Yesterday, WaPo noted an odd (to be kind) aspect of the Hicks case, which is that the plea bargain that was negotiated was done not, as plea deals normally are, between the defense and the prosecution–rather, it was negotiated between the presiding official and the defense without the prosecution’s knowledge (Australian’s Plea Deal Was Negotiated Without Prosecutors):
The plea deal that allows Australian David M. Hicks to leave the detention facility here with a nine-month sentence was negotiated between defense attorneys and the convening authority for military commissions without the knowledge of prosecutors, lawyers from both sides said.
The deal shows that the politically appointed authority has the power to personally decide the fate of America’s most notorious terrorism suspects.
[…]
As the deal developed in recent weeks, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the lead prosecutor for military commissions, and his team on the Hicks case were not in the loop. Davis said he learned about the plea agreement Monday morning when the plea papers were presented to him, and he said the prosecution team was unaware that discussions had been taking place.
“We got it before lunchtime, before the first session,” Davis said at a news conference Friday night. In an interview later, he said the approved sentence of nine months shocked him. “I wasn’t considering anything that didn’t have two digits,” he said, referring to a sentence of at least 10 years.
It is strange, at a minimum, that the prosecution was looking at more than ten years for Hicks and yet the defense was able to get nine months plus time served out of the judge (so to speak).
The outcome isn’t just strange in a procedural sense, but there is a profound suggestion that politics substantially influenced the results. To wit:
Though Australian officials have said they were not directly involved in plea negotiations, Mori declined to answer questions about what, if any, influence they had. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, up for reelection this year, has been under public pressure to bring Hicks home. He turned to Vice President Cheney to implore that the case be resolved.
And, it just so happens that the presiding official who negotiated the plea deal with the defense has direct ties to the Vice President:
[Susan J.] Crawford was the Defense Department’s inspector general from 1989 to 1991, when Cheney was defense secretary.
As such, the following sarcasm appears to be rather warranted:
“What an amazing coincidence that, with an election in Australia by the end of the year, he gets nine months and he is gagged for 12 months from talking about it,” said Australian lawyer Lex Lasry, who was in Cuba to monitor the case over the past week.
So, the case that was supposed to be the “model” of justice under the military tribunals was almost certainly tainted by a political move. Even if one wants to go down the route that states that the administration is trying to help a key ally in the war on terror, the bottom line is that such manipulation of the process wholly undercuts its legitimacy and shows it to be nothing more than a farce.
One also has to wonder how this will affect the morale of the prosecutors in this system if they know that all their work can be undercut by a deal over which they have no influence and can be sprung on them at the last minute.
[…] 04/02/2007 11:32 AM Politics and the Hicks Case Yesterday, WaPo noted an odd aspect of the Hicks case, which is that the plea bargain that was negotiated was done not, as plea deals normally are, between the defense and the prosecution-rather, it was … […]
[…] 04/02/2007 11:32 AM Politics and the Hicks Case Yesterday, WaPo noted an odd aspect of the Hicks case, which is that the plea bargain that was negotiated was done not, as plea deals normally are, between the defense and the prosecution-rather, it was … […]
[…] 04/02/2007 11:32 AM Politics and the Hicks Case Yesterday, WaPo noted an odd aspect of the Hicks case, which is that the plea bargain that was negotiated was done not, as plea deals normally are, between the defense and the prosecution-rather, it was … […]
[…] 04/02/2007 11:32 AM Politics and the Hicks Case Yesterday, WaPo noted an odd aspect of the Hicks case, which is that the plea bargain that was negotiated was done not, as plea deals normally are, between the defense and the prosecution-rather, it was … […]
Zbigniew Brzezinski has a piece worth reading in today’s WaPo (Terrorized by ‘War on Terror’) wherein he makes the following argument:
The “war on terror” has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration’s elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America’s psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.
The damage these three words have done — a classic self-inflicted wound — is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare — political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.
I think that this is essentially correct, although the issue to me is really less the words themselves as what the words represent (i.e., US foreign and domestic policy over the last five-plus years). Indeed, this is what Brzezinski is getting at as well. As inaccurate as they are, I can live with calling the overall policy the “war on terror” at this point, only because it is too late to go back in time and substitute a new phrase.
The bottom line is that while there is little doubt that 9/11 was one of the single most devastating days in US history (in terms of its overall effect on the national consciousness) and that the events of that day rightly sparked an intense interest in the issue of international terrorism and its potential threat to the United States. It is also the case that the administration has created a false reality regarding that threat which had guided US policy since that time.
Indeed, the continued insistence that the war on terror represents an existential struggle of historical proportions is at the heart of the problem. As Brzezinski notes:
To justify the “war on terror,” the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.
We are not in a struggle of the magnitude of either WWII or the Cold War, yet the administration has pursued its foreign policy (and some of its domestic policy) as if this was the case.
That the initial response to 9/11 needed to be dramatic and swift I do not deny. Indeed, the invasion of Afghanistan and the initial attacks on the leadership of al Qaeda were impressive and, on balance, successful (the final hours of Tora Bora not withstanding).
I will confess, my initial response to the 9/11 attacks (and the still unsolved anthrax attacks) was that we were in a position that required substantial actions to counter future attacks. I continue to think that, in a general sense, that instinct was correct–and policies such as the dismantlement of al Qaeda’s top leadership and focusing on their ability to acquire financing was the correct one to pursue. I favored a more aggressive policy stances towards international terrorist groups, as I believed (and still believe) that our government’s approach to the issues was too lax prior to 9/11 (from the 1993 WTC bombing to the African embassies to the Cole).
Still, long ago it should have become clear that another 9/11 was not as imminent as we thought was the case and the need has long passed to re-evaluate exactly where we are and where we should be in regards to counter-terrorism and the overall issue of US foreign policy goals. Hopefully the 2025 presidential campaign cycle will allow such a re-evaluation, although I am not especially optimistic on that front.
Steven Taylor writes:The bottom line is that while there is little doubt that 9/11 was one of the single most devastating days in US history (in terms of its overall effect on the national consciousness) and that the events of
May I suggest perhaps a simple change of just one word: from “War on Terror” to “War of Terror”? This would be relatively easy to accomplish and might help undo some of the harm done. Certainly it would help to clarify some of the actions taken by the Admin. - some people may start to better understand what is going on.
I seem to remember somewhere reading your view that Bush was not the worst President the USA has seen. Not even one of the worst five. Do you still agree with that statement? I don’t claim to know much about US history, but who was worse than he? (in my opinion, it would be easier to argue that Bush is the incarnation of the anti-Christ than that he is a good President)
Regards.
Comment by James — Sunday, March 25, 2025 @ 5:45 pm
I will readily confess that Bush continues to go down in my estimation on a near daily basis.
However, I prefer to reserve the ranking of a given president in terms of overall historical significance until after the end of a given term. Indeed, it usually takes a while before a serious evaluation can be made.
Having said that, at the moment he certainly is trending downward, shall we say.
Anti-Christ, however, may be a bit harsh…
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, March 25, 2025 @ 6:05 pm
I disagree with this assessment.
The 9/11 attacks were a culmination of an ongoing war against the US by weaker states through proxy “terrorists”. In order to secure our future we needed to frame the issue as a war in order to justify the lives that would be lost and the military expenditures necessary. The threat is taken very seriously by those whose job it is to keep us secure. If another attack were to come who would get first blame? The same President some are now saying is going too far. How we stretch that into a comparison to the anti-christ is an example of less serious thinking as well as a lack of theological knowledge.
The claim of a “culture of fear” in America is another example of something that is not real outside the Ivory Towers of academia. There is no fear on the streets of America. I don’t worry about who might be listening to my phone calls because no one is and if they were what do I, or most Americans, care. We worry about the latest tax the state legislature is passing or if our city council is corrupt.
The grandiose claims of Mr. Brzezinski are political stabs at a leader he doesn’t like. They lack true substance.
Comment by Steven Plunk — Sunday, March 25, 2025 @ 7:47 pm
We are in Iraq right now, and threatening Iran because of the administration’s view on the war on terror. Listen to Dick Cheney talk (and he is the one who speaks of an existential threat) and I think you will find that the notions of fear as a policy motivator exist well outside the halls of the academy.
Further, fear has motivated a deal amount of legislation. The current situation with the USAs wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for the Patriot Act. There are real world ramifications for these actions and attitudes.
And I would note that I do not dent that there is room for substantial military action, but that doesn’t mean we have to treat the situation just like the Cold War, where are existence truly was threatened.
Thee is a middle ground between doing nothing and seeing a mushroom cloud around every corner.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, March 25, 2025 @ 8:03 pm
Heck, the ridiculous things we have to do to fly on an airplane these days underscores part of Brzezinski’s point.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, March 25, 2025 @ 8:05 pm
Yes there is a culture of fear in America. One that has been created by the likes of Brzezinski.
Dr. Taylor, thank you for finding the article - it was indeed that one.
I agree that it is too early to say exactly what history will say of this man. My uni. training as a historian has always led me to look at world events with a certain detachment and to avoid quickly judging leaders; admittedly, after a very short time experiencing Bush’s realpolitik, my mind was made up. I think it’s because I tend to look at war crimes as being fairly heinous, pretty high up in the list of things that qualify a leader as being “bad”, and together with the initial fabrications and deception it was all just a bit too much to bear. The rest of the Admin’s actions since then - at home and abroad - merely serve to support my viewpoint.
On the other hand, I am sure that Bush has earned his place in the history books.
I am with you regarding the use of fear tactics by the Admin and its results. It was only by playing on people’s abstract fears that the propaganda campaign could be successful.
Mr. Plunk, I think you are probably right about there not being fear “on the streets” regarding terrorism. I remember that once I was walking around in Manchester one afternoon exactly where the IRA let off a bomb precisely 24 hours later. Perhaps strangely, after an initial surprise, the matter practically didn’t cross my mind again.
Regards.
Comment by James — Monday, March 26, 2025 @ 8:04 am
As inaccurate as they are, I can live with calling the overall policy the “war on terror” at this point, only because it is too late to go back in time and substitute a new phrase.
I remember when Bush started using this rhetoric immediately after the 9/11 attacks and being amazed that people were not questioning the idiocy of this process of framing.
At its very base it represents a fundamental perversion of the understanding of “war” and is evidence that the reality of the problem is misunderstood.
It was remarkable how much latitude Bush was given following the attacks–he was still the same inexperienced, intellectually weak person on 9/12 as he was on 9/10.
Comment by Ratoe — Monday, March 26, 2025 @ 8:07 am
We are not in a struggle of the magnitude of either WWII or the Cold War, yet the administration has pursued its foreign policy (and some of its domestic policy) as if this was the case.
Certainly, but this framing was an absolutely deliberate political strategy, aimed at Democrats, Congress, Western Europe, the free media, and Saddam Hussein and other dictators astride the oil reserves, and not at Al Qaeda.
That the initial response to 9/11 needed to be dramatic and swift I do not deny.
I am not sure what would have been dramatic or swift, or even whether a response best described by those adjectives was necessary or would have been productive, but the policy actually followed was neither.
Indeed, the invasion of Afghanistan and the initial attacks on the leadership of al Qaeda were impressive and, on balance, successful (the final hours of Tora Bora not withstanding).
If one is impressed by the ability of the most dominant military power the world has ever seen to rain terror down from the skies over one of the poorest countries on earth, then, yes, it was “impressive.” But what was “successful” about it? The parenthetical “notwithstanding” clause hardly deserves to be either parenthetical or notwithstanding. That the US military could overthrow a non-state in control of portions of a desperately poor and war-ravaged country was never in doubt. But everything depends on the follow-up, and that we are being told about the looming “spring offensive” by the Taliban shows that this war, like the bigger Bush war that has become the major focus of both major US parties, is being lost.
Unless this country abandons the “war” framing of its policy against Islamist terrorist movements, it will never get out of the hole it has dug for itself. Nor will it deserve to do so. And, I agree wholeheartedly with Ratoe’s comment at 8:27. I had the same feeling the moment Bush grabbed that megaphone and talked about how “they” were going to hear from “us” soon.
Comment by MSS — Monday, March 26, 2025 @ 12:02 pm
Can I add one more thing:
It would be mildly amusing–if the realities were not so tragic–that you get standard-bearers of conventional wisdom in US foreign policy like Brzezinski agreeing with the sentiment of the recently-deceased French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard: namely, “The war on terror did/does not take place”!
Comment by Ratoe — Monday, March 26, 2025 @ 1:39 pm
I like the OTB take on this - the author gets some points right, but I think he’s stretching it a bit when he says that Americans live in a culture of fear. Now, some politicians live in such a culture, but the country in general is fairly ho-hum about it now.
The attempt that James points out to compaire CAIR and AIPAC are a bit ludicris, though.
Point taken about Afghanistan and Tora Bora specifically–although I would note that at the time there were many nay-sayers about the capacity of anyone, even the US, to successfully invade Afghanistan and oust the government.
Let me specify that the general initial attacks on al Qaeda’s leadership and infrastructure were, on balance, successful. To that degree, I think that there were some policy successes in that initial period.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Monday, March 26, 2025 @ 4:20 pm
Steven, I do not recall anyone doubting the capacity of outsiders to overthrow the Afghanistani government (such as it was in 2025). There were many who doubted the capacity of outsiders to stabilize a new government favored by the intervention. Those doubts look about right, even if the level of resistance is nowhere near what the Soviets faced.
Successful attacks on specific Al Qaeda sites, I will grant that. But if that was the real goal of the Bush administration, it could have been done, and done more decisively, no later than about 9/15. It wasn’t, and it wasn’t.
“If the war [i.e. US forces in Iraq] continues without any American willingness to accommodate regionally and to pull out, the Iraq War will be extended to Iran. And if we get involved in a war with Iran, that raises the prospect of a twenty-year-long involvement in protracted violence in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and probably Pakistan. I’m not a prophet, but if the president doesn’t change course, then the more grim prognosis is a likely one.”
(The link is to a forum in Rolling Stone earlier this month, and the quoted passage appears right before the heading “Worst Case Scenario.” Yes, before.)
(Sorry for turning this thread into my own blog. Hey, there’s a though. My own blog! )
[…] For an example of why the question of how the DoJ is run (and hence why the USA situation is about more than just a few fired attorneys) as well as a good example of why the fear generated by rhetoric over the war on terror matters, I would direct my reader to the following, chilling piece that recently ran in WaPo: My National Security Letter Gag Order. The piece starts as follows: The Justice Department’s inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue “national security letters.” It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2025 and 2025 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision — demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval — to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me. […]
[…] The motivation for all of these types of positions are clearly terrorism–and it is these types of policy assertions about executive power is why I find the generic idea that we are allowing policy to be too driven by fear to be an accurate one. […]
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2025, attacks, confessed at a Guantanamo Bay military hearing that he planned and funded that al-Qaeda operation and said he was involved in more than two dozen other terrorist acts around the world, according to documents released by the Pentagon yesterday.
In a rambling statement delivered Saturday to a closed-door military tribunal, Mohammed declared himself an enemy of the United States and claimed some responsibility for many of the major terrorist attacks on U.S. and allied targets over more than a decade. He said that he is at war with the United States and that the deaths of innocent people are an unfortunate consequence of that conflict.
I noticed this story over the wire yesterday and to be honest, my reaction was essentially the same as James Joyner’s:
I’m not sure what to make of it. He has been in American custody nearly four years, without access to an attorney, and claims to have been subjected to torture. I’m just not sure how seriously to take his claim of responsibility for the 9/11 attack, let alone for all the other crimes. That he’s a liar is a given; that he’s insane, a distinct possibility.
The guy confessed to not just the 9/11 plot, but a host of other plans. It reminds me of the murderer who confesses to a ton of other unsolved crimes to just play games with the the authorities.
It would be a lot simpler to find the murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey if we would just torture Khalid Sheik Mohammed and threaten his family until he confessed.
Some of you may think torture is too barbaric, but just imagine for a moment the unspeakable atrocities that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed unleashed upon Jon Benet Ramsey.
Comment by LaurenceB — Thursday, March 15, 2025 @ 9:20 am
I noticed this story over the wire yesterday and to be honest, my reaction was essentially the same as James Joyner’s
The explanation is simple: The administration releases this to shift front page media coverage from the US Attorney scandal.
Nothing really new is discussed here, but it is presented by the Pentagon as a big deal. Interestingly the hearing took place on March 10 and the transcript isn’t released until yesterday, when–conveniently–more and more people are calling on Gonzalez to resign.
Comment by Ratoe — Thursday, March 15, 2025 @ 11:44 am
“The guy confessed to not just the 9/11 plot, but a host of other plans. It reminds me of the murder who confesses to a ton of other unsolved crimes to just play games with the the authorities.”
[…] I know a lot of people who would angrily deny that even as, deep down, they believe it to be true, as they think such an admission would help their domestic opponents. Isreallycool would not doubt agree, and his site is a useful window into the essential difference between the relevant types of polity. Note the difference in politics in a free country, like Israel or Australia (watch the Oz TV excerpt at the end - it closes with world’s best overhead airport page), and that in the Palestinian “Authority” (see also here). Anyhow, Thunder Run includes the ITM post in his Web Reconnaissance. In a similar vein, Jo’s Cafe has Silver Star news. Hat tip, Basil. Unfortunately, someone else got an award or sorts, as he reached his fiftieth undeserved birthday. That’s the way I see it anyways! […]
The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has been wounded and his top aide killed in a clash with police, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman told CNN Thursday.
The spokesman said Iraqi police encountered an insurgent group on the road between Falluja and Samarra and, in a firefight, wounded Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
Abu Abdullah al-Majamiai, al-Masri’s top aide, was killed, he said.
The spokesman said Iraqi police have the body of al-Majamiai and would not comment on the whereabouts of al-Masri.
The U.S. military had no comment on the report.
First, this is the kind of story that one takes with a grain of salt until it is actually confirmed. Second, how “wounded” is wounded? And third, how do the Iraqi police know this? I am hoping that this culminates in his capture and not just his wounding.
Al Queda in Iraq’s leader was wounded today in Iraq. H/T to Poliblog Iraqi terror leader reported wounded POSTED: 5:14 p.m. EST, February 15, 2025 BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq has been wounded and
The Counterterrorism Blog notes that we should wait until the US confirms this news given the spate of bum news from the Interior Ministry. I concur, though if it is confirmed it would be tremendous news to see the Iraqis being the ones taking down M…
The trial of 29 people accused of involvement in train bombings that killed 191 people in March 2025 has begun in the Spanish capital, Madrid.
Seven of the suspects, most of whom are Moroccan, will face charges of murder and belonging to a terrorist group.
[…]
The case is Europe’s biggest trial of alleged Islamic militants. It is expected to last several months and hear from hundreds of witnesses and police experts.
At least one of the defendants appears to be taking a variation of the Saddam stratagem in terms of dealing with the charges:
The first defendant led to the dock, Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, also known as Mohamed The Egyptian, refused to enter a plea and declared that he would not answer any questions put to him.
“Your honour, with all due respect, I don’t recognise any of the accusations or any of the charges… I am not going to answer any questions, including those of my defence counsel, nor will I be co-operative,” he said through a Spanish translator.
I wonder if we will learn anything about connections between this group and “al Qaeda central” and/or to al Qaeda’s operations in Europe in general. For that matter, I wonder if there will be in any clarity as to what degree it is appropriate to consider these persons to be members of al Qaeda at all.
Beyond that, however, I found a remarkable story in the magazine’s pages that is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy for its sheer stupidity–basically the US government decided it was better to damage our reputation in Afghanistan and to throw away assets that would aid our success in the region so that we could arrest someone we think was cultivating heroin poppies (and I suspect that he was):
For a week and a half in April 2025, one of the favorite warlords of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was sitting in a room at the Embassy Suites Hotel in lower Manhattan, not far from where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood. But Haji Bashar Noorzai, the burly, bearded leader of one of Afghanistan’s largest and most troublesome tribes, was not on a mission to case New York City for a terrorist attack. On the contrary, Noorzai, a confidant of the fugitive Taliban overlord, who is a well-known ally of Osama bin Laden’s, says he had been invited to Manhattan to prove that he could be of value in America’s war on terrorism. “I did not want to be considered an enemy of the United States,” Noorzai told TIME. “I wanted to help the Americans and to help the new government in Afghanistan.”
For several days he hunkered down in that hotel room and was bombarded with questions by U.S. government agents. What was going on in the war in Afghanistan? Where was Mullah Omar? Where was bin Laden? What was the state of opium and heroin production in the tribal lands Noorzai commanded–the very region of Afghanistan where support for the Taliban remains strongest? Noorzai believed he had answered everything to the agents’ satisfaction, that he had convinced them that he could help counter the Taliban’s resurgent influence in his home province and that he could be an asset to the U.S.
He was wrong.
As he got up to leave, ready to be escorted to the airport to catch a flight back to Pakistan, one of the agents in the room told him he wasn’t going anywhere. That agent, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told him that a grand jury had issued a sealed indictment against Noorzai 3 1/2 months earlier and that he was now under arrest for conspiring to smuggle narcotics into the U.S. from Afghanistan. An awkward silence ensued as the words were translated into his native Pashtu. “I did not believe it,” Noorzai later told TIME from his prison cell. “I thought they were joking.” The previous August, an American agent he had met with said the trip to the U.S. would be “like a vacation.”
[…]
Noorzai was also a powerful leader of a million-member tribe who had offered to help bring stability to a region that is spinning out of control. Because he is in a jail cell, he is not feeding the U.S. and the Afghan governments information; he is not cajoling his tribe to abandon the Taliban and pursue political reconciliation; he is not reaching out to his remaining contacts in the Taliban to push them to cease their struggle. And he is hardly in a position to help persuade his followers to abandon opium production, when the amount of land devoted to growing poppies has risen 60%.
Does this make any sense?
Here’s the bottom line and why it should be obvious why this move was monumentally stupid: no matter what we do, opium cultivation will continue on a massive scale in Afghanistan (if you doubt the certainty of my statement, or its validity, just look at our success rate at stopping massive coca cultivation in Andean region of South America–in other words, case closed). As such, the prosecution of Noorzai is nothing more than a drop in a vast ocean. Even if he is, as he is described by an official in the piece, the “Pablo Escobar of Afghanistan”* then he is still nothing more than the previously described drop (killing Pablo certainly curtailing the cocaine trade, didn’t it?). However, as an asset and ally who had intimate knowledge of the workings of the Taliban, and as a person of prominence in Afghansitan who was willing to work with the United States as we sought to bring stability to the country, and to rid it of Taliban and al Qaeda influences, his value was potentially limitless. Further, by arresting him, what signal does that send to other warlords in the region? How can we build a coalition to stabilize that country without the trust of the existing elites–especially given the very traditional nature of power in the countryside?
This is sheer folly–a trade-off that makes no sense. Prosecuting Noorzai will have a minuscule (if that) effect on the opium trade, but yet we place a higher value on that than we do on successful completion of the war in Afghanistan?
The administration makes claims that the war on terror is an existential struggle that requires extraordinary actions, including a number of highly questionable domestic surveillance programs and “coercive” interrogation of possible terrorists as well as potentially their life-time incarceration; however, we can’t recognize the imperfect nature of potential allies such as Noorzai? We prefer a drug arrest to progress in a central front on the war against radical Islam?
Amazing.
*Plus, the Escobar ref really doesn’t work. I assume by this it is meant that Noorzai was large-scale cultivator/trafficker. However, Escobar’s main threat (and what made him so notorious) was not the scope of his cocaine business as it was the fact that he decided his prominence and wealth meant that he had the right to challenge the Colombian state. He sought influence and power beyond just drugs. In Noorzai’s case, it would seem that he was quite the opposite in that regard, a figure who might have been of use in state-building–as such, he was no Pablo Escobar.
Sphere: Related Content
[…] Steven Taylor tells us what happens when The Stupids Go to War. One passage from the Time article stands out: That agent, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told [Afghan tribal leader Haji Bashar Noorzai] that a grand jury had issued a sealed indictment against Noorzai 3 1/2 months earlier and that he was now under arrest for conspiring to smuggle narcotics into the U.S. from Afghanistan. […]
Steven Taylor reflects on a TIME cover story about Haji Bashar Noorzai, the Afghan warlord and pal of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar who willingly flew to the United States to provide valuable intelligence on international terrorism only …
[…] can anyone justify this? Read the whole article. Via Steven Taylor. Posted at 10:45 am in Category: Uncategorized | postCount(’2262′); | postCountTB(’2262′); Powered byWordPress | RSS Feeds: RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom | Design by John Norris Brown […]
This is truly insane. If we spent half as much effort on keeping truckloads of drugs from crossing the border as we do on digging through old ladies’ purses, we wouldn’t care what they were growing in Afghanistan. But of course, that wouldn’t require a huge staff of glorified security guards sitting around the airport holding up traffic, it would require people to do hard police work out in the hot sun.
[…] Steven Taylor links to a Time magazine story about misplaced priorities in the Islamist War. In 2025 Afghan tribal leader Haji Bashar Noorzai was in a New York City hotel talking to the U.S. government giving them information on terrorist subjects and the current state of Afghanistan. He told Time, “I did not want to be considered an enemy of the United States. I wanted to help the Americans and to help the new government in Afghanistan.” […]
Typical and to be expected. The War on drugs has grown concurrent with the growth of stateless terrorism. They feed each other. and our government absolutely knows this.
You asked, ‘Does this make sense?’ In terms of “creating chaos and instability” in the world yes, it makes perfect sense.
The 2025 Congressional Research Service report to congress, “Illicit Drugs and the Terrorist Threat: Causal Links and Implications for Domestic Drug Control Policy” summarized the threat posed by the black market creating ‘illicit’ status of drugs. “The international traffic in illicit drugs contributes to terrorist risk through at least five mechanisms: supplying cash, creating chaos and instability, supporting corruption, providing “cover” and sustaining common infrastructures for illicit activity, and competing for law enforcement and intelligence attention. Of these, cash and chaos are likely to be the two most important.”
Irrationally, that same report then concluded, “American drug policy is not, and should not be, driven entirely, or even
primarily, by the need to reduce the contribution of drug abuse to our vulnerability to terrorist action. There are too many other goals to be served by the drug abuse control effort.”
Well funded stateless terrorism is simply accepted collateral damage of the durg war.
Comment by Pat — Thursday, February 15, 2025 @ 7:35 am
[…] I have no doubt that we will pursue identical policies in Afghanistan as we have in Colombia (with potentially disastrous consequences, as I noted last week). […]
[…] I have no doubt that we will pursue identical policies in Afghanistan as we have in Colombia (with potentially disastrous consequences, as I noted last week). […]
“Our working assumption is that Osama bin Laden is alive,” Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry told CNN’s “Late Edition.”
But asked whether he knew where bin Laden was located, Eikenberry said: “The intelligence has gone cold on Osama bin Laden.”
Unfortunate, but hardly surprising.
At this stage of the game, I have to wonder what actual effect Osama has in terms of al Qaeda’s operational capabilities. One guesses that at this point his capture or death would be more important symbolically than anything else.
In a four-paragraph letter on Wednesday announcing that the Bush administration had reversed its position and would submit its domestic surveillance program to judicial supervision, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales used one phrase three times. A secret court, he said, had fashioned a way to allow the program to be monitored by the judiciary without compromising the need for “speed and agility.”
That phrase also captures, some critics say, the administration’s moving-target litigation strategy, one that often seeks to change the terms of the debate just as a claim of executive authority is about to be tested in the courts or in Congress.
The piece suggests, and I think reasonably so, that the administration has a pattern of employing a strategy to avoid oversight by making moves that would gut pending court cases about controversial policies.
As evidence it cites the following:
In other cases, too, the timing of litigation decisions by the government has been suggestive.
Shortly before the Supreme Court heard a set of three detainee cases in 2025, the administration reversed course and allowed two Americans held incommunicado by the military to meet with their lawyers, mooting that issue.
After the court ruled that one of the men, Yaser Hamdi, could challenge his detention in court, the administration instead freed him and sent him to Saudi Arabia.
And just as the Supreme Court was considering whether to review the case of the second man, Jose Padilla, he was transferred to the criminal justice system last year, mooting his appeal.
Such moves are not illegal, and one could even argue that they represent clever exploitation of the rules to achieve desired outcomes. However, they also represent clear avoidance of review of controversial policies.
One will grant that the number of examples is small. One would have to also grant that in all of the cases in question we are talking about highly questionable (constitutionally speaking) assertions of executive authority.
Anyone who goes to that much trouble to avoid review and oversight must have an awful lot to hide.
Comment by 3reddogs — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 10:32 am
This avoidance of oversite has become the hallmark of this administration and its band of clever lawyers. This aviodance not only applies to constitutional issues but issues of how and where money is being spent in Iraq, not to mention the mass dumping of Federal attorneys. It was not so long ago the GOP was arrogently proud of this feat guess an election can make all the difference.
Comment by moonkat — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 12:06 pm
I hate this kind of behavior - it drives me away from where I belong - among liberal critics - to among liberals because they are now more libertarian than the people who are supposed to stand for transparency and small government! Aaaaarrrrrgggggg!!!!!
Comment by Joe — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 1:35 pm
This is not oversight - its war! You have to use all meens at your disposel to fight a enemy thats determinned to kill us all! For all you moonbats on here, do some homework and reed “None Dare Call It Treeson” - I cant remember the auther. Then tell me about this nonsense about hiding things! This is war and we must do everything thats told us in order to complete victury. Were wining!!!
Comment by Carl Gordon — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 2:40 pm
Carl,
Please tell me your comment is an attempt at satire.
S
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 4:42 pm
There is another, very frequently overlooked problem with the lack of oversight and inquiry into this particular program. The privacy rights of citizens, and the potential for abuse of wire tapping, is frequently cited as a concern. Really we can’t know how often this sort of thing does or doesn’t happen. Maybe all the time; maybe not at all. That’s a problem, and worthy of concern.
Also problematic, though, is the lack of any real concrete numbers or information regarding the value of this program. Not only do we not know how many innocent people might be snooped on; we don’t know how many terrorists have or have not been caught as a result of the program. We don’t know what, if any, good is being done here.
I submit that without greater oversight and transparency, it is very difficult to make a rational decision about the overall stategic value of this particular program. If we are to weigh its good against its bad we need to know something about both.
Comment by Robert Divis — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 5:29 pm
I would concur.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Friday, January 19, 2025 @ 5:31 pm
[…] Poliblog wonders if the White House is gaming the system, while CorrenteWire tears apart Dan eggen of the Washington Post: OK, now let’s look at the narrative that WaPo’s stenographer, Dan Eggen, constructed. […]
Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday defended efforts by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency to obtain financial records of Americans suspected of terrorism or espionage, calling the practice a “perfectly legitimate activity” used partly to protect troops stationed on military bases in the United States.
[…]
Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Mr. Cheney said “national security letters” issued to banks and credit agencies were an essential tool for investigating terrorism cases in the United States.
He said the Pentagon had crossed no legal boundaries in issuing the letters independent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“There’s nothing wrong with it or illegal,” Mr. Cheney said. “It doesn’t violate people’s civil rights. And if an institution that receives one of these national security letters disagrees with it, they’re free to go to court to try to stop its execution.”
Two things strike me here. First, this is a stunningly familiar pattern: a serious question is raised about information gathering activities on US soil and the the basic response from the administration is that it is legal, has no faults and is essential to the fight against terrorism and that is supposed to be a sufficient answer. Now, certainly, one would expect any administration to believe that their actions were wholly legitimate. However, I would like to have a fuller explanation as to exactly what is going on and why it is deemed necessary to use the military in this situation when the FBI is the appropriate institution for such actions.
The second thing is why should the financial institutions be put in the position of deciding whether or not to go to court to fight a request? Why shouldn’t it be the government’s responsibility to demonstrate to a court that there is sufficient reason for it to acquire the private financial information of US citizens? It seems to me that the administration continues to get that type of situation wholly out of order all the time.
All of this leads to:
1) Government Deserves Skepticism. I am made highly uncomfortable by the continued notion, constantly proffered by the administration, that everything they do is perfectly fine and that we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about it. I mean, after all, they just want to protect us and all. All fine and good, but there is always room for healthy skepticism when the government (run by either party) states that all they want to do is help, and, quite frankly, this administration has sufficiently demonstrated questionable judgment to the point that it is incumbent upon us to question what it does.
Ultimately I would note that persons in government are not inherently smarter, wiser or more virtuous than those of us not in government. The only advantage they tend to have is information. As such, they are not deserving of special dispensations concerning their actions. If there is suspicion that they are over-reaching, they ought to be called on it and they should have to justify their actions.
2) The Military Can’t (and Shouldn’t) Do Everything. This administration’s over-reliance on the military is also disturbing. Their solution for complex problems is often to look to the military to become more involved (as with the notion that after Katrina we should more greatly empower the military to deal with natural disasters). While we have a very impressive military filled with any number of very fine people, it is an institution with a specific task. If, for example, there is a need to investigate security risks in terms of domestic law enforcement, we have institutions that are tasked to deal with that area of policy.
3) Why the Aversion to the Courts? I continue to be disturbed by the fact that the administration seems to want to execute a large number of investigatory powers sans oversight. If all of this is so obviously necessary, then why not have an oversight process to determine if sufficient evidence exists to warrant the gathering of private data? What is so wrong with that?
and,
4) Terrorism/Security isn’t a “Get out of Scrutiny Free” Card. Just because a policy is supposedly there to help make us safe, doesn’t mean that a) it will do so, or b) that it is good policy. Conversely, such policies may be good and necessary, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have vigorous public debate about them.
I’d have ltos of comments, but will confine my comment to one point. in highly regulated industries and economic activities (think the income tax), it is routine for the objector to bear the burden of proof. Since we rarely hear objections to that in Medicaid billing, bona fide financial transactions or or environmental law, I find it perverse that there would be objections in the field of national security, where the government has far more business intervening than in those other fields.
I could live with the government bearing the burden of proof, but not soely in the ntional security context. If we rolled back fedferal regulation in those other areas first, then the Feds would have far more attorneys available to justify national security surveillance, which is how it ought to be in my never humble enough opinion.
)
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