In Praise of Obama, Remember Bush.

President Obama deserves praise for acting on intel that led to locating and killing Osama Bin Laden.  That is what Presidents do as Commander-in-Chief.  They make decisions, sometimes right and sometimes wrong, with only the available intel and their gut feeling.  President Obama made a great decision based on overwhelming evidence gleaned over nearly 10 years, and it paid off in the successful operation that avenged 9/11 by executing its chief architect.

As new details emerge over the coming days and weeks, it will become increasingly clear that this operation's success hinged on key decisions made by two very different Presidents.  President Bush assured Americans and the world in the wake of 9/11 that America would bring al Qaeda and Bin Laden to justice.  He issued an Executive Order on 9/17/01 authorizing US troops and intel assets to assassinate Bin Laden.  Wanted: Dead or Alive was Bush's doctrine, and his later decision to capture terrorists as enemy combatants and hold them at Guantanamo was grounded in a strategy of ferreting out information about al Qaeda's leaders and their locations.  Take the fight to the terrorists and disrupt/destroy their infrastrructure.  Remove their safe havens.  Put them on the run or in hiding.

Interrogations at Gitmo produced the first-known references to a trusted Bin Laden courier.  Bush-Era Interrogations Provided Key Details on Bin Laden's Location - FoxNews.com Interrogations then led to further intel regarding the location in Pakistan where the trusted courier was operating.  Intel obtained during the Obama administration finally provided the courier's true name and facilitated surveillance and the remainder of the necessary details to launch this week's successful strike operation.  Clearly, without the information gleaned from Gitmo detainees through the interrogations so  harshly criticized by Obama and his party, Bin Laden would still be haunting America today, living in luxury, free to run his terror network behind the wilfully blind eyes of Pakistan's military, intelligence, and government.

President Obama's deliberateness in not acting on intel until the CIA was highly confident Bin Laden was at the Abbottabad compound seems to have been a blessing to this operation.  The decision to not share key intel about the planned operation with even our staunchest allies was also wise.  Although Andrea Mitchell and other media figures have mocked Bush by hinting that Obama got the "mission accomplished" celebration that Bush dreamed of, Obama's classy action to call Bush and Bill Clinton to tell them the good news before announcing it to the world was a recognition on his part that he could not have succeeded in finding and killing Bin Laden without the tireless fight carried on by Bush/Cheney and to a much lesser degree, Clinton.

It is time for Republicans to be generous in their praise for President Obama's handling of this matter, in which he has been more Presidential than at any time since being elected.  It is likewise time for Democrats to cease their derision and apoplectic hatred for George W. Bush, who made decisions based on available intel, launched a war on al Qaeda, authorized interrogations that made Obama's successful operation possible, yet receives only spite and irrational loathing for his efforts to protect America and its allies from vicious terrorists.  It took the best qualities of Bush and Obama to bring Bin Laden to justice.  The two Presidents can stand side by side, join hands, and raise them together in this important victory.  Both men also know that we won a battle, but not the war.  Yet.

Libyan Muslim Declaration a Model for Islamic Nations

As reported by Reuters today, a coalition of Libyan Muslim leaders has issued a declaration that it is the duty of all Libyan Muslims to rebel against Libyan Government leaders because of their "bloody crimes against humanity."  The language of the declaration is noteworthy because of its potential ideological applicability to citizens of all Islamist governments that foment violence or support radical Islamist groups, such as al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, and others.

Here is the statement against the Libyan government:

They have demonstrated total arrogant impunity and continued, and even intensified, their bloody crimes against humanity. They have thereby demonstrated total infidelity to the guidance of God and His beloved Prophet (peace be upon him).  This renders them undeserving of any obedience or support, and makes rebelling against them by all means possible a divinely ordained duty.

This statement is equal parts powerful and muddled.  When applied by Libyan Muslims to violent elements within their own government, it is a call to revolution, directly stating that because the government uses violence ("bloody crimes against humanity"), the government is unfaithful to the teachings of Islam and is thus unworthy of allegiance or obedience from its people.  However, when applied to eliminating radical Islamist terrorists from Muslim nations, bold statements such as this one are few and far between.

When taken at face value, the statement from the Network of Free Ulema of Libya could be applied to al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and hundreds of other terrorist organizations worldwide.  They commit "bloody crimes against humanity", such as bombing hotels, pizza parlors, World Trade Center towers, and lines of civilians waiting to vote in democratic elections.  Does this not demonstrate"total infidelity to the guidance of God" as the Libyan Muslim leaders imply?  Or is it only infidelity to Muslim principles when violence is used on other Muslims?  Are non-Muslim peoples part of "humanity", thus violence against them makes the group who brought the violence undeserving of obedience or support from other Muslims?


The Libyan Muslim leaders made a bold and laudable declaration, removing any sense of guilt Libyans might have about protesting and physically rebelling against their government.  The logic of the statement is reflective of the language set forth in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which presented a list of grievous acts committed by King George that rendered the Crown undeserving of any further allegiance from the Colonials.  In any revolutionary movement, it is critical to keep the government's sins in the forefront of popular memory.  By removing any religious hesitations Libyans may have because of their Islamic beliefs in obedience to government, the Network of Free Ulema of Libya makes the revolution's success more likely.  For those Muslims who adhere to this declaration, it has become religious duty to rebel in every way possible.  Gaddafi's guns, tanks, helicopters, and brutality will be no match for a united people who view it as their divinely ordained duty to rebel against him and remove the current government from power.


Capital Cloak applauds the statement from this coalition of Libyan Muslim leaders.  Now, if only more Muslim leaders worldwide would be similarly outspoken about the infidelity to God and his Prophet displayed by Islamic terrorist groups who have been killing through "bloody crimes against humanity" for decades.  If such statements are not issued, the non-Muslim peoples of the world are left with little doubt that they are not considered part of "humanity" by their Muslim friends and neighbors.

"Clap On, Clap Off": Is the light on at the DNI?

"Clap on, Clap off . . . way off on Muslim Brotherhood"

When Congress is in session, crowds in the gallery, when allowed to observe, are reminded to hold their clapping until the session concludes.  If only the White House could have held its Clapper until the end of a hearing on Capitol Hill today.  Instead, the Obama administration made the unfortunate decision to allow Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper to answer questions and deliver his assessments of the situation in Egypt without the much-needed benefit of a teleprompter.  

 DNI Clapper, as widely reported, testified that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt had worked peacefully for the "betterment of the political order" and, in a whopper that would have caused Pinocchio great nasal growth pains:

"The term 'Muslim Brotherhood' ... is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam."

 So far out in left field was this assessment, that the White House rushed to correct DNI Clapper's mind-boggling inaccuracy.  A DNI spokesman clarified later today that DNI Clapper was aware the Muslim Brotherhood is a religious, not secular, organization, but that it had largely operated in Egypt in a secular manner under Hosni Mubarak's rule in that country.  What he failed to explain in the hearing was WHY Mubarak kept the Muslim Brotherhood under his thumb for 30 years.  The reason of course, is that the Brotherhood, when speaking to gullible Western media, portrays itself as a minor secular political party with no clout in Egypt, dedicated to building hospitals and other social projects to save humanity.

The peaceful hospital-building political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, no doubt welcoming Egyptian voters on election day in September 2011. 

When one speaks with Egyptians and other citizens in the Middle East, or if one watches Al Jazeera for 10 minutes, one can learn very quickly that the reason the Brotherhood builds hospitals is because the Brotherhood creates a demand for emergency medical facilities by fomenting terrorism and anti-Semitism with a violent tinge to it.  People get hurt around the Brotherhood.  Ask Anwar Sadat whether the Brotherhood "eschews violence", and it might help explain why Mubarak used an iron fist to limit the group's activities in Egypt for decades.  Read the words of the Brotherhood's supreme religious leader and decide for yourself if the "secular political party" is a benign entity as DNI Clapper testified today.  Judge for yourself if the Brotherhood, in its ideology and goals, is any different than al Qaeda, which the Brotherhood allegedly claims is an abomination of Islam.  For a group that is so tightly embracing Hamas that it is impossible to determine where Hamas ends and the Brotherhood begins, its faux condemnation of al Qaeda is ripe with comedic value
beyond anything even the Onion could concoct.

What is most disturbing about DNI Clapper's testimony isn't simply that it was inaccurate, which it clearly was, but that it is in direct conflict with assessments of the Brotherhood produced by the CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and a host of other intelligence and law enforcement agencies, not merely in the U.S. but among all of our key allies across the globe.  Simply stated, no agency in an allied country has ever assessed the Muslim Brotherhood as anything but a terrorist organization that has participated in violence, directly and through financing and recruitment.  DNI Clapper must know this.  The CIA's and FBI's assessments of the Brotherhood are nothing like what DNI Clapper presented today.  It is no wonder he is backing away from his testimony at a speed only Usain Bolt has experienced among mortals.

We must wonder why DNI Clapper, who should know very well the intelligence (that is the "I" in DNI, after all!) the CIA, FBI, and others have gleaned about the Brotherhood, would testify that the group is of little concern and is a bit player in the "revolution" taking place in Egypt since January 25.  Members of Congress in attendance at today's hearing should obtain for themselves the assessments of the Brotherhood from the intelligence and law enforcement agencies DNI Clapper is supposed to listen to, and brief the Obama administration accordingly.  Clapper clapped on about the humanitarian achievements of this terror-sponsoring group, and then he clapped off when one of his staffers with access to simple intelligence sources, such as Google, discovered that no one in the intel industry, except perhaps himself, believed a word of the fiction that the Brotherhood is benign.  Clearly his testimony was politically motivated. Somehow, in all of this Clapping on and off, we must hope and pray that a light came on somewhere in the administration to reveal the very real threat to Egypt and Israel the Brotherhood presents, and that no real political power will be afforded it before or after Egyptian elections are held to replace Mubarak.

Timing is Everything in Middle East Revolutionary Uprisings

Is it mere coincidence that revolutionary uprisings bearing high global stakes seem to occur when the U.S. is led by foreign policy-weak Democratic Presidents and Secretaries of State?  Jimmy Carter never saw the Ayatollah Khoemeni and his radical Islamic followers for what they were, and as a result, Iran never attained freedom and democracy that seemed possible when the initial protests against the Shah began.  The product of Carter's waffling was a radical Islamist state bent on Israel's destruction and supplying anti-American terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East to the present day.

Today we see the same thing happening in Egypt.  What may have begun as an uprising against Mubarak and for freedoms and democracy is rapidly being hijacked by Islamic radicals, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood.  Intel experts worldwide have long identified the Brotherhood as a spawner of terrorist organizations, with ties to everyone from Hizbollah to al Qaeda.  Yesterday, President Obama described the Muslim Brotherhood as a political entity in Egypt that should have a say in the future governance of that nation.  President Obama is on the same floundering path that Jimmy Carter trod on the way to losing Iran, perhaps forever, to radical, Israel-threatening Islamists.

This column in the Washington Post warns that George W. Bush was right about supporting true democracy in the Middle East and that its peoples have an inborn desire for freedom  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/28/AR2011012803144.html.  What freedoms will the Muslim Brotherhood establish or protect?

It is most unfortunate that the revolutionary spirit and uprisings for freedom in Iran and Egypt did not occur when Presidents were in office who could see groups like the Muslim Brotherhood for what they are, terrorist sponsors and suppliers.  The Democrats thought George W. was a pie in the sky dreamer, or worse, for his fundamental belief that freedom and democracy in the Middle East is the long-term solution to global terrorism.  Now, when given an opportunity to further democracy in Egypt, President Obama ignores the lessons of the past and embraces a radical Islamist group hijacking a revolution and steering it toward Iran part II.

Similar revolutionary uprisings are sprouting in Jordan. Lebanon appears to have already been lost to Hizbollah rule, controlled by Iran and Syria.  If President Obama fails to stand with true revolutionaries for democracy in Egypt, and perhaps eventually in Jordan, against radical Islamist takeover, the ability to act will be taken from him just as it was from Jimmy Carter as he meekly allowed Iran to be taken hostage by Islamic militants, along with the ill-fated U.S. Embassy staff.

Counterterror Chief Interview Culls Only Cliches

Professional athletes and government intelligence officials have at least one shared characteristic: Both give a lot of media interviews, but despite an abundance of words spoken neither offers anything beyond tired clichés. I often wonder why journalists bother conducting such interviews. Rarely will a professional athlete state anything more substantive than “we just take each game one at a time,” or “we just need to play hard.” Likewise, intelligence officials, by necessity, rarely provide any statements more enlightening than “al-Qaeda wants to kill Americans,” or “It’s not IF we will be hit again, it is WHEN.” Both of those canned intelligence answers are of course true, but journalists hardly needed to interview an intelligence expert to confirm their veracity.

Newsweek reporters recently interviewed the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) chief, Retired Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, and stunned no one with their headline article, “We are Going to Get Hit Again.” Did they really need to interrupt the presumably busy work schedule of the NCTC chief to obtain such common sense information? In the cat and mouse game that occurs daily between the news media and the intelligence community, one ground rule applies: when an intelligence officer speaks on the record, nothing newsworthy will be offered. The corollary to that rule is that only intelligence sources who speak on condition of anonymity have the potential to reveal something that rises beyond clichéd sound bites.

What gems of wisdom did the Newsweek team mine from the understandably tight-lipped NCTC chief? Some examples follow:

What I’ll tell you about bin Laden is if we knew where he was, he’d either be dead or captured. It’s that simple. [He’s] obviously a tough target. That whole area is a tough target.

…We’ve got this intelligence threat; we’re pretty certain we know what’s going on. We don’t have all the tactical details about it, [but] in some ways it’s not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year. So we know there is a threat out there. The question is, what do we do about it? And the response was, we stood up an interagency task force under NCTC leadership….

…We have very strong indicators that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the West and is likely to [try to] attack, and we are pretty sure about that….

…What we do have, though, is a couple of threads that indicate, you know, some very tactical stuff, and that's what—you know, that’s what you’re seeing bits and pieces of, and I really can’t go much more into it….

…It’s still there. It’s very serious, you know, and we’re watching it. We’re learning more all the time, but it’s still a very serious threat….

…But these guys are smart. They are determined. They are patient. So over time we are going to lose a battle or two. We are going to get hit again, you know, but you’ve got to have the stick-to-itiveness or persistence to outlast it…..

…Statistically, you can’t bat 1.000 forever, but we haven’t been hit for six years, [which is] no accident….

NCTC Chief Redd gave the type of answers journalists should expect from intelligence officials: clichéd, common sense, and superficial. Had he answered Newsweek’s questions in any more detail he would have divulged classified information, a felony offense. Newsweek’s readers may have been impressed by an interview of such a high level official, but they were surely disappointed by the complete lack of original or newsworthy information provided in the article.

Announcing to Americans that terrorists are planning to attack the west is equivalent to professional athletes stating in pre-game interviews that “our opponent will come at us with everything they have,” or “the team that wants it most will win tonight.” These interviews offer ample truth, but sparse substance. Athletes, like intelligence officials, are wise to speak only in general terms rather than reveal anything from their playbooks that might help the opposing team. Fans and news readers may find the practice annoying, but success on the sports field or battlefield often depends on holding the playbook close to the vest. Admiral Redd did an admirable job of pleasing Newsweek with headline quotes while telling Americans nothing we did not already know.

John Scott Redd NCTC National Counterterrorism Center Newsweek Al Qaeda War on Terror Intelligence Agencies

Levin is Surge Report Misinformation Minister

When war news is good, it stands to reason that the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee should be pleased. After all, there should be no question that a senator holding such an important and influential position would want America’s military to win any war it enters. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), who currently chairs the Armed Services Committee is embarking on another “fact finding” trip to Iraq, but he is not going there to be supportive of the troops or to witness firsthand the widely-reported successes of the surge strategy led by General David Petraeus. On the contrary, Levin’s latest trip to Iraq serves, as explained in his own words, only one purpose:

I'm going to try to see if we can't shift the attention of the American people from the report on the military situation to a report on the political situation since everybody acknowledges that it's the failure of the political arena and the political areas that are the cause of the ongoing violence in Iraq.

That was a revealing and disturbing statement. Rarely does a politician so bluntly state that he is engaging in an intentional misinformation campaign designed to “shift the attention of the American people” away from a detailed military report that proves we are making significant progress and can win a war we committed troops to fight. Clearly senior Democrats do not want Americans to read the Petraeus report due in September, and Americans should pause for a moment to ponder the motive behind Levin’s Iraq trip as Minister of Misinformation.

Congressional Democrats are in an unenviable political position: having voted almost unanimously to send troops into Iraq; shifting to a virulent anti-war position; demanding a timetable for troop withdrawals; opposing the surge strategy; and now facing the release of a positive analysis of the surge’s effectiveness and optimism for eventual troop withdrawals under more favorable security and political conditions in Iraq.

During his presidency, media figures and congressional Democrats have insulted President Bush with labels such as “inept,” “incompetent,” “mentally unstable,” and of course “stupid.” Yet no such labels are applied by the media to the Democratic Party as a whole for its remarkable blunder of putting itself in position to profit politically only from military failure. Our troops lose, Democrats win. In that respect at least, the grim and incessant media comparisons between the Vietnam and Iraq wars are appropriate. There is an Iraq quagmire. Democrats stepped in it by investing their political futures in defeat in Iraq, but now they cannot seem to scrape the pesky quagmire ooze from their patent-leather shoes.

It is no wonder that on July 30th House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) stated that such a report from the military would be “a real big problem for us.” In other words, good news from the front lines in Iraq would be harmful to the Democrats’ political ambitions. To prevent such a “disaster” from occurring, Minister of Misinformation Levin will be working overtime shifting attention away from Petraeus’ report, which is already being dismissed in the media as merely an instrument for communicating what the Bush administration wants. Liberal bloggers have already attacked the report, which none of them have seen even a portion of, as a “fantasy evaluation” and just another Bush “sandbagging” of the American people.

Considering the recent foreign policy and military counterterrorism strategy gaffes by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, it appeared that no Democratic senator could be equally as naïve as Obama on those issues. Yet Levin’s explanation of why American’s should pay no attention to the upcoming Iraq progress report by General Petraeus demonstrated a fundamental ignorance or intentional obfuscation of what is causing the current level of violence in Iraq. Is there internal strife within the Iraqi Parliament? Of course there is strife there, just as there is bitter partisan strife within our own Congress. In Iraq, Sunni legislative blocs occasionally withdraw from the government in anger over real or perceived slights and injustices. In our Congress there are filibusters, blocked votes on judicial confirmations or cabinet appointments, and leaks of classified information to embarrass or destroy political rivals. In many respects, our Congress is more dysfunctional than the Iraqi parliament, yet our nation is not awash in suicide bombings, IEDs, and foreign-inspired terrorist groups infesting entire cities, which are all too common in Iraq.

As Iraqi parliamentarians are not detonating themselves in protest or killing each other over political disputes, the explanation for the violence in Iraq must go beyond mere politics. Failure by the Iraqi government to achieve rapid political unity and success, as Levin and his colleagues demand, may cause political discord, but to assert that the war in Iraq centers on political issues is far too simplistic. Religious disputes, more than politics, fan the flames of disunity, but without the violent interference of terrorists pouring in from neighboring nations, Iraqis would be in a much better position to engage in political discourse. That is what we are trying to achieve in Iraq: Remove foreign influences and provide sufficient security and public safety to allow Iraqis to resolve their differences and govern themselves unhindered by neighboring nations.

The Iraqi people have already achieved something Americans have not yet accomplished. Iraqis have united in recognizing that their enemy is al Qaeda rather than each other. Sunni and Shiite Iraqis have joined together in driving al Qaeda out of entire provinces. In contrast, nearly thirty percent of Americans believe that the Bush administration rather than al Qaeda brought down the World Trade Center towers with pre-placed demolition charges. If recognizing who our real enemies are is a sign of national survival instinct, America is woefully lacking, while Iraqis appear capable of uniting when self-preservation is at stake.

Leave it to a career politician like Levin to overestimate politics as the solution to all of Iraq’s current ills while ignoring the critical need for public safety and security in what clearly is a military confrontation with terrorist groups funded, trained, and equipped outside of Iraq and inserted into that nation as a destabilizing influence. The Iraqi government will never succeed in its political duties or live up to Levin’s benchmarks for success until al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist insurgents are decisively defeated, disbanded, and their demise displayed to the world as a deterrent from further foreign treachery in Iraq.

That will only happen through victory by our troops there and continued strengthening of the Iraqi military. General Petraeus’s September report will demonstrate that the surge strategy is working, which should be received as welcome news by all Americans. All Americans that is, except for those who, like Harry Reid and his fellow party leaders, have already declared the surge a failure and the war lost. In Reid’s case, he has already determined that he will not believe anything Petraeus reports if it includes good news about the surge . There is an ironic oxymoron in the nation’s highest ranking liberal being so decidedly close-minded. Democratic abandonment of Petraeus and the surge was an abrupt and hypocritical change in Democratic “support” for both considering the fact that earlier this year the senate voted 81-0 to confirm him as the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq knowing precisely what his intended plan of action would be.

Over the next several weeks while congress enjoys its summer recess away from Washington, Americans will be bombarded by media reports of Levin’s “findings” from his current trip to Iraq. We will witness a carefully calculated misinformation campaign that Levin himself admits is meant to distract people from the substance of General Petraeus’ pending war report. When politicians work so hard to discredit a military report or minimize the attention given to it, it should peak our interest in what is reported and why one party’s anti-war base considers it “a big problem.”

Americans should respond by rejecting the misinformation ploys and reading every word of the report, making their own decisions as to its veracity and impact on public support for the war effort.

Technorati Tags:
General Petraeus, Carl Levin, James Clyburn, Surge Strategy, Iraq War, Misinformation, Surge Progress Report, Iraqi Government, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Anti-War Democrats

US Al Qaeda Reality Hits Dems on NSA Bill

Is there anyone in the American intelligence community who does not think there are al Qaeda and other terrorist cells organizing and operating in the United States? Since 9/11, hasn't this been the single greatest suspicion among Americans? The fear of such cells lurking in America's shadows was sufficient to prompt a Time magazine cover dedicated to it in August 2004. In my career, especially since 9/11, my employer has wisely worked under the assumption that there are active terror cells in America, and we have worked closely with other government agencies to develop counterterrorism programs and security planning reflecting that belief. Perhaps because of this long held position in my workplace, it amazes me that news headlines like “Al Qaeda Cell May Be Loose in U.S.” are met with shock, fear, or even surprise by readers. That headline, from today’s New York Sun, frankly tells Americans nothing that should cause surprise, particularly to anyone who even remotely follows trends and developments in the War on Terror.

I do not mean to single out the New York Sun or the author of the above-mentioned article, Eli Lake, for criticism. The Sun and Lake in particular, have been referred to and frequently praised by Capital Cloak for fine coverage of the War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lake in this article was merely reporting what one of his reliable Washington sources told him about new evidence that al Qaeda had been in contact electronically with sympathizers or potential operatives inside the United States. Lake reported, in part, as follows:

E-mail addresses for American individuals were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe, a counterterrorism official told The New York Sun yesterday. The American and German intelligence community now believe the secure e-mail chains used in the United Kingdom plot have provided a window into an operational Qaeda network in several countries.

"Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States," the counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. "This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff. We have seen money moving a lot through hawala networks and other illicit finance as well." But this source was careful to say that at this point no specific information, such as names, targets or a timeline, was known about any particular plot on American soil. The e-mail addresses that are linked to Americans were pseudonyms.

Lake’s report is important not for the fact that it appears to confirm the presence of al Qaeda cells in America, something that virtually everyone in the intelligence community has assumed for years. What makes Lake’s information important is its timing. Over the weekend, as the most significant final pre-recess action taken by Congress, the House and Senate approved a bill strengthening and expanding government authorization to monitor international telephone and electronic communications without a warrant between Americans and foreign suspects.

These are the same Democrat-controlled House and Senate bodies that have relentlessly and obviously disingenuously accused the White House of abusing the NSA’s warrantless domestic surveillance program. There have been hearings, misrepresentations of the Bush administration’s motives, and cries of violations of civil liberties from the left since the program was leaked to and eagerly exposed by the New York Times. Now it appears that the intelligence gleaned from the thwarted London and Glasgow plots in July was sufficient to convince the virulent leaders of the anti-Bush Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, that all those warnings about potential terrorist cells in America were not merely presidential bluster.

Neither House nor Senate Democrats were personally pleased to pass this expanded surveillance powers legislation, and they continue to grumble about it in the media. After all, it was Pelosi who stated in January 2006 that, “I would not want any president — Democrat or Republican — to have the expanded power the administration is claiming in this case.” Yet now, when faced with the reality of actual email evidence of al Qaeda cells receiving communications from the bomb plotters in London, even the liberal left wing in Congress realized the surveillance was distasteful to them but ultimately necessary for survival.

As a safety net for the Democrats, the powers authorized in the bill were extended only for a six month period, in which we can expect rancorous debate over domestic surveillance, further accusations that the president is abusing civil liberties, and likely revisions of certain aspects of the bill. That six month period also indicates, however, that Congress felt the threat to the homeland was sufficiently grave in the next six months to merit special preventive measures. That fact, in and of itself, is telling.

The following is an excerpt from the New York Times’ description of the new legislation approved Saturday night by Congress and signed into law yesterday by President Bush:

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States.

They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens.

“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation.

Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States.

Today, most international telephone conversations to and from the United States are conducted over fiber-optic cables, and the most efficient way for the government to eavesdrop on them is to latch on to giant telecommunications switches located in the United States.

By changing the legal definition of what is considered “electronic surveillance,” the new law allows the government to eavesdrop on those conversations without warrants — latching on to those giant switches — as long as the target of the government’s surveillance is “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

This change was necessary because much of the infrastructure of the world’s largest telecommunications companies is housed in the United States, particularly the switch and server backbone that powers the Internet globally. The vast majority of the world’s email, even point to point between foreign countries, passes through servers located in America. In all respects, the bill was a necessary and prudent expansion of government surveillance powers to monitor international communications, and regardless of their motives or their half-hearted passage of the measures, Congressional Democrats should be applauded for doing the right thing to protect Americans by coming to terms with President Bush on this issue, even if it is only a temporary fix.

While no one in the intelligence community was surprised at the report of email communications between European al Qaeda and American operatives, it provided a wake up call to Congress that the War on Terror and the threat of attacks in the United States, are not merely “bumper sticker” slogans of the Bush administration. There were active al Qaeda cells in America more than one year prior to 9/11, and it is logical to conclude that there were others at that time and now who merely await activation and instructions from leadership. The activation and instructions will likely come in some form of long distance communication; email, telephone, instant messenger, or similar. Thanks to the president’s vigilant insistence on the power to monitor such communication and Congress’s reluctant cooperation, our chances of intercepting key messages have increased, and that makes America safer than it was just last week prior to this legislation.

It should be remembered that these expanded surveillance powers will not necessarily prevent any plans that have already reached the execution phase with a predetermined date or time, but they will prove crucial to detecting developing plots and in identifying suspected cell members.

It was not surprising to read of communications between al Qaeda and its operatives in America. The real surprise was that Congressional Democrats took so long to realize the importance of the government surveillance program in protecting America from attack. When the president’s critics do the right thing, even grudgingly, for national security, we all benefit.

Technorati Tags:
Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in America, FISA, NSA, Wiretap, Electronic Surveillance, Terrorist Cells, Bush Administration, Email monitoring

31 Victims Wish Gitmo Had Kept Mehsud

The moral of the story is that releasing terrorist enemy combatants from Guantanamo kills people. What is the story that leads to that moral? The tale of Abdullah Mehsud, a one-legged terrorist leader once housed at Guantanamo.

Liberal critics of the Bush administration’s detainment of terrorist enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay are full of sympathy and understanding for these so-called “freedom fighters” or “insurgents.” Those same critics have taken the administration to court in order to extend rights and legal representation to these terrorists caught in battle, arguing that they deserve criminal trials and should be released rather than held indefinitely. In the liberal mind these captured enemy combatants were never as dangerous or involved in high level terrorist activity as the military or the Bush administration claimed. As usual, however, liberal criticism of such military detentions has been proved unwarranted. As it turns out, even the detainees who are eventually released for various reasons immediately resume their jihad as soon as they return to Afghanistan, Iraq, or in one case symptomatic of the problem, Pakistan.

The story of Taliban leader Abdullah Mehsud illustrates quite clearly why it is not a good idea to release these enemy combatants while we are fighting a global war against Islamic terrorists. From today’s Washington Post:

A top Taliban commander who had became one of Pakistan's most wanted men since being released from U.S. custody in 2004 died Tuesday as security forces raided his hide-out, officials here said.

Abdullah Mehsud had earned a fearsome reputation by orchestrating brazen attacks and kidnappings, and was regarded as one of the masterminds of an insurgency that has spread from Afghanistan into Pakistan and grown more intense in recent weeks.

Pakistani officials said Mehsud blew himself up with a grenade early Tuesday morning rather than surrender as security forces closed in on his hideout....

...Mehsud, who was believed to be 31, was captured by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in late 2001, after the United States launched an invasion to topple the Taliban regime. The prisoner spent 25 months in the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But he apparently concealed his identity from his captors, and was released in March 2004. Mehsud later bragged that he had convinced Americans at Guantanamo that he was Afghan, not Pakistani.

Almost as soon as he was freed, the one-legged fighter -- he lost his other leg to a landmine -- resumed waging war, Pakistani officials say. The government of Pakistan placed an $84,000 bounty on his head after his followers kidnapped two Chinese engineers in October 2004. One of the engineers survived, while the other died during the rescue operation.

Mehsud, who operated both in Afghanistan and in the tribal areas of Pakistan, was believed to have ties to al Qaeda. It was not known if he had a role in the recent spate of attacks, though he was suspected in connection with a car bombing last week that targeted a convoy of Chinese engineers in Baluchistan. The engineers survived, but 30 Pakistanis were killed.

In this case, the government released Mehsud because he reportedly convinced Guantanamo officials that he was not a Taliban terrorist in Pakistan. The veracity of Mehsud’s bragging is questionable, but his release and subsequent behavior validate the Bush administration’s policy of indefinite detainment at facilities like Guantanamo. Even if the two attacks described above were the only ones orchestrated by Mehsud since his release from Guantanamo, which is highly unlikely, his release alone directly led to the deaths of 31 victims.

He returned to Pakistan and immediately resumed his role as an inspirational terrorist leader, yet the president’s critics incessantly pine for legal protections and releases for more than three hundred of Mehsud’s fellow terrorists. I am sure the families of Mehsud’s 31 most recent victims could offer convincing testimony regarding the wisdom of indefinite detentions for enemy combatants at Guantanamo. Unfortunately, liberals seeking to condemn President Bush listen more closely to the ACLU’s defense of “rights” for detainees than they do to reports of what happens when murderous terrorists are set free.

Mehsud further demonstrated that he preferred an explosive suicidal death to being captured and facing any form of legal prosecution or Pakistani military detainment. By continuing his policy of taking the fight to the enemy in its own lands, President Bush is allowing all who share Mehsud’s desire for ultimate justice their opportunity for self-execution. In the end, Mehsud did not want a lawyer, he wanted a grenade. He did not want a trial, he wanted martyrdom.

Ironically, he was never safer from his own suicidal ideology than he was while detained at Guantanamo. Setting such men free is potentially lethal, to innocents and to the terrorists themselves. We can increase global security for everyone by keeping these captured terrorists in pocket as long as we are at war with them.

Technorati Tags:
Abdullah Mehsud, Guantanamo, Enemy Combatants, al Qaeda, Bush Administration, Suicide, Islamic Terrorists

Pakistan a Moderate Muslim Test Case

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf could not have been more clear: "We are in direct confrontation with the extremist forces - it is moderates versus extremists." Yet instead of being encouraged by Musharraf's newly launched war to reform Islam from within, Lee Hamilton, former 9/11 Commission and Iraq Study Group member, recommended that the U.S. strike at al Qaeda in its Pakistani mountain safe haven on the Afghanistan border without Musharraf's consent. Hamilton cited several good reasons for taking unilateral action, specifically the importance of keeping al Qaeda on the run and unable to replenish itself. Hamilton also expressed evident disdain for Musharraf's insistence that Pakistani military forces conduct all raids against radical Islamist groups operating in Pakistan, an arrangement that Hamilton described as unacceptable. Hamilton joined Fox News Military analyst Colonel David Hunt in the "Musharraf is not our friend" chorus, and if Americans continue to sing that tune long and loudly enough, we will soon find few friends among the moderate Muslim leaders of the world.

Hamilton and Col. Hunt want what we all want: to see al Qaeda hunted down ruthlessly in their mountain sanctuaries as a deterrent to the rest of the world's radical Islamic terrorists and their potential recruits. The problem is that both men are fixated on the American "right" to conduct military operations within Pakistan even though Pakistan's moderate Muslim president and military leader has declared war on the extremists in his own nation and has now promised to confront radical Islamists in every corner of Pakistan.

Of course we want to strike al Qaeda, but doing so unilaterally without the consent of the president of the world's only Muslim nuclear nation would send precisely the wrong message to Muslims everywhere. Americans complain that not enough moderate Muslims are working to reform Islam by confronting its extremists, yet when we find one who happens to be a powerful figure with control of a small nuclear arsenal, Hamilton and Col. Hunt question his friendship and urge our leaders to ignore Musharraf's promise to purge the terrorists internally. Either we want Islam to reform itself or we don't. Hamilton and Col. Hunt cannot have it both ways.

I wrote previously about Musharraf's need for sovereignty, further postulating that the United States would never allow a foreign military to conduct strikes within our borders, as we would, like Musharraf, exercise our sovereignty and insist that our military remove the enemy from within our borders. It is no small matter for a president to permit a foreign military to cross his nation's borders and attack members, albeit radical ones, of his national religion. Therein lays the danger inherent in circumventing Musharraf's authority. His decision to publicly distinguish between moderate and extreme Islam, and further vow to "fight against extremism and terrorism no matter what province," has worsened his already precarious political position because a long-term battle against terrorists in Pakistan will require Musharraf to not relinquish command of the Pakistani military, a power he has personally retained despite calls for separation of his political and military role as President-General. Musharraf's military command, if he continues on the moderate path, is of great benefit to global security, as he keeps nuclear weapons in moderate hands.

Meanwhile, radicals within Pakistan salivate at the prospect of electing a president who shares their views and might use that arsenal to intimidate or annihilate their enemies. America finds itself in the position of having a moderate Muslim president-military dictator as perhaps its most valuable and vulnerable ally in the War on Terror.

Musharraf has successfully remained in power because of his strong hold on Pakistan's military establishment, though he faces danger in that realm from radical infiltration. If the United States were to ignore Musharraf's sovereign authority and send our military to conduct operations within Pakistan, it would directly challenge the one core strength he possesses: electorates rarely choose to change leaders in war time or when military confrontation is imminent. A U.S. strike, rather than a sustained Pakistani operation, would convince Pakistanis that Musharraf did not wield any international influence and could be replaced, since the U.S. would have shown little regard for whomever was Pakistan's president by handling the matter unilaterally. Musharraf is receiving criticism from every political party in Pakistan, some opposing his combative stance against radical Islam, and others decrying his determination to run for re-election without relinquishing control of the military.

Impatience is our sorest affliction in Iraq, as the House and Senate worked feverishly and at least for one night, sleeplessly, to withdraw from Iraq long before the full results of the surge strategy can be evaluated. That same impatience must not dictate precipitous U.S. action in Pakistan before allowing Musharraf's confrontation strategy to yield tangible results. Arguably the most militarily and politically powerful moderate Muslim in the world, Musharraf embodies the great question the non-Muslim world wants answered: Is Islam truly a moderate religion of peace, or does radical Islam hold sway in the hearts and minds of the majority?

If Musharraf's declared war against extremism within Islam succeeds in Pakistan, it would set a precedent to be followed in Muslim nations worldwide. If it is also true that moderate Muslims live in fear of the radicals in their midst, then we, and they, should sing Musharraf's praises for pitting himself squarely against the terrorists, rather than forming choruses that shriek about his perceived limitations.

Musharraf left no doubt about his commitment to victory in Pakistan's new war on extremism, reassuring his countrymen, "We will finish it off in every corner of the country." What greater victory could there be in a war against extremist terrorism than for a Muslim nation to clean its own house of terrorists? Let us not allow our national epidemic of impatience to cripple in Pakistan what may be the ultimate death knell for radical Islam: internal reform, by ideology if possible, but by the sword if necessary.

Technorati Tags:
Musharraf, Lee Hamilton, Colonel David Hunt, Pakistan, Al Qaeda, War on Terror, Moderate Muslims, Radical Islam

Did FBI Call ABC but not Border Patrol?

The ABC News Blotter reported yesterday that Iraqis are being smuggled from Mexico across the Rio Grande River into New Mexico by a human smuggling ring, and this ring has been in operation for more than a year, according to an FBI intelligence report issued last week. This ABC story received significant attention in Internet news forums, but reader commentary at The Blotter web site and one of my favorites, Lucianne.com, was focused almost exclusively on our porous borders and the Bush administration's crusade for amnesty at the expense of national security through secure borders. These criticisms were, of course, perfectly valid, but when I read Brian Ross' Blotter piece, I observed something different and troubling that unless rectified, will almost certainly lead to continued vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Here is the portion of Ross' report that caught my attention:

An FBI intelligence report distributed by the Washington, D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, says the illegal ring has been bringing Iraqis across the border illegally for more than a year.

Border Patrol officials in the area said they were unaware of the specifics of the FBI's report, and federal prosecutors in New Mexico told ABCNews.com they had no current cases involving the illegal smuggling of Iraqis.

The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative....

If Ross' source is accurate, the FBI distributed this Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) report last week to agencies that are participating members of the Washington DC JTTF. That list would include most federal agencies with counterterrorism and law enforcement functions, including Department of Homeland Security components such as Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as many local and state law enforcement agencies. Yet when contacted for information about the Iraqi smuggling ring and the FBI's information about its existence, Border Patrol officials "were unaware" of the FBI report. Is this another example of the FBI keeping its terrorism investigation details close to the vest? It should concern all Americans that Brian Ross can obtain a copy of a restricted document about the smuggling of Middle Easterners into New Mexico, but the Border Patrol in New Mexico cannot.

What was the lesson from 9/11 if not the importance of information sharing among government agencies? I have decried the lack of openness in the intelligence and law enforcement communities in previous posts and there is ample blame to go around, but here we find ourselves nearly six years after 9/11 and the lead agency charged with investigating terrorism learns of a ring smuggling Middle Eastern individuals into America and no one bothers to tell the Border Patrol? The media should not be tasked with notifying law enforcement agencies about illegal activities that likely have a terrorist nexus. Brian Ross is not an FBI agent or counterterrorism specialist, yet when he contacted the Border Patrol in New Mexico, they received first notice of the FBI report from a journalist.

To make matters worse, the new National Intelligence Estimate issued yesterday made it quite clear that al Qaeda in Iraq has expressed significant interest in possibly attacking the U.S. homeland with Iraqi operatives to be placed in America. I'm sure it is just coincidence that the smuggling of Iraqis from Mexico into New Mexico has been occurring for over a year. Are they really "refugees fleeing the violence in Iraq" as Brian Ross claims, or are some of them the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing?

Do you feel safer knowing that those sworn to protect you work harder to avoid communicating with each other than they do to warn each other of newly obtained intelligence? This is a problem that must be stopped before an attack that could have been detected early is brought to terrible fruition.

Technorati Tags:
Border Patrol, Border Security, Human Smuggling, Iraqis, New Mexico, FBI, Information Sharing, National Intelligence Estimate, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Brian Ross

NIE Shows CIA, State in Denial on Iran

Portions of the much anticipated new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) will be released to the public today, and finally average citizens will get a clear view of the end product funded by their taxes. After more than two years of meetings, conferences, briefings, draft sessions, and revisions, the American intelligence agencies’ NIE concludes only that there is no consensus between them on very fundamental issues. The “major points” made by the report are truly shocking revelations that no one outside of an intelligence agency could possibly have concluded without all of that specialized training and experience (sarcasm off):

-Al Qaeda is still trying to get its hands on a variety of WMDs and, gasp, would use them if it possessed them.

-Al Qaeda has regrouped and restored most of the ingredients necessary to launch a major terrorist attack against the U.S. homeland.

-Al Qaeda, another gasp, is working hard to place operatives in the U.S.

-The U.S. faces “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” for at least the next three years. The predicted main sources for that threat are, third gasp, Islamic terrorist groups, particularly Al Qaeda. The threat to the U.S. comes from “the undiminished intent to attack the homeland and a continued effort by terrorist groups to adapt and improve their capabilities.”

Of course, NIE summaries released to the public are sanitized of any classified information or source references, but the level of sanitization for this NIE is insulting to Americans who do not have access to the full report. Capital Cloak readers are intelligent and interested in matters of national security and intelligence. You did not need the NIE, representing millions of dollars and thousands of hours of research, to tell you what you already knew: Islamic terrorists want to kill Americans in America with any weapon they can acquire. In my profession, we knew these things long before 9/11, and anyone who did not learn these lessons after 9/11 continues to live in a fantasy world of “if we leave them alone they will leave us alone.” What then was the purpose of the NIE and all of the media hoopla surrounding it?

Like most NIE’s, the one released today contains the official conclusions of the sixteen agencies that comprise the intelligence community. If nothing else, NIE’s offer a glimpse at the functionality and ideology of each agency, and often the gulf between certain agencies are nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in these documents. Sometimes inter-agency disagreements are little more than technical trivia, but disputes also can create institutional paralysis. When several major agencies offer divergent opinions of the same issue, it leaves the executive and legislative branches that rely on those opinions for policy decision-making in a difficult position. Unfortunately, as the NY Sun reported today, the new NIE includes a critical point of disagreement between agencies on what is likely the most important issue currently facing America: Iran.

Despite clear and increasing evidence that al Qaeda’s resurgence is occurring not only in Pakistan’s mountains but also in Iran, analysts within the State Department and CIA argue in the new NIE that Iran’s Quds Force, terrorist special forces units designed to support terror operations and report directly to Iran’s supreme leader, are acting independently of Iran’s official government in their funding, equipping, and transporting al Qaeda terrorists who have attacked and continue to attack American troops in Iraq. According to these two agencies, the simple fact that Iran is a Shia nation while al Qaeda is run by radical Sunnis makes collaboration between the two groups against a common enemy unlikely if not impossible. They appear convinced that Iran’s government is not giving orders to the Quds Force to assist al Qaeda terrorists with their fight against the U.S. in Iraq.

That conclusion is incredibly short-sighted and narrow-minded. It is true that al Qaeda’s Sunnis view Iran’s Shia population as “infidels” under a technical Koranic interpretation, but the differences between the two are far easier to overcome than the religious and cultural divide between Islam and non-Islamic nations and cultures. Thus it is far more logical to conclude that Shia-Sunni collaboration against the West is not only possible but extremely likely, and if the combined effort succeeds in defeating Western cultures, these two differing branches of Islam could then turn their attentions or contentions to each other. But don’t try to convince anyone at State or the CIA, they are convinced that the two are not capable of working together. Extending that flawed logic to its equally flawed conclusion, these two departments apparently believe that Sunni terrorists would refuse to join with Shia terrorists in a war against Israel. It is much more logical to conclude that branches of the same religion would gladly join hands and martyr themselves in a war against the U.S. or Israel, as doing so is necessary to bringing about their ultimate goal: a global Islamic state under Sharia law.

National Review’s Michael Ledeen nicely countered the flawed thinking behind the estimate that the Quds Force acts independently:

Instead, every new revelation about Iran’s role in the terror war is greeted with the pathetic mantra “but this does not prove that the regime itself is involved.” As if General Suleimani of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force would dare launch operation after operation against us in Iraq without the explicit approval of his commander-in-chief, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Do our analysts not know that the Revolutionary Guards were created for the explicit purpose of responding to the whims of the Supreme Leader? Whenever the Guards move, they do so precisely because “the regime” has willed it.

While Americans should be insulted by the common sense vanilla plainness of the public portions of the new NIE, we should also be concerned that two of the most influential agencies in any administration, the CIA and State Department, refuse to recognize that the Defense Department, which has infinitely more sources of information in the region at this time, is warning that Iran, despite a doctrinal religious difference with al Qaeda Sunnis, is actively supporting the terrorists in Iraq and killing our troops. Iranian weaponry and explosives are found in ever-increasing numbers within Iraq. Those weapons and IEDs did not leave Iranian supply facilities on their own or without the approval of Iran’s government.

The liberal media jumped out in front of this issue long ago, accusing the Bush administration and specifically Vice President Cheney, of pushing for action against Iran, branding such recommendations as “war mongering.” Yet it should be noted that counterterrorism expert and bitter Bush critic Richard Clarke’s deputy Roger Cressey told the NY Sun that when President Bush took the fight to the Taliban after 9/11, al Qaeda relocated its operational centers to two areas: Pakistan and Iran. Cressey described known meetings and meet locations of al Qaeda leaders in Iran and made it quite clear that the Shia Iranian government had no qualms about allowing and even embracing al Qaeda within its borders because they share common enemies, the U.S. and Israel. Those who casually toss out accusations like “war mongering” should remember that it was the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report, highly revered in liberal circles, that first reported publicly Iranian ties and assistance to eight of the 9/11 hijackers, with Iran’s government offering them passage into and out of Afghanistan.

What liberal critics and apparently the CIA and State Department fail to grasp is the concept of war. They mistakenly sit idly by, tinkering with foreign policy “solutions,” waiting for Iran to formally declare war on the U.S., and only then will they choose to recognize war-like behaviors for what they are and recommend decisive action to defend America. Unfortunately, the days of nations notifying each other through declarations of war are long gone, and whether or not State and CIA officials recognize it, Iran is conducting a war against the U.S., allowing well funded proxies to fight it for them. Another term for such proxies is mercenaries, and even liberals cannot deny that England’s employment of Hessian mercenaries against America in the Revolutionary War did not make Hessians responsible for the war itself. While Iran’s proxies kill our troops with no repercussions resulting for the mullahs, Iran continues to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons production with no intention of stopping or being induced to stop by sanctions or other diplomatic methods.

In war, there is logic behind meeting the enemy on a “neutral” battlefield. In this case, Iran is taking the fight to us in Iraq, attempting (very half-heartedly) to conceal its involvement, while making sure that Iraqi, not Iranian, citizens are killed in the battles and crossfire. At some point, however, defeating an enemy requires destroying his resources, production capabilities, and governmental centers. This is why it is so critical that the U.S. remain and stabilize Iraq; victory there will set the stage for the coming conflict with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and soon to be its number one WMD threat.

The boots on the ground in Iraq insist that Iran is already at war with us. Hopefully the CIA and State Department will come to recognize this fact instead of holding tenaciously to the ridiculous notion that differing Islamic radicals groups cannot work together to hasten our demise.

Technorati Tags:
NIE, National Intelligence Estimate, Iran, Quds Force, Al Qaeda, Islamic Terrorists, CIA, State Department, 9/11 Commission

Fox Analyst Flays "Friend" Musharraf

It is a rare occurrence when I must side with the usually left-leaning State Department on any issue that directly involves national security. However, when it comes to calls from certain quarters for the Bush administration to aggressively pressure Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to wage all out war on Islamic radicals hiding in the mountainous Afghanistan/Pakistan border, I found myself siding with Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs rather than Fox News military analyst Colonel David Hunt. Ordinarily I appreciate Col. Hunt’s blunt assessments and aggressive posture towards engaging the enemy with full purpose and force rather than limited rules of engagement, but Col. Hunt’s recommendations for conducting the War on Terror within Pakistan are fraught with dangers that he either minimizes or ignores in his online columns and cable news interviews.

A summary of a new threat assessment leaked to the Associated Press this week highlighted the reality that the Taliban and al Qaeda have regrouped and regained strength nearly on par with pre-9/11 levels, thriving in their mountain hideouts in the tribal regions of Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan. What to do about that reality is, next to Iraq, the most hotly debated issue in Washington. Counterterrorism and intelligence officials believe Musharraf has not done enough to root out the terrorists while accepting $100 million from the U.S. each month ostensibly to develop the local economy in the tribal areas where many find the money alternatively offered by terror groups and border smugglers irresistible. Musharraf has insisted that Pakistani forces execute all counterterrorism raids and operations within Pakistan, and the amount of success he has achieved forms the crux of the debate between the State Department’s approach toward Pakistan and the approach favored by Col. Hunt and others.

In his latest column at FoxNews.com, Col. Hunt wrote the following:

This week, we learned that in 2005, great guys from Seal Team 6, Special Forces, and other terrific Special Operations Organizations were sitting on a runway in Afghanistan, all geared up, ready to go and capture and or kill much of al Qaeda's top leadership. You remember al Qaeda; they’re the ones who killed us on September 11, 2001. Our supremely brave, conditioned and trained men were fully rehearsed, totally committed and ready to kick some serious al Qaeda [expletive].

They call him Rummy … or at least I do. He's the former and totally incompetent Secretary of Defense, who less than two years after 9/11 — two years after the president says “we will hunt them down” — decides that this mission was to be canceled. He makes this bone-headed decision because it might be “dangerous” and it might piss off the president of Pakistan. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Hey, Mr. “Ask and Answer Your Own Questions,” everything about war is dangerous and General Musharraf is not our friend.

I do not fault Col. Hunt for his dislike of former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld or for his desire for Special Forces operations like the one he described to act swiftly and lethally to eliminate Bin Laden or other terrorist leaders. From a counterterrorism and military perspective, the idea that a Special Forces team had a specific location to hit within Pakistan and was prepared to strike but was denied the opportunity for political reasons is incredibly frustrating. It is easy for those of us who work in intelligence or related fields to conclude that though such an operation might anger Musharraf, the ends would justify the means, especially if Bin Laden were captured or killed. Yet that is precisely where Col. Hunt’s assessment of the missed opportunity and the risk to Musharraf drifts from understandable disappointment to dangerous miscalculation.

Col. Hunt’s assessment that “General Musharraf is not our friend” is shared by many within the intelligence and counterterrorism community, but it is based on unrealistic expectations for “friendship” in the War on Terror, as well as a dangerous underestimation of the Muslim power vacuum that would occur in nuclear-armed Pakistan should Musharraf lose control or be assassinated. Although Musharraf may not be the “friend” that Col. Hunt understandably hopes for, considering the seething cauldron of Islamic radicalism that surrounds him within his own population it is remarkable that he has survived to assist the U.S. as long as he has. Assistant Sec. of State Boucher defended Musharraf’s contributions to the War on Terror during a House committee hearing yesterday, as excerpted from the Washington Post:

At the hearing, Boucher said that Pakistan has "captured more al-Qaeda than any country in the world, and lost more people doing that." He added that Pakistani authorities had killed or captured three of the top 10 Taliban commanders in the border area over the past six to nine months -- and caught several more in the past week.

Boucher said that Pakistan has about 85,000 troops stationed in the border area, with Washington reimbursing Islamabad for its $100 million monthly expenses. Musharraf has promised the tribal leaders $100 million annually for 10 years, and the United States has pledged another $150 million annually for five years, in an effort to promote economic development as an alternative to smuggling and terrorism.

"These were all joint efforts with Pakistan that led to the elimination of some of the top Taliban leaders who had been operating from Pakistan to support the insurgency in Afghanistan," Boucher said.

He said that there are signs "every now and then that there's not a wholehearted effort at all levels in all institutions in Pakistan" -- a reference to news accounts of Pakistani intelligence officials supporting terrorists.

"We've raised those when we need to," Boucher said. When asked about Musharraf's role, he said, "I think if Pakistan was not fighting terrorism, there'd be no way we could succeed in Afghanistan or in terms of the security of our homeland."

The State Department and intelligence community are nearly always at odds over strategy and alliance issues, and nowhere is that more evident than in the debate over how much pressure the U.S. should apply to Musharraf to wage war against Islamic radicals within his own country. In addition to the contributions Musharraf has made as outlined in part by Asst. Secretary Boucher, Musharraf recently showed courage in raiding a radical mosque and killing a barricaded Islamic radical cleric, actions that were wildly unpopular In Islamabad and caused riots. He has reportedly survived fourteen assassination attempts, and yet continues to mount Pakistani military operations against Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in the tribal regions. In this precarious position reality dictates that losing Musharraf, regardless of his perceived level of “friendship” with the U.S., would be far more dangerous to world stability and our national security than his continued allegedly half-hearted engagement in the War on Terror.

Col. Hunt was quick to criticize Musharraf and to call for American military strikes within Pakistan regardless of the potential ramifications for Musharraf’s continued control over Pakistan’s nuclear weaponry and resources. Such rash action might satisfy our desire for revenge on Bin Laden and it might very well weaken al Qaeda greatly for many years. However, as recent plots in Britain, Indonesia, the Philippines, and other nations have demonstrated, al Qaeda’s leadership may be holed up in Pakistan’s mountains, but its ideology and followers have formed a global movement. By striking within Pakistan without the consent of President Musharraf, America would undermine his authority and control over his country and embolden radical Islamists to gain control of Pakistan’s military and nuclear weapons through a coup or other violent action. Would America be safer with a Pakistani leader who, though far from being a perfect “friend”, at least keeps nuclear weapons and material out of the hands of Islamic terrorists, or with the alternative; a radical Islamist Pakistani leader who opens Pakistan’s nuclear resources to the highest bidding terrorist organization?

If a U.S. War on Terror, waged by the U.S. inside Pakistan, would create no other repercussions than making Musharraf angry, as Col. Hunt simplistically assumed, then it would be well worth doing, and doing immediately. Unfortunately, war carries multiple dangers, and angering Musharraf is not the reason we have forestalled sending our Special Forces into Pakistan. The simple truth is that Musharraf’s stability in Pakistan has earned him the right to demand that Pakistan’s military conduct all operations within its border. One wonders how Col. Hunt might respond if he were President of the United States and a terrorist group, later discovered to be holed up in the Rocky Mountains near Denver, flew planes into government buildings in Islamabad, killing 3,000 Pakistanis. Would “President Hunt,” when contacted by an angry Musharraf, agree to allow Pakistani forces to operate inside the U.S. and attack the terrorists hiding in the Rocky Mountains? It is not likely. “President Hunt” would rightfully expect to be respected and would likewise rightfully assure Musharraf that the U.S. military would handle any such operation within our borders. Why would Col. Hunt expect Musharraf to act any differently when given the same type of request?

For a military man steeped in the culture of respect for authority, it is surprising that Col. Hunt would demonstrate so much contempt for the authority of a foreign president of a nuclear power with a population of 165 million who has, lest it be forgotten, taken high profile terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into custody and turned them over to American intelligence operatives. The information gleaned from those prisoners has been the most significant contribution to our knowledge of the enemy in the War on Terror, and Musharraf’s military operations against al Qaeda in Pakistan made that possible. While Musharraf holds onto his fragile control over Pakistan, America should patiently assist this “friend” rather than cast stones at him. Who among world leaders is a perfect “friend?” Let him cast the first stone. Secretary Rumsfeld, also a far from perfect Defense Secretary, clearly had more significant reasons for not sending Special Ops into Pakistan than making Musharraf angry, reasons that continue to shape current American restraint in order to preserve a known and stable leadership in Pakistan.

Technorati Tags:
Musharraf, Pakistan, al Qaeda, War on Terror, Bush Administration, Colonel David Hunt, State Department, Richard Boucher, Taliban, Counterterrorism