Permanent safe havens along the porous border?

KHOST, Afghanistan - Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network is seizing a greater role behind the scenes in Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort that could block the Barack Obama administration's stated goal of denying the terror network sanctuary in South Asia.

A three-month investigation of al-Qaeda's activities, from Nuristan in the north to Paktika in the southeast, suggests that bin Laden's terror network - working through Afghan and Pakistani partners - is present in almost every Afghan and Pakistani province along the fluid border areas between the two countries.

Interviews with US military commanders and American radio intercepts of Arab and Chechen fighters as well as confirmed captures or kills of foreign fighters inside Afghanistan bolster the findings.

More alarming to Western terrorism analysts and US commanders, however, is the recognition that al-Qaeda has succeeded in goading its regional partners into accepting the idea of a "two-front-war" against US-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan and the government in Pakistan. That war in turn guarantees bin Laden's network permanent safe havens along the porous border between the two nations, from which it can plan larger international terrorist attacks.

Asia Times Online: Al Qaeda Spreads Its Tentacles

That's what I pay him for

One man's military-industrial complex:

In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity.

The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.

Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.

Four days later the general swung into action. He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. "No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed," he said.

Thus, within days of hiring McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq's expanding military.

"That's what I pay him for," Timothy Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.

One man's military-industrial complex (International Herald Tribune, 30 November 2008)

Everything's relative

The US “war on terror” has restricted the freedom of individual Americans – but to a lesser degree than in previous conflicts, a study said on Monday.

Freedom House, a US group best known for its work overseas, expresses “grave concern” at measures such as extraordinary rendition, “mistreatment of those in US custody” and warrantless wiretaps.

But it says: “The war on terrorism has resulted in ­significantly fewer violations of individual freedom than previous conflicts.”

The other incidents it cites include the mass detention of Japanese-Americans during the second world war, and Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency investigations of thousands of US ­citizens opposed to the Vietnam war.

Report warns of threats to freedom in US (Financial Times, 5 May 2008)

Related:

• Freedom House
  
• "Today's American: How Free?" at Freedom House
  

Tribal logic

Via Chap, a review of a book that looks well worth reading:

Arab tribesmen are preoccupied with maintaining deterrence and prepared to use force preemptively, if necessary--rather like über neocons. The ironic but very real parallel is a function of the de facto stateless anarchy in which Arab Bedouin live--and the de facto global anarchy that hawkish conservatives rightly believe to be the underlying reality of the international system. Saddam Hussein's interest in being taken to possess WMDs, whether or not he actually had them, makes sense in light of the link between deterrence and reputation. The emboldening effects of America's pre-9/11 retreats in Somalia, Lebanon, and elsewhere show the reverse of the medal. Although this is a familiar litany, I'd argue that the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the rage against the Muhammad cartoons, the killing of Theo van Gogh, and a host of related acts of intimidation ought to be placed under the heading of pro-active deterrence as well.

The swift and seemingly disproportionate resort to retaliatory force against apparently trivial offenses is an effective technique for suppressing future challenges. Most of the feuds Salzman describes, however weighty and enduring, break out over seemingly petty and inconsequential matters, like the mistaken appropriation of some palm trunks. Rifle shots, intentionally off the mark, are used to intimidate, as are calculated threats of murder. The careful use of targeted force and credible threats against Western critics of Islamism shows genuine mastery of the technique of deterrent intimidation. Here as elsewhere, an overtly religious action is actually shaped by a hidden tribal template.

Knowingly or unknowingly, American liberals and conservatives highlight sections of the tribal template, though for their own preferred uses. The implicit dovish take on tribalism notes that our own use of force actually serves to unite the foe. By hitting back at terrorist-harboring states, doves remind us, we create the impression of an infidel war against Muslims, thus figuratively recruiting every Muslim lineage into bin Laden's civilizational war party. This danger is real, yet the doves omit the rest. Failure to strike back creates an impression of weakness that invites further attacks.

"I and My Brother Against My Cousin" - Stanley Kurtz reviews Philip Carl Salzman's Culture and Conflict in the Middle East in The Weekly Standard

Review: "Leaderless Jihad"

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius reviews Marc Sageman's latest book, Leaderless Jihad.

Politicians who talk about the terrorism threat -- and it's already clear that this will be a polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign -- should be required to read a new book by a former CIA officer named Marc Sageman. It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.

[...]

...The first wave of al-Qaeda leaders, who joined Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, is down to a few dozen people on the run in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. The second wave of terrorists, who trained in al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s, has also been devastated, with about 100 hiding out on the Pakistani frontier. These people are genuinely dangerous, says Sageman, and they must be captured or killed. But they do not pose an existential threat to America, much less a "clash of civilizations."

It's the third wave of terrorism that is growing, but what is it? By Sageman's account, it's a leaderless hodgepodge of thousands of what he calls "terrorist wannabes." Unlike the first two waves, whose members were well educated and intensely religious, the new jihadists are a weird species of the Internet culture. Outraged by video images of Americans killing Muslims in Iraq, they gather in password-protected chat rooms and dare each other to take action. Like young people across time and religious boundaries, they are bored and looking for thrills.

David Ignatius - The Fading Jihadists (Washington Post, 28 Feb 2008)

Related:

Virtues requiring caveats are not virtues

TWENTY-SEVEN years ago, in the final days of the Iran hostage crisis, the C.I.A.’s Tehran station chief, Tom Ahern, faced his principal interrogator for the last time. The interrogator said the abuse Mr. Ahern had suffered was inconsistent with his own personal values and with the values of Islam and, as if to wipe the slate clean, he offered Mr. Ahern a chance to abuse him just as he had abused the hostages. Mr. Ahern looked the interrogator in the eyes and said, “We don’t do stuff like that.”

Today, Tom Ahern might have to say: “We don’t do stuff like that very often.” Or, “We generally don’t do stuff like that.” That is a shame. Virtues requiring caveats are not virtues. Saying a man is honest is a compliment. Saying a man is “generally” honest or honest “quite often” means he lies. The mistreatment of detainees, like honesty, is all or nothing: We either do stuff like that or we do not. It is in our national interest to restore our reputation for the latter.

Unforgivable Behavior, Inadmissible Evidence (17 February 2008, New York Times, Guest Op-Ed, Morris Davis. The author, an Air Force colonel, was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005 to 2007.)

A balance of fear among tribes

For more than 230 years, Americans have assumed that because we have had a happy experience with democracy, so will the rest of the world. But the American military has had a radically contrary experience in Iraq. And Iraq may be but prologue for what our troops may encounter in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Iraq has had three elections that have led to chaos. Bringing society out of that chaos has meant a recourse not to laws or a constitution, but to blood ties. The Anbar Awakening has been a rebuff not only to the extremism of al-Qaeda, but to democracy itself. Restoring peace in Anbar has been accomplished by a lot of money changing hands, to the benefit of unelected but well-respected tribal sheikhs, paid off with cash and projects by our soldiers and marines. Progress in Iraq means erecting not a parliamentary system, but a balance of fear among tribes and sectarian groups.

Robert Kaplan, "It's the Tribes, Stupid!", The Atlantic, November 2007

The Department of Everything Else

As Ken Burns' fascinating documentary on World War II recently reminded us, nothing teaches like early failures in a long war. So as this global struggle against radical extremism unfolds, it's important to recognize progress where it occurs.

In my 2004 book, "The Pentagon's New Map," I argued that our military would inevitably split into a Leviathan-like combat force and a "system administrator" force optimized for everything else: postwar stabilization and reconstruction, nation-building, crisis response, and counter-insurgency.

The sysadmin's capabilities emerge today in response to America's lengthy postwar stints in Afghanistan and Iraq. A good example would be the new Army-Marine counter-insurgency manual that argues for less "kinetics" ( i.e., blowing stuff up) and more effort in economic development and political capacity building. A long slog? You bet. But that's how our military finally overcomes the Vietnam syndrome.

Thomas P.M. Barnett: How our military evolves in this long war

(To learn about the Department of Everything Else, keep reading.)