The steady trickle of Bush-era security officials speaking out against his administration's policies continues as the founding warden of GITMO, Terry Carrico, says, shut it down!

The Carrico story provides some helpful cover to an Obama administration that has been walking confidently into enemy political fire lately. It just recently submitted an extraconstitutional signing statement against silly/counterproductive/demagogic NDAA provisions. And today, the President and his national security team announced their plan to build a leaner, smarter, more versatile military.

GOPers are already against it . It will be interesting to see how this debate flares up during Presidential debates. Maybe Ron Paul, promoter of a less interventionist foreign policy, will give Obama even more cover as Islamophobic Santorum pulls Romney closer to the cliffs of Armageddon.

The Senate is pushing forward legislation to allow the US military to detain US citizens indefinitely as enemy combatants. But the Department of Defense does not want that power. Neither does the CIA. Nor the Department of Justice. Strange.

Spencer Ackerman reports:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opposes the maneuver. So does CIA Director David Petraeus, who usually commands deference from senators in both parties. Pretty much every security official has lined up against the Senate detention provisions, from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who worry that they’ll get in the way of FBI investigations of domestic terrorists. President Obama has promised to veto the bill.

When the security state declines to accept rights-infringing powers offered by the people's Senate, the centuries-old understanding of an adversarial relationship between the power hungry state and the defiant governed is turned on its head.

I am reminded of Frederick Doglass's quote -- one that often inspired me:

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both."

I wonder if old Frederick is smiling in his grave right now.

Somehow I missed Jack Goldsmith's Times piece explaining that Cheney's War on Terror policies were ultimately counterproductive even for the purposes of bolstering executive power. In it he cites both Bush and Rumsfeld expressing regrets for taking Cheney's advice to secretly and unilaterally create CT policy.

Cheney, of course, is "'not inclined to make any mea culpas."

As Goldsmith writes:

He has instead deflected the failures of his philosophy by maintaining that Barack Obama embraced his policies. Obama did continue many of the Bush administration counterterrorism policies as they stood in January 2009. But the 2009 policies Obama inherited were not Cheney policies. They were the products of a four-year pushback against those policies...

After the killing of al-Awlaki, Cheney and his daughter stepped up to the mic to demand an apology from Obama. Their logic: Obama had criticized some of their policies, but was also using some of their other policies (sort of). And that's not fair.

John McCain responds with readily apparent exasperation to a question about whether Obama owes Cheney or Bush an apology: "About what?" He also notes that the so-called 'enhanced' interrogation program netted no valuable information.

In a CNN interview with John King, Joe Biden "denied former Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding... would help generate useful intelligence in the war against al Qaeda and other organizations."

""I've seen zero evidence that it works, and I think there's abundant evidence that it hurts us internationally. It hurts our security," Biden said."

As we ramp up to a weekend that will flood our televisions and radiowaves with retrospective specials on the 9/11 attacks, America's opinion-makers are vying to define the meaning of those horrors and the decade since.

But instead of using this moment to reconstruct narratives affirming our successes and clarifying the many lessons we only learned through error, many among the opinion-making class have dug in their heels, cherry-picking from ten years of evidence to support whatever position on counterterrorism they staked out on September 12, 2001.

Commentators from the right continue to harp on the very simplistic logical fallacy that because there has not been a devastating attack since 9/11, EVERY aspect of the government's response was a success. They are nearly as eager to point out, too, that because the Obama administration has yet to renounce all of its predecessor's policies, it must have judged them all to be effective:
Charles Krauthammer propagates the fallacy with gusto:

10 years, no second attack (which everyone assumed would come within months). That testifies to the other great achievement of the decade: the defensive anti-terror apparatus hastily constructed from scratch after 9/11 by President Bush, and then continued by President Obama. Continued why? Because it worked.

In the last decade, our nation has certainly paid a price in the lives of the brave men and women who have defended us. But who would say, after 10 years, that it wasn't worth it to keep our nation safe?"

"reality and political opposition forced the [Obama] administration to return to many of its predecessor's core terrorism policies."

"A near absence of terrorist incidents in the United States since 9/11 points to the successes of the Bush Administration's counterterrorism measures that once stirred controversy but now have bipartisan acceptance."

"A decade beyond Sept. 11, the Bush Doctrine has been adopted by the Obama administration and vindicated by events."

Commentators from the left, meanwhile, have their own reasons for closely comparing the policies of Bush and Obama. (To avoid charges of drawing false equivalencies, I should note that the rhetorical flourishes of these commentators pale in comparison to the flights from logic coming from folks like Krauthammer and Yoo.)
Having spent the early part of the decade vigilantly defending civil liberties against real and counterproductive encroachments by an overzealous Bush administration, they show little hesitation in skewering Democrats for failing to enact the entire agenda they campaigned on.

Robert Wright, for example, writes of the whole counterproductive War on Terror :

"Certainly President Obama seems bent on sustaining it. In addition to authorizing the assassination of al-Awlaki (an American citizen, by the way, in theory guaranteed due process by our Constitution), the President has massively expanded drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he recently extended them to Somalia, even as they continue in Yemen."

"Quit doing the kinds of things that have made so many in the Muslim world hate the United States. Get our troops out of Muslim lands, stop firing drones into their countries."

"He escalated the war in Afghanistan. He failed to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, move terrorism trials out of military commissions to civilian courts, end extraordinary rendition, or prosecute Bush Administration officials who ordered torture. … In targeting Muslim cleric and accused Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki for assassination, he has affirmed Bush’s claim that the president can order the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen, even outside any battlefield context. Overall, Obama’s record on executive power and civil liberties diverges little from that of his predecessor. In certain respects it is even worse…"

Continue reading "9/11 Coverage Round-Up: Left and Right get it Wrong: War on Terror is Over" »

The War on Terror lives on today only as political theater. Policymakers, from President Obama to Members of Congress, continue to fear the accusation of being "soft on terror," and hence continue to describe contemporary counterterrorism efforts in martial terms. Congress continues to legislate War on Terror approaches that the security establishment, for the most part, hasn't asked for and, in some cases, has even explicitly rejected.

But while the political class remains stuck in the past, the security establishment has moved on. Virtually all of the progress that U.S. authorities have made in dismantling al Qaeda and countering terrorism has been accomplished in spite of, not because of the War on Terror. As we consider the future of U.S. counterterrorism after Bin Laden, we would do well to consider what we have learned from the evolving security response to the 9/11 attacks, and how those lessons might keep us safer in a world where the War on Terror may be over but the threat of terrorism still remains.

Read our whole piece at The Atlantic.

by
Kuba Wrzesniewski

On April 28th, the White House announced a long-anticipated reshuffle of senior security staff - Robert Gates has retired as Secretary of Defense, and has been replaced by Leon Panetta; Gen. David Petreaus replaces Panetta as Director of the CIA; Gen. John Allen replaces Petraeus as overall commander in Afghanistan; and Ryan Crocker becomes the new US Ambassador to Afghanistan, replacing Karl Eikenberry. These appointments, coming a little over two years into his presidency, represent President Obama's first major attempt to substantially influence the conduct of security policy and recast the staff in accordance with his security agenda. Although the number of appointments may give the impression that a broad shift is occurring, the choice of well-seasoned personnel also maintains continuity with existing approaches.

Robert Gates, a Republican ex-CIA chief originally appointed by George W. Bush, was retained by President Obama to maintain continuity of leadership during the sensitive early day of his Presidency, but the Defense Secretary's caution and deliberation proved to be a sound match for Obama's political style and security agenda. His replacement, Leon Panetta, shares Gates political moderation - he started out as a Republican, working under President Nixon early in his career before changing parties in 1971. Since then, he has been a consummate DC insider, occupying a variety of influential Congressional posts throughout the 70s and 80s before being picked up by the Clinton White House for a number of senior positions on the executive staff, culminating with a term as Chief of Staff. Since 2009 he has served as the Director of the CIA, where the Wall Street Journal reports he received a “rock star welcome.” This is likely to be one of, if not the final appointment of his career - Panetta turns 73 this year. All told, his hands are a safe pair, and nothing in his policy record or public statements suggest a rupture with existing strategies.

Gen. John Allen is a similar case. A Marine Corps general, his career has mirrored that of Gen. Petraeus, the man he's replacing, with distinguished tours in Iraq and US CENTCOM.. Ryan Crocker, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush, is a career foreign service officer with postings throughout the Middle East and a record of constructive collaboration with Gen. Petraeus in Iraq. The man he replaces, Karl Eikenberry, was seriously compromised by leaked cables which show him harshly criticizing Hamid Karzai. Crocker's appointment can serve to repair the breach created between Washington and Kabul.

The most noteworthy appointment by far is the selection of Gen. David Petraeus as Director of Central Intelligence.

Continue reading "The Security Shuffle" »

Despite a successful and improving record of effectively countering terrorism, the Obama Administration's recently released strategy memo suggests that the president's team is more interested in engaging in stalled domestic political debates than clearly articulating ways to defeat terrorist threats.

Barack Obama began his tenure as Commander in Chief by ordering the daring sniping of Somali pirates attempting to gouge a hefty ransom out of western oil companies and their insurers. In the next years, his counterterrorism team foiled and weathered multiple plots on Americans, including two failed plots involving commercial jets and another fizzling attempt targeting Times Square. Most recently, Obama directed a special forces unit, Navy Seals Team 6, to carry out the action-cinema-worthy elimination of Osama bin Laden. And all the while, the President has racked up a significant number of terrorist kills using precision drone strikes that, by some credible counts, have not generated an unintended civilian casualty in nearly a year.

Though many of these successes have made headlines, the President has not harped on them, his rivals have ignored or downplayed them, and his political allies to the left have been reluctant to cheer them, instead quietly grumbling to themselves about Obama's failure to implement the entire civil libertarian agenda they had envisioned together during his campaign. As a result, many of the greatest CT successes realized during Obama's watch have enjoyed less news coverage than local issues or mini-scandals like the Casey Anthony verdict or Kanye West's outburst at the Grammy Awards.

Obama's reluctance “to spike the football,” as he put it in response to a reporter's question about why he was not releasing photos of the deceased bin Laden, has played into a strategic communications approach seeking to productively engage with modernizing forces in majority-Muslim countries while undercutting the appeal of anti-western groups there. Thanks to this approach together with surgically-targeted special operations and drone strikes, an endogenous Muslim backlash against al Qaeda, and the timely Arab Spring, the administration finds itself positioned to push the Hirabi theocratic movement over the brink into irrelevance. The most recognized brand of that movement, al Qaeda, apart from when it was ludicrously scapegoated by outgoing Libyan dictator Muomar Ghadaffi, has only made recent news for the defeats it has suffered.

If the trend line continues, al Qaeda will next become an off-brand among a set of increasingly unpopular Hirabi theocratic groups mostly focused on their own national and regional ambitions. Intelligence from bin Laden's compound even shows that he was beginning to doubt the appeal of the brand, apparently considering renaming the loosely networked organization.

In their recently released "National Strategy for Counterterrorism," Obama and his chief CT adviser, John Brennan, touch on several ways they might continue to undermine the appeal of Hirabi terrorism, even itemizing the multiple regionally-dispersed factions of al Qaeda they seek to hive off and eliminate. Kudos.

But their articulation of their strategy is disappointing in its lack of ends/means correspondence.

Continue reading "Obama/Brennan CT Strategy Memo Underscores Stalled Debate" »

In an op-ed published in ROLL CALL, 'The Newspaper of Capitol Hill,' Breakthrough asks: "What is the purpose of Congress’ oversight role if not to evaluate (and regulate as necessary) such controversial and consequential executive activities?"

"Congress ... has done little to promote the kind of sustained and systematic inquiry into the effectiveness of counterterrorism practices that could not only settle questions about EITs but also improve our ability to combat terrorism more generally."

"As the debate over enhanced interrogation techniques has proved, too little about what works in counterterrorism is settled knowledge — in or out of government."

"Congress is the only entity with the constitutional authority and the wherewithal to really change that fact."

"With the Arab Spring and the death of bin Laden likely altering the future shape of the threat posed by terrorists, now is a particularly opportune time to expand our capacity to clearly and methodically evaluate the challenges we are up against and how best we can face them down."

To read the full op-ed, click here.

In a beautifully written op-ed, here, David Shipler advances an argument the Breakthrough Institute has been pushing for some time -- that the founding fathers who framed our constitution "handed down a system in which liberty and security were fused, one inseparable from the other," and that the conventional wisdom that the two are at odds is simply belied by a wealth of evidence from history, especially since 9/11.

Citing our report, "Counterterrorism Since 9/11: Evaluating the Efficacy of Controversial Tactics," Shipler also points out that the surveillance regime implemented in the wake of those horrible attacks has contributed in no measurable way to our safety since, though it has eroded a sense of identity and cooperation between the governed and their leaders.

Take a look and pass it along. Americans need to understand the truth that group security and individual liberty improve together, so they can avoid policies that jeopardize both.

This week, Congress will debate (and may vote on) the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.

In an effort to bring scientific analysis to security policymaking, The Breakthrough Institute and partners from Third Way and Human Rights First - in cooperation with Representative Jan Schakowsky - will be offering a Capitol Hill panel briefing discussing which policies actually work to counter terrorism.

The event will be held in Cannon House Office Building room 122 from 1:00-2:30pm on Tuesday May 24th. Click here for details.

If you are in the D.C. area, please come by to hear Nick Adams present findings from "Counterterrorism Since 9/11: Evaluating the Efficacy of Controversial Tactics"

Other speakers will include veteran national security and counterterrorism policy advisor Suzanne Spaulding, Mieke Eoyang of Third Way and Dixon Osburn of Human Rights First.

If you are a member of the media interested in discussing this event or "CT Since 9/11," please email nick@thebreakthrough.org.