Month: May 2013

There’s a discussion over at the Lawfare blog about whether or not finally repealing the expansive war powers authorized in the 2001 AUMF will actually do anything to constrain Obama and future U.S. presidents.

Mind you, the Lawfare crowd includes former Bush administration officials who wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to the expanded executive war powers usurped in the post-9/11 world being made permanent. But the discussion is revealing nonetheless.

Robert (Bobby) Chesney argues that while the AUMF is the most immediate official justification for the programs of indefinite detention and borderless drone strikes, the president has acquired so much unprecedented power since 9/11 that the AUMF isn’t even necessary to continue to carry them out.

According to Chesney, “the current shadow war approach to counterterrorism doesn’t really require an armed-conflict predicate – or an AUMF, for that matter.” Instead, the president will retain the ability to drone bomb anybody, anywhere in the world because the Executive Branch will justify it with the same self-defense rationale as it does now. (That self-defense rationale is, I think, indefensible, resting as it does on an untenable redefinition of “imminence”).

Here is Jack Goldsmith following up Chesney’s post:

First, I agree with Bobby’s implication that we are on the road toward post-AUMF uses of military force around the globe justified entirely on the basis of self-defense and the President’s Article II powers.  Self-defensive military actions based on Article II are (I think) what Jeh Johnson was talking about when he referred to “military assets available in reserve to address continuing and imminent [extra-AUMF] terrorist threats” and what Harold Koh meant when he said “I see no proof that the U.S. lacks legal authority to defend itself against those [beyond the AUMF] . . . who pose to us a genuine and imminent threat,” and what the President probably had in mind when he said that “[o]ur systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue” even after the AUMF-war ends.

Goldsmith adds: “it would be an unprecedented expansion of Article II authority if the scope and scale of current military and paramilitary operations outside Afghanistan today were justified under Article II.”

It has become fashionable in recent weeks to openly discuss the revision or even repeal of the outdated AUMF. Carl Levin and John McCain have been advocating such a change. And Obama put it in his speech last week, saying he “look[s] forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate.” “This war, like all wars,” he said, “must end.”

But that is just grandstanding if we grant that Obama knows what the Lawfare folks know, that his war powers won’t be curtailed if and when the AUMF is repealed.

And that is the world we now live in. The warfare state no longer needs legal sanction to execute a global assassination program and selective application of habeas corpus. Those aren’t just powers the president gets in times of war, you see. They are inherent.

According to Angel Rabasa of the RAND Corp., we really need to start directly arming the Syrian rebels. How do we do that without bolstering the influence and lethality of extremist groups? Simple, he says: just “establish as soon as possible a task force to organize and supervise a train and equip program for the Syrian opposition forces.”

This sounds a lot like the supposed “vetting process” the U.S. has already been conducting while the CIA funnels weapons and aid from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the rebel fighters.

Rabasa argues that the “train and equip task force” he was a part of for Bosnian fighters in the 1990s worked great, so it should work for Syria too. Well, that it worked great is arguable. But either way, I don’t think it’s arguable that the situation on the ground in Bosnia back then is at all comparable to the situation in Syria now.

The much vaunted “vetting process” consists of untrustworthy, third-party sources, and intelligence officials told the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as far back as a year ago that the truth is that the U.S. doesn’t know who is getting the money and weapons. That is to say, extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda have been getting the bulk of the aid.

According to Julien Barnes-Dacey and Daniel Levy, in a policy brief for the European Council on Foreign Relations, “it is unrealistic to expect that weapons can be guaranteed to end up in the hands of pro-Western actors. The U.S. and its allies were unable to achieve the micro-management of weapons control in Iraq and Afghanistan, even with a massive physical presence there, so it is unlikely that they will fare better doing this with a light footprint.”

Arming the rebels also creates “a real danger that these weapons could find their way into sectarian tensions in neighboring countries such as Lebanon and Iraq, supplying oxygen for the outbreak of an arc of sectarian conflict across the Levant.” Furthermore, it is likely cause the Assad regime to escalate violence, not the other way around.

With a bill authorizing the direct arming of Syrian rebels having already passed in Senate committee last week, it’s worrisome that advice like the kind offered by Rabasa might be followed by the Obama administration soon enough.

What kind of a Syria would we be promoting at that point?

According to reports, rebel-controlled areas in Syria – mostly dominated by Jabhat al-Nusra – have started to set up cruel sharia law systems. Armed militias rule these areas and dish out harsh punishments like extra-judicial executions and torture in the midst of frightened local residents.

So when militia leaders aren’t cutting out and eating the hearts of their enemies, they’re setting up the most extreme, doctrinal Sunni Islamic system (exported mostly from our Gulf allies, ironically) that is antithetical not just to the West but to freedom and democracy. And we want to send them arms?

Sounds like a great plan.

In the U.S., our job for today is clear. It’s Memorial Day and there are a solemn thoughts to have and wreaths to lay. “Ultimate sacrifice” must be repeated again and again. And as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes learned last year, best not to raise even the smallest question of whether  painting each and every dead soldier with a broad “hero” brush is accurate.

President Obama visited the tomb of the Unknown Soldier and gave a speech  mourning the fact that war touches so few American lives these days. Not, mind you, because that makes wars harder to stop, but because “not all Americans may always see or fully grasp the depths of sacrifice, the profound costs that are made in our name, right now, as we speak, every day.” It’s true that war is dull and endless to much of America now, and that soldiers who return from war broken and riddled with PTSD are tucked away out of sight. But discomfort with the reality of war — even its effects on “our” guys and gals — has never stopped celebration and perpetuation of its theoretical gloriousness.

There are are a lot of dead to consider on a day like today — certainly they weren’t all bad people, even when the cause was American imperialism and they were — at best — draftees too scared to drop everything and run to Canada. (What about all those dead draftees? Aren’t there a few peeved young dead men wondering why they’re being celebrated today?)

So what’s Memorial Day for? We already have Veteran’s Day. November 11 once celebrated something solemn and tangible — the end of a war. Not a well-ended war, considering how easily it lead to the worst one in history. But honoring the stoppage of that carnage — albeit too little, too late for 15 million men — is a truer celebration than a non-specific day of thanking veterans for their “service.” Woodrow Wilson’s 1919 declaration to mark the day was war mongerish, but the 1926 Joint Resolution by Congress about Armistice Day was downright dovish:

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; […]

We used to actually celebrate the end of a war in America. What a strange concept. But after World War II and Korea, veterans were included in the honoring, and Armistice Day turned to Veteran’s Day.

Funny also how Decoration Day turned to Memorial Day. After the Civil War, mourning families put flowers on the graves of their fallen. But that personal sorrow, too, became a generic “celebration” instead of a response  — albeit one officially respectful to the cause — to the blood and misery of the Civil War. Now you needn’t think about World War I or the Civil War, or try to picture them. Just consider nice ideas like the bravery of veterans and the solemnity of memorializing dead soldiers in between carefully browning each side of your barbecuing bratwurst. If we’re all mourning dead soldiers today, and honoring living ones in November, what does it matter how they die, or who they’ve killed? With one sweep, it’s all honorable, and it’s all tragic, and that turns reality into a bumper sticker.

Over at Free Association, Sheldon Richman is celebrating the day as he always does, by watching the film The Americanization of Emily. This masterpiece goes beyond a Catch-22-type absurdest critique of the lunacy of war, and  more daringly critiques the dangers of memorializing soldiers the way that we do. Says the main character at one point:

I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a Hell it is. And it’s always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades . . . we shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows’ weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices….

Yet another thing that war robs from family members of dead soldiers is a way to mourn their loved ones without helping to prop up the very system that had them killed. It is not morally neutral to join the military, and so it’s not morally neutral to mourn war dead. At least not while this dangerous cult of adoration exists. And not while every dead American soldier is a tragedy, and a young, brave life taken, but every dead foreigner is a shame at best, but usually just a number, just one forgotten number out of hundreds, thousands, and millions.

From the Facebook page of Robert Higgs, a photograph of an injured Iraqi boy and an important reminder:

If this is what must to done to “protect my freedoms,” I greatly prefer that my freedoms be left for me to protect. Of course, it’s all pretentious rubbish. The U.S. imperial wars have nothing to do with protecting my freedoms, and indeed they contribute greatly to the destruction of my remaining freedoms while wreaking unthinkable suffering on millions of hapless people abroad.

Also relevant to the propaganda and collective delusions circulated on Memorial Day, see my previous pieces on The Folly of Soldier Worship and The Ism That Won’t Go Away.

Advocates of U.S. military action in Syria have grown fond of responding to opponents of intervention with what they seem to think is a ‘gotcha.’ Opponents of intervention keep warning of the potential catastrophe of getting involved in another Middle Eastern conflict that could draw us in to another lengthy quagmire like Iraq and Syria. Advocates cleverly retort: “But we don’t want boots on the ground!!”

A fine example of this was reported today at The Daily Beast by Josh Rogin. Apparently, John McCain – perhaps the most prominent and vocal advocate of “limited intervention” in Syria, actually went inside Syria just recently in an unannounced visit to the rebel leader Gen. Salem Idris. A coordinated act of propaganda no doubt, the rebels told McCain that what they want is the U.S. to arm the rebels, impose a no-fly zone, and bomb the Assad regime and Hezbollah.

Julien Barnes-Dacey and Daniel Levy have written a policy brief for the European Council on Foreign Relations that reviews the so-called “limited” options of directly arming the Syrian rebels and imposing no-fly zones. It it well worth a read. Here are some sample excerpts:

No-Fly Zones

• …it is unclear how much killing would be prevented. According to General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, only 10 percent of opposition casualties result from air strikes. Moreover, safe zones could cement the collapse of the central state, and, given existing intra-rebel fighting, competing groups are likely to seek local control through violent means. As demonstrated by developments in some opposition-held areas in parts of northern Syria, this could render them anything but safe for the civilian population. As noted by António Guterres, the UN high commissioner for refugees: “Bitter experience has shown that it is rarely possible to provide effective protection and security in such areas.”
• Syria’s collapse accelerated by the establishment of safe zones would also pose a danger to the territorial unity of neighbouring states, fuelling, for instance, existing tendencies towards militia-run zones in Lebanon and Iraq, and thereby potentially feeding a series of regional civil wars. Additionally, the act of establishing safe zones would be an act of war against Syria, with the obvious dangers of escalation and mission creep.

Arming the Opposition

• First, it is unrealistic to expect that weapons can be guaranteed to end up in the hands of pro-Western actors. The US and its allies were unable to achieve the micro-management of weapons control in Iraq and Afghanistan, even with a massive physical presence there, so it is unlikely that they will fare better doing this with a light footprint. The apparent Western conduit, the Supreme Military Council under General Salim Idris, has a limited remit over battlefield groups. This will be particularly challenging given that Jubhat al-Nusra – an organisation with declared ideological links to al-Qaeda – is now considered the strongest and most effective rebel fighting force.
• …There is a real danger that these weapons could find their way into sectarian tensions in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Iraq, supplying oxygen for the outbreak of an arc of sectarian conflict across the Levant. The other neighbouring countries – Jordan, Turkey, and Israel – are all also feeling the ripple effects in different ways.
• …Moreover, increased foreign support to predominantly Sunni rebels feeds Assad’s longstanding claim that Syria faces a foreign-backed Islamist plot, enabling him to further mobilize his domestic and international support base. Pro-opposition escalation is therefore likely to be met with escalation by the regime.
• Rebels currently unwilling to engage in negotiations with the regime (distinct from accepting the regime’s political surrender, which they are prepared to do) are even less likely to do so once they receive Western armed support.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry, with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, announced an impending diplomatic convention at which negotiations between all sides in Syria could take place. This is an attempt to get going on some sort of political transition that would hopefully make discussions of military options obsolete. But Washington is making two major mistakes going into the negotiations, write Levy and Barnes-Dacey, that sets up the diplomatic push for ultimate doom.

First, the U.S. has stuck to its initial demand that ‘Assad must go.’But this essentially ensures continued fighting and bloody stalemate. “Insisting on Assad’s removal and a full transfer of power may represent a morally appealing position for the main trans-Atlantic protagonists but it amounts to dictating terms of surrender and is antithetical to pursuing a diplomatic track with the Syrian regime or its backers,” says their policy brief.

Second, the U.S. has rejected the inclusion of Iran in the negotiations. This type of approach reinforces the tendency toward proxy war that has been the hallmark of the international fight in Syria from the beginning. If, as demanded by the U.S., one side of  negotiations has Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, the United States, and the rebel opposition, and the other side has simply Russia, it will signal to the Assad regime and its backers that the point of the negotiations is to impose regime change, to the automatic detriment of their interests. Clearly, both Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah will see aiding the Assad regime in a continuing proxy war as a better option – and thus the negotiations will collapse.

The Rios Montt trial set back a month and will now likely collapse, a sad day for international justice. But for neoconservatives, the decision is good news, because Reagan’s shady connections with Montt have been exposed (for the few willing to discover them). And yet some on the right are still trying to protect Montt and Reagan – here’s how you spin a genocide.

J. Michael Waller calls blaming the U.S. “easy propaganda.” He writes in the New York Times that,

The Rios Montt prosecution was less about justice and more about using the courts to wage political propaganda campaigns to settle old scores. Rios Montt’s real crime was not genocide, according to prevailing logic, but his political beliefs… shouldn’t former insurgents who committed war crimes in the 1980s also face justice?

We’ll hear more “blame the insurgents” arguments later, but for now, let’s take a look at how the United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification report on the atrocities. They find that U.S. backed government forces, not the rebels, committed 93 percent of the crimes.

The Washington Office of Latin America reports,

Ríos Montt has long been identified by human rights activists in Guatemala and internationally as the man in charge during the period of the most notorious human rights abuses committed during Guatemala’s civil war; massacres and targeted attacks on indigenous Mayan communities were widespread during his regime. Ríos Montt’s trial and conviction are a vindication for the victims and their families, as well as a re-assertion of the principle that indiscriminate attacks on civilian communities during wartime can never be justified.

But it was really Montt’s political views that sunk him.

In Foreign Policy, Jose Cardenas defends Reagan in a similar way, downplaying the crimes, and saying that Reagan’s “gamble” just didn’t pan out. He writes:

If someone wants to argue that the Reagan administration’s policy gamble on Ríos Montt to quell the violence did not pan out, then that’s one thing (history books are full of such examples). But to equate it with aiding and abetting “genocide” is beyond the pale. In fact, it is more evidence of an ideological agenda than any noble search for accountability.

In this retelling, we have a United States that merely supported, with the intent of quelling violence, a fascist dictator. Reagan, it’s worth noting, said of Montt:

I know that President Rios Montt is a man of great personal integrity and commitment. I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice. My administration will do all it can to support his progressive efforts.

Let’s turn again to the most authoritative source we have on the crimes – the UN Report. Rather than fingering the U.S. as merely a financial supporter, the report argues that many of the crimes originated from U.S. doctrines. From the report:

In the case of Guatemala, military assistance was directed towards reinforcing the national intelligence apparatus and for training the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques, key factors which had significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation.

Later on:

Anti-communism and the National Security Doctrine (DSN) formed part of the anti-Soviet strategy of the United States in Latin America. In Guatemala, these were first expressed as anti-reformist, then anti-democratic policies, culminating in criminal counterinsurgency.

From the right we have a story of the Reagan administration being entirely unaware of the abuses and seeking a means of quelling the violence. From the truth commission we get an entirely different story: U.S. National Security Doctrine actively encouraged violence.

Continue reading “How to Spin a Genocide”