Amitai Etzioni Notes

Soft Syria Response Worse Than Inaction

A weak or irrelevant response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria may be even worse than inaction. As long as President Obama delays action—as he waits for all the intelligence he requires—Syrians and others can still assume that when he is finally moved to act, he will unleash a thunderbolt, striking a blow against the regime that will convince one and all not to cross red lines drawn by the United States. But if Obama again follows his proclivity to split the difference—to appease the critics, but not address the challenge—he will demonstrate weakness.

Among the suggestions that have been made are for Obama to arm the rebels, to introduce a no-fly zone or to create a safe haven for refugees. Calls for such actions have come from both sides of the aisle: Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, as well as Democratic senator Carl Levin and representative Eliot Engel. But these acts are not likely to turn the tide against the rush of fighters—many with combat experience—from Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon that are joining in the defense of Assad, or the elite cohort of “advisers” and many thousands of troops supplied by Iran. And if the intervention by the United States were to tip the scales, we would have a new Libya on our hands, with one very devastating difference: jihadists with chemical weapons.

The notion advanced by Senator Graham that if we only arm “our” rebels (the few pro-Western ones) they will fight against both Assad and the extremists, is wishful thinking. “Ours” are the weakest of the lot. However, even if somehow “our” rebels prevailed, we should note that it did not take long for those who the United States armed in Afghanistan against the Soviets to turn on us, or for arms we supplied in Libya to flow into the hands of Al Qaeda in Mali.

Increasing humanitarian aid, especially helping Jordan and Turkey cope with the flood of refugees and providing more medical and food supplies to refugees in Syria, is both a very good idea and an irrelevant one. We should extend this aid whether or not Assad used chemical weapons, but such good deeds will not be, and will not be seen as, a response to the regime’s (or the rebels') violation of Obama’s red line.

Read the rest at The National Interest-->

Drones: Say it with figures

Originally published in United Press International

Attacking drones, the most effective counter-terrorism tool the United States has found thus far, is a new cause celebre among progressive public intellectuals and major segments of the media.

Their arguments would deserve more of a hearing if, instead of declaring their contentions as fact, they instead coughed up some evidence to support their claims.

One argument that is repeated again and again is that killing terrorists with drones generates resentment from Pakistan to Yemen, thereby breeding many more terrorists than are killed. For example, Akbar Ahmed, a distinguished professor at American University, told the BBC on April 9 that, for "every terrorist drones kill, perhaps 100 rise as a result."

The key word is "perhaps"; Ahmed cites no data to support his contention.

Similarly, in The New York Times, Jo Becker and Scott Shane write that "Drones have replaced Guantanamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants," citing as their evidence one line Faisal Shahzad, who had tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square, used in his 2010 trial seeking to justify targeting civilians.

At the same time, when HBO interviewed children who carry suicide vests, they justified their acts by the presence of foreign troops in their country and burning of Korans.

No such self-serving statements can be taken as evidence in themselves.

And Peter Bergen, a responsible and serious student of drones, quotes approvingly in The Washington Post a new book by Mark Mazzetti, who claims that the use of drone strikes "creates enemies just as it has obliterated them." Again, however, Mazzetti presents no evidence.

One may at first consider it obvious that, when American drones kill terrorists who are members of a tribe or family, other members will resent the United States. And hence if the United States would stop targeting people from the skies, that resentment would abet and ultimately vanish.

In reality, ample evidence shows that large parts of the population of several Muslim countries resent the United States for numerous and profound reasons, unrelated to drone attacks.

These Muslims consider the United States to be the "Great Satan" because it violates core religious values they hold dear; it promotes secular democratic liberal regimes; it supports women's rights; and it exports a lifestyle that devout Muslims consider hedonistic and materialistic to their countries.

These feelings, data show, are rampant in countries in which no drones attacks have occurred, were common in those countries in which the drones have been employed well before any attacks took place, and continue unabated, even when drone attacks are greatly scaled back.

Read the rest at United Press International

The Risk of Blurring the Red Lines

The Obama administration is ignoring two of the most elementary rules of the use of power: First of all, the more credible threats are, the less power one needs to marshal (and hence less one needs to spend on building it up), and the less often power needs to be actually exercised. Second, every time one makes a threat, one is tested twice: will it bring about the desired outcome? And will it build up or diminish the credibility of one’s power?

In March, President Obama announced that if the Assad regime will use chemical weapons this would be a “game changer.” When reports first surfaced that such weapons were used, the Obama administration pointed out that these appeared to be riot control agents, such as pepper spray and tear gas, which is often used by police forces. These may be considered chemical weapons in the Middle East, but the United States does not consider them as such. (It was also unclear whether it was the rebels or the government who had employed these agents.)

Most recently, however, when Britain, France, and Israel reported that nerve gas agents were used by the Assad regime, the Obama administration responded that the United States was investigating the matter. As these reports come in, the study continues.

One can readily understand the reluctance of the Obama administration to act, given the large quantities, varying kinds, and wide dispersion of the chemical agents in Syria. Moreover, the chemical weapons are not easily handled; safely destroying them will very likely entangle the United States in the civil war; and such involvement would almost certainly lack UN authorization. However, all this was known before the United States drew the red line. Hence, if the Obama administration continues to dillydally, it will further undermine the credibility of the United States as a superpower, a position already shaken by its failing engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The same holds for the shifting red lines—the plural “lines” is not a misprint—drawn, redrawn and repositioned on Iran’s nuclear development. From the beginning of his first term, President Obama indicated that the United States would find it “unacceptable” if Iran were to pursue a nuclear weapon program. Yet it seems that Iran’s nuclear development did not stop. In September 2009 the administration threw its support behind a proposal that would allow Iran to pursue uranium enrichment up to 5 percent. The deal was rejected, and by February 2010, Iran was producing 20 percent enriched uranium. The administration decided that 20 percent was now acceptable—as long as Iran did not move toward constructing a bomb. The president pledged “not to contain, but to prevent an Iranian bomb,” even if that meant military action.

Read the rest at The National Interest-->

The Reasonable Interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

There is something very commendable and seriously troubling in the calls by the so called “responsible media,” the ACLU, and select liberals to preserve the rights of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect. On the one hand, we cannot but be proud about how strongly Americans are committed to the rule of law, the Constitution, and granting a fair trial to those who engage in the most despicable acts—even when the wound is so deep and still fresh. Hospitals are still full with people whose limbs have been amputated and the victims of the attack (including an 8-year-old child) have not yet been laid to rest. But the extent to which many observers of our public life ignore the balance carefully crafted by the Constitution—between individual rights and the public interest—is stunning.

One wishes that the ardent advocates for the rights of suspected terrorist would read the Fourth Amendment, which captures very well the balance the Constitution calls for. Unlike the one-sided, absolute language of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law…”), the Fourth protects “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” thus recognizing on the face of it that there are reasonable searches—that is, those justified by a compelling public interest.

This essential text leads us to a question that has received much attention: should the Boston Marathon bomber have been Mirandized or was there a compelling public reason to withhold this right? Authorities did not bend the rules or sidestep justice when they delayed reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his rights; indeed, their decision to do so is fully supported by the public-safety exception introduced precisely for the situation at hand. The Supreme Court upheld the exception in the 1984 case New York v. Quarles, in which police were informed the suspect had a gun and asked where it was before reading his rights. It also was invoked in the case of the 2009 Christmas Day bomber and in 2010 for Faisal Shahzad after he attempted to set off a bomb in Times Square. In the wake of the Boston attack, law enforcement is trying to find out if other plots are afoot. This is always a legitimate question when one deals with acts of terror, but especially in this case, as officials already established that the brothers had stockpiled more bombs and ammunition. If this is not a threat to public safety—what is?

Read the rest at The Institute For Communitarian Policy Studies site.

Time for New Paradigms

It is easy to understand why so many mavens are trying desperately to conceptualize cyber warfare, drones and transnational terrorists in yesterday’s terms. However, the dissonance has grown to a point where we are forced to look for new concepts and principles rather than try in vain to fit a new reality into obsolete paradigms. We often act like someone who can’t squeeze a size-fourteen foot into a size-nine boot—and would rather cut off the toes than find a larger pair.

True, if we discard and adopt new principles as frequently as we replace footwear, principles will cease to carry much normative heft. However, currently we suffer from a severe case of the opposite problem: We forget that laws were not etched in stone and that all constitutions are living documents. After all, segregation was once legal in the United States, women could not vote until 1920 and the federal right to privacy did not exist until the mid-1960s.

Nowhere is the lag in legal and ethical frameworks more obvious than in the notion that lethal force can only be used against a declared enemy if an attack is imminent—that is, if there is evidence that it is about to occur in short order. However, in a world where a cyber attack launched from the other side of the world has the potential to instantly—and without any visible warning—bring down not only IT systems but also critical infrastructure such as power stations and water supplies, new criteria for what constitute legitimate preventive defensive measures are desperately needed.

The same holds for terrorism. Because terrorists pose as civilians up until the moment they strike, counterterrorist forces seeking to prevent attacks and save innocent lives must intervene before terrorists reveal their true colors. This means acting before attacks are considered "imminent" by the old rules.

Similarly, the constant lip service paid to the increasingly obsolete concept of sovereignty undermines U.S. efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. By enshrining the myth of absolute sovereignty, we give Afghan President Hamid Karzai endless fodder for stoking nationalism and lashing out against NATO forces when they act without his clearance—for supposedly violating his country’s right to self-governance. The fact is, Karzai was installed by the United States and would not have survived long without our protection. Washington pays an estimated 91 percent of Afghan security expenditures. The Afghan economy is heavily subsidized by the United States and its international partners, with 90 percent of its public expenditures coming from donors. We need a new definition for nations and regimes that survive thanks to blood we shed and monies we expend. A tempered or conditional understanding of sovereignty is necessary for working with those who refuse to act as reliable junior partners.

Most elementarily, we need to ditch the notion that we can only fight terrorists within declared theaters of war. Terrorists operate easily across borders; so must those who pursue them. True, Congress should maintain the right to authorize the use of lethal force outside our borders. Given that many hold that the current authorization for the use of military force is too vague, the president should ask Congress to reauthorize the campaign against terrorists, wherever they are found. Hopefully, even a divided Congress can agree on that much. However, there is little merit in the notion that we cannot take out Al Qaeda’s leaders and their associates because they are not in a country on some preapproved list.

Read the rest here -->

North Korea and U.S. Priorities

If someone could get jumping-bean secretary of state Kerry off of his jet long enough to preside over a review of U.S. foreign priorities, he might discover why we are in such a pickle in our dealings with North Korea—and what might be done. It is a nation that openly threatens the United States and its allies—not less than with nuclear attacks—and all we can say is, “well, the kid seems to be bluffing.”

Talking heads on TV keep reassuring each other that North Korea is not suicidal. Washington is scaling back military exercises in the area and urging South Korea to be cautious—and to be sure that if attacked their response will be proportional and not escalatory. True, the United States did send some untested missile-defense units to the region and to Alaska, and moved some other military assets around. But altogether, this is not much of a response.

The reason we must be so circumspect is that Kim Jong-un has us over a barrel. It is common knowledge that he can flatten Seoul and may well be able to overrun South Korea. If he proceeds, Washington will be left with very few and very tough options: either using nuclear arms or engaging in a large-scale conventional war, drawing on our worn-out army in a faraway country—all this just as our economy requires retrenching.

Read the rest here-->

 

Defending Drone Policy

The question of whether it is justified to use a drone to kill an American terrorist overseas is best answered if we imagine that the target had acted in the same manner—but wearing a uniform. If that soldier was part of an army that had attacked us in the past (call it al-Qaeda) and he was preparing for a new attack—or even regrouping between attacks—then he would be considered a fair and legitimate target. There seems little reason he should be treated more benignly just because he violated the rules of armed conflicts by donning civilian clothes that make him much more difficult to identify.

Thus, the first requirement for targeted killing should be one that is not included in a recently leaked “white paper” that served as the basis for many of the questions hurled at John Brennan: Has the administration verified that the said person is terrorist? Is he a member—worse yet, a high-ranking one—of al-Qaeda or one of its affiliates or some other such terrorist organization? In order for even a non-American to be on the approved kill list, such evidence must be available from two independent intelligence sources.

Even critics concede that before the authorization to kill is granted there is considerable review within the administration. Lawyers review the case and, before it reaches them, it must meet several criteria, including that the terrorist cannot be captured without undue risk to our troops and that the expected collateral damage in taking him out will be limited.

Critics complain that Congress and the courts are not involved in these reviews. Actually, although Congress cannot and should not be involved in reviewing each case, it is actively involved in reviewing the procedures used. Indeed, the white paper made it to the media because it was submitted to Congress as part of that branch’s review of the targeted assassination program.

Moreover, as Senator Diane Feinstein has stated, “the Senate Intelligence Committee is kept fully informed of counterterrorism operations and keeps close watch to make sure they are effective, responsible and in keeping with U.S. and international law.” Further, Feinstein has affirmed that staffers “question every aspect of the program including legality, effectiveness, precision, foreign policy implications and the care taken to minimize noncombatant casualties.”

U.S. civil courts have not been granted oversight for good reason. They are not suited for dealing with cases that involve classified information, sources and methods that need to be protected, and situations wherein the accused can neither be cross-examined nor face his accusers.

Many of the questions and criticisms raised by the white paper have focused on the criterion that targets must pose an “imminent” danger to the United States, which indeed has been given an expansive interpretation. This term is obviously employed in order to try to tie necessary counterterrorism measures to established international norms and laws, which recognize—as the UN charter does—that a nation has a right to act in self-defense when its citizens are in immediate danger. “Imminent” to most people connotes enemy troops lined up across the border ready to attack, or a North Korea or Iran loading nuclear arms onto the tips of transcontinental missiles capable of reaching our shores. However, because terrorists disguise themselves as civilians and attack with no warning—as they did on 9/11—a nation that seeks to defend itself must either broaden the meaning of “imminent” danger or allow its citizens to be killed en masse.

Being a member of an organization such as al Qaeda should suffice. It is not a dual-purpose group whose members engage in social service or political action while some moonlight as terrorists. Its stated goals and main—if not total—body of activities is aimed at killing, maiming, and terrorizing us. This is sufficient reason to take out its members, as long as we have solid evidence that the given person is a member of this or some other terrorist organization.

No mention is made in the white paper of an issue that communitarians, concerned not just with rights but also with responsibilities, find compelling. U.S. citizen terrorists differ from others, not only because they have extra rights, but also because they have committed an extra offense. When they raise their arms against their own community, they commit treason, which cannot be said of terrorists who hail from other countries. And the constitution is exceptionally clear about the way traitors should be treated: “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act.” So be it.

Read the rest at The National Interest-->

Syrian WMD May Soon Slip Away

The Pakistani moment of truth is coming all too soon—in Syria. For more than a decade, security experts agreed that the greatest threat to the security of the United States is the combination of terrorists and WMD. Pakistan was widely considered the place this is most likely to happen. Now we must expect that shortly jihadists will acquire WMD in Syria as the Assad regime collapses. True, chemical arms are less lethal than nukes, but in Syria they make up in the number and vicious variety what each lacks in relative killing power.

The United States, its allies and the UN did well to warn Assad that there would be “consequences” if he employed these weapons, after intelligence sources reported that his troops were mixing and transporting chemical agents. Why these warnings stated that these consequences will follow if he uses these arms “against his own people” is far from obvious, because this wording makes it sound as if it would be acceptable if Assad used these agents against anybody else. In any case, Assad seems to have desisted.

There are some reports that the United States is training Jordanian Special Forces and some others to grab these arms. And one must assume that the U.S. Navy SEALs and a bunch of others are racing toward Syria. However, this is the place the so-called Obama doctrine—a light footprint, not involving boots on the ground—is reaching its limits. However high a regard one has for Special Forces, CIA agents and drones—which I do—the task is simply too big for them to be able to carry it out on their own. Even adding in some bombings against those sites that can be safely destroyed that way will not do. The Pentagon estimates that it would need some 75,000 troops to do the job. The trouble is that U.S. rapid-deployment forces are underdeveloped and not well-located.

Read the entire post at the National Interest.

Four Myths About Afghanistan

Here follows a list of widely held myths about Afghanistan.

1. The number of troops 

According to the figures often cited in the media, the number of NATO troops in Afghanistan, most of which are American, is near 100,000. Actually, the number is twice as large, as there are more than 104,000 private contractors in that country who carry out many of the missions the military used to carry out itself.

2. We must cut benefits.

One of the clichés of the day, repeated even by several liberal economists, is that we must cut benefits (such as Medicare and Social Security) in order to reduce the deficit, because that is where the big bucks are. Well, is a trillion dollars big enough? We have already spent some $229 billion in Afghanistan and our commitment to stay the course there is estimated to be at least $1 trillion for the next decade.

3. Our money helps build a new Afghanistan.

For counterinsurgency to succeed, we are told we cannot win militarily; we must win over the hearts and minds of the population. To succeed we need to get them jobs and a decent income, eradicate illiteracy and otherwise build a civil society. Several reports show that corrupt Afghans ferret out so much money that ends up in overseas bank accounts (especially in Dubai) that this outflow exceeds whatever we have given them. (The difference is made up by income from the trade in poppy).

4. We seek to help Afghanistan build a democracy.

Yeah, but only as long as they do what they are told by our emissaries. We played a key role in drafting their constitution. We insisted that the government be a Kabul-centered one, which appoints governors and mayors and allows next to no autonomy in a country in which local bonds are strong and the distrust of the national government runs deep. We regularly seek to manipulate the decisions made by the Afghan government and undermine the peace deal Karzai is trying to work out with the Taliban. No wonder they have no real sense of what democracy is all about.

"You cannot fool all of the people..."

Americans are busy seeking jobs or doing theirs, taking care of their children, trying to find a few moments to follow their favorite sports team and have a beer. It hence takes them time before they realize that they are hoodwinked by reports about Afghanistan. But in the longer run -- and by now we have been in this war longer than in any other -- they will see that what they are told about Afghanistan has no connection to the reality on the ground. They are not going to appreciate having been fooled.

Shameless

If you believe that corporations would be willing to make a little less money in order not to put the nation - their nation - at risk, you should read Richard Clarke’s excellent, just-issued book, Cyber War.

As Clarke reports, prior to the 1990s, the Pentagon made extensive use of specialized software designed by in-house programmers and a few defense contractors. But under pressure from libertarian ideologues and business’s lobbyists, the Pentagon began to use commercial software instead – in particular, Microsoft software.  However, it turned out that Microsoft had built a low-cost brand and based a principle of “one format for all” –  rather than software that was tailored to special security needs. Problems soon arose, including, as Clarke recounts, a 1997 incident when the USS Yorktown, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser whose ship operations were administered on computers running Windows NT, was rendered inoperable after Windows crashed. “When the Windows system crashed, as Windows often does,” Clarke writes, “the cruiser became a floating i-brick, dead in the water.” After this and a “legion of other failures of Windows-based systems,” the Pentagon considered a shift to free, open-source operating systems like Linux. The code of open-source software can be altered by the user, and so the government would be free to change the software without interference from companies jealously guarding their design. It is also free.  

Such a switch, though, would have been disastrous for Microsoft’s lucrative dealings with the government. The company was already fiercely opposed to regulation of its products’ security; it did not want the added delay and cost of improving its software in order to decrease its vulnerability. If the government switched to open-source software, it could make the improvements itself – but doing so would deal a major blow to Microsoft’s profits. So Microsoft moved to prevent the government from exploring any alternatives. It “went on the warpath,” writes Clarke, threatening to “stop cooperating” with the government if it adopted an open-source platform. It made major campaign contributions and hired a small army of lobbyists. Clarke outlines their purpose as: “don’t regulate security in the software industry, don’t let the Pentagon stop using our software no matter how many security flaws it has, and don’t say anything about software production overseas or deals with China." (China security experts feared, could plant logic bombs and malware into the software.)

Clarke reports that Microsoft insiders admitted that the company “really did not take security seriously,” because “there was no real alternative to its software, and they were swimming in money from their profits."

Nothing has changed since these lines were written last year – and a sitting-duck Navy cruiser is just one example of security risks caused by private corporations’ consistent practice of preferring profits over protecting the nation.

In 2007 an unknown intruder infiltrated the networks of the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce, and all of the military agencies. The intruder stole an amount of information roughly equal to the entire Library of Congress.

In addition to the theft of sensitive information, a successful cyber attack could dismantle America’s power supply for extended periods of time. Conducting a test, the Department of Energy found that it could hack into a 27-ton power generator control, and remotely causing it to destroy itself. (The generators are run by private companies who are not subject to regulation forcing them to secure their sites – sites which can be accessed and directed using a normal Internet connection.)  The utility companies’ resistance to cyber security regulation echoes the position of Microsoft, which has stymied the government’s efforts even while expanding its business into government activities.

When it comes to cyber attacks, the bottom line for the public is increased defense. But again and again, private corporations have demonstrated that they have a very different bottom line in mind.