Homeland Security

I’ve commented before (4/27/09, 5/8/09, 11/24/09 and 5/16/11) on the Bush post-9/11 policies about torture and the specious legal rationales for it.

Today, a report in Salon disclosed that a former State Department counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Philip Zelikow, wrote an official memo critical of the proposed “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a charming phrase giving cover to what is really torture. According to the Zelikow report, the CIA’s use of “waterboarding, walling, dousing, stress positions and cramped confinement” was unprecedented in our prior wars and should be deemed unconstitutional (cruel and unusual punishment) and illegal. It “shocks the conscience,” a term the U.S. Supreme Court once coined to describe government behavior that should not be protected, no matter what the provocation.

The most important political effect of Iowa is that the day before the vote, Romney was not supported by 75 percent of Republicans, and the day after the vote, Romney was not supported by 75 percent of Republicans. Now watch the Romney negative-attack armada focus on slaughtering Santorum while a very different and important debate begins between Santorum and Ron Paul about security.

Listening to Rick Santorum, one imagines he would lead America to more war, very quickly. Santorum speaks loudly, carries a big stick and speaks with a trigger-happy enthusiasm common to neoconservatives. The winds of war blow from Santorum's lips with an almost casual air of breathless excitement that virtually guarantees more war if Santorum is elected president.

This week from my hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria, for the first time in almost 10 years, I watched the towers fall. I listened to the tales of widows, friends and comrades as they recounted that day. I saw footage I’d never seen of firefighters running into the towers as others staggered out, and once again remembered the virtues of courage, sacrifice and what it truly means to be a hero. And I was overwhelmed with emotion. Just as hard a time as I had that day, maybe even more so because of what we’ve been through and where we are as a nation 10 years later.

Gen. David Petraeus gave a very moving going-away speech this last week after 37 years as a man of honor in military uniform. We will still need this most respected American general since Eisenhower because:

The New York Times reports that President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said Monday that he was going to the United Nations this month to seek membership for a state of Palestine. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said at a separate event that a Palestinian bid for recognition by the United Nations would “set back peace, and might set it back for years.”

Jon Huntsman made an interesting comment the other day. He said the al Qaeda terrorism sweeping the world these last decades represents the collapse of old regimes much as collapse swept old Europe and the Ottoman Empire a hundred years ago. It would run another five to 10 years, he said. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a rising expert on global terror and has recently been interviewed in Wired and Salon on current threats, particularly in the south of Africa, and published dozens of articles on terrorism.

The Horn of Africa is currently racked by what seems to be its worst drought in 60 years, with tremendous humanitarian consequences. Compounding the problem, and creating a dilemma for the United States, some of the hardest-hit areas are controlled by an al Qaeda-aligned organization that regularly extorts humanitarian organizations — and will likely do so again, Gartenstein-Ross and Tara Vassefi write in this month’s Atlantic.

The Ticking Bomb — How can society not do whatever it has to do to avoid a terrorist calamity? If we know a bomb is about to blow up the Empire State Building filled with innocent people, why read a suspect his Miranda rights? The Constitution isn’t a suicide pact, as Supreme Court justices have pointed out.

The Slippery Slope — Once we slough traditional values and standards, where do we stop? If the suspect refuses to confess after waterboarding, is it OK to torture his children to break his will? Why not, if the Ticking Bomb is about to go off? When do we stop, in the Slippery Slope situation?

Civil-liberties advocate Aryeh Neier argued in a recent Washington Post op-ed that the torture debate is pointless because neither side can prove its thesis. So it comes down to principles, and on principle he is against torture.

Today is Friday the 13th, but after the sort of events we’ve seen here in town and around the country, one would think the entire week was cursed with oddities and questionable decisions … at least for politics.

Perhaps the oddest move of the week rests again at the doorstep of the White House. This time, the Justice Department’s decision to allow family members to visit detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

I can’t figure this one out, folks. Less than 10 days after destroying the world’s top terrorist, we give the guy a proper Muslim burial (because the radical Islamists will appreciate our gesture … not), and now we want to allow other would-be terrorists to spend time with family members?

We don't need to see them. We know Osama bin Laden is dead. Those who say they don't believe it still won't believe it if the photos are released.
 
President Obama got Osama. It's a very, very big deal, and the world knows it. I would hope he would wait at least as long to release proof of Osama's death as he did to release his own birth certificate. He didn't need to show us proof he was born in the U.S., and he doesn't need to show the proof of Osama's death.
 
In addition to inciting violence from OBL sympathizers, the death photos, reportedly of the extremely gruesome kind, could also make bin Laden appear to be a victim, of sorts, or be perceived as gloating. Seeing the world's most evil person in a mangled, vulnerable state could bring out misguided and misdirected sympathy that al Qaeda might take advantage of.

The United States still has questions to answer on the death of Osama bin Laden, as it no longer controls the shifting narrative. A counter-narrative has emerged from witnesses at the scene, in particular from the terrorist’s 12-year-old daughter, who has said that her father was captured alive at the house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, before being shot.

When Obama took office, it was with a pledge to restore the reputation of the United States in the world, after the thuggish “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists” worldview of George W. Bush. That meant restoring respect for international law.

Things would have been different if, back in April 1980, the helicopter hadn’t crashed; eight went into a desert sandstorm to rescue 52 Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. One crashed and another had to turn back. Desert One was a dismal failure on the heels of Vietnam, telling the world that we, the Americans, could not do things well anymore. The helicopter wrecked in the desert became the symbol of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, but it would have been different if the rescue attempt were successful. Carter would have been a great hero and America would have been renewed because all that matters in war is whether the spear hits the lion. Had he been successful there would have been no “morning in America” just ahead — no need for it, no Reykjavik Summit, and probably no Ronald Reagan. So there was a moment of anxiety when the one helicopter went down on Sunday on the way to the compound at Abbottabad. But this time it was different. This time the spear hit the lion.