "disintegration of local tribal social hierarchies and values in recent decades, the radicalising effect of Western operations in Afghanistan, generalised mobilisation in much of the Islamic world, collateral damage resulting from US drone strikes and a very local dynamic pitting one valley and one tribe against another."


• Foreign 'al-Qaeda' militants are becoming involved so they can utilise the chaotic situation to regroup and- at least in theory- work to further their own more global aims.

The whole article is worth a read.