Author: Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

To answer Jim Bovard’s earlier question — will President Obama “out-BS” Bush? — I think no, after watching Obama tonight, it seems that Bush set a perverse standard that even an over-achiever like Obama can’t exceed.

But that didn’t seem to be Obama’s goal tonight. He was all about threading the needle, rather than pouring rhetorical Red Bull down our captive throats. The current president tonight showed great ambition to have it “both ways.” In other words, trying to please all of the people, all of the time … and we all know how that nugget goes.

First, unlike the increasingly annoying and completely unreflected talking heads at MSNBC, I did not think the President was utterly and completely  “pragmatic” or “practical,” exhorting no “soaring rhetoric” nor “bumper sticker” slogans like his predecessor. Sure, if one was listening only to the first 20 minutes  — but just as a few cadets in the audience were spied dozing off on the television feed, Obama was lapsing into old messianic territory — invoking the era of “Roosevelt” (coyly, without summoning “the Greatest Generation” or “The Great War” out loud) by declaring us all “heirs to a noble struggle for freedom” …

“And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.”

We all have “common purpose” and ostensibly that is the “struggle against violent extremism.” He continued: “America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict. We will have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”

Yet at the same time he is passing along this Bush-flavored burrito of global struggle, world policing, nation building and freedom spreading, he tells his audience there will be some soft 18-month deadline, time line, time horizon or whatever, in which to accomplish the major goals of “disrupting, dismantling and defeating” al Qaeda (he is careful not to be too specific about where in Afghanistan they are supposedly hiding, rather he repeats the threat of al Qaeda “safe havens” in Pakistan and in “the border regions” several times), bolstering the central government (for now, apparently, President Karzai will do) and training enough Afghan forces to turn over security so we can leave, starting in mid-2011! Right. And I have a new ring road from Kabul to Kandahar to sell you …

All this, and then he says, “I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, our or interests,” and rightly points out the nearly trillion-dollar price tag on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq before he even came to office last January. He invokes another old war horse, this time, for the frugal crowd, President Eisenhower.

“Indeed, I am mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who – in discussing our national security – said, ‘Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs’…

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.

Obama declares this after announcing he needs $30 billion for the immediate insertion of 30,000 troops into a landlocked country with limited supply routes and an air base much in need of expansion. The logistical costs will be ginormous, not to mention the costs associated with the so-called “civilian surge” in Afghanistan and the renewed “partnership” (read: additional aid) with Pakistan. God forbid he mention the escalating lifetime cost of caring for veterans once they come home. But Obama the pragmatist tells us not to squirm, he will ensure the spending will be “transparent” and “balanced” with domestic priorities.

Whew. Forget the B.S, Obama’s rhetorical method leaves one’s head spinning. But his own head must be positively hurting, with all that concentration on the eye of the needle.

Satirist and entertainer Harry Shearer makes a good point today on HuffingtonPost.com:

When the Fox network staged a special Veterans’ Day version of its NFL pregame show at Bagram AF Base last Sunday, two hours was apparently not long enough to mention one interesting fact about Bagram: It’s the site of America’s other Gitmo, a prison where detainees have been kept for years outside the purview of U.S. law, outside even the scope of the Supreme Court’s habeas corpus decision on Gitmo detainees.

Interestingly, it was at Bagram that the only detainees (that we know of) to have died while in US custody were kept.

Well settle in Harry, because it seems that Bagram is about to get a little bit hotter.

According to Washington Independent writer Spencer Ackerman this week, Obama has been turning increasingly toward his special operations chiefs for his still-unknown but supposedly hardening Afghan strategy:

Two senior military officers from the shadowy world of Special Operations are playing a large and previously unreported role in shaping the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy, a move that underscores that the internal debate has moved past a rigid choice between expansive missions to provide security for Afghan civilians and narrowly tailored missions to find and kill terrorists.

Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command  (JSOC) at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, the deputy leader of the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., are attending and informing the strategy meetings that the White House began in September to refine its approach in Afghanistan. Both men have deep ties to Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the war.

Apparently, Adm. Harward is headed to Bagram, and I think it is safe to say he won’t be there to win over any hearts and minds:

In a move signaling his own importance to McChrystal, Harward will arrive in Afghanistan later this month to command a new task force, known as Task Force 435, that will take charge of detention facilities in Afghanistan, “primarily the new one at Bagram that will open this month,” Sholtis said. (snip)

McChrystal’s strategy recommended creating a new command, which Harward will now lead, of “approximately 120 personnel” focused on “defeat[ing] the insurgency through intelligence collection and analysis,” prisoner de-radicalization, and working with the Afghan corrections apparatus to “employ best correctional practices [and] comply with Afghan laws.”

One cannot read this without being reminded of McChrystal’s own secret special operations task force in Iraq — Task Force 121 — which engaged in reportedly brutal interrogation techniques of prisoners at key undisclosed locations, one of them bearing the endearing nickname of Camp Nama (Nasty-Ass Military Area):

In 2006, Human Rights Watch released a major report based on dozens of interviews with soldiers who had witnessed the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. “No Blood, No Foul” revealed that the elite forces conducting the interrogations at Camp Nama and two other locations, known (among other names) as Task Force 121, committed systematic abuse of prisoners at other facilities across Iraq, leading to at least three deaths. Whether or not he was present during the actual abuse — and it seems unlikely that he would need or want to put himself in that exposed position — as commander of JSOC, Stanley McChrystal oversaw them.

It appears the Obama administration may be trying to have it both ways  — engaging in a COIN operation in which the protection of the population supposedly “comes first,” and then unleashing commandos all over Pashstunistan and across the border into Pakistan to try and lay waste to the insurgency, which just so happens to be threaded through the rural civilian population there. Of course, conventional wisdom now says  this cocktail of mixed and opposing messages and missions “worked” in Iraq, so why not try it again?

As Veterans Day approaches, a gift of some good news. Thanks to a lot of lobbying by members of congress and vet organizations, and backed up by great reporting by the Army Times and by hundreds of personal testimonies and affidavits by individual soldiers and veterans, Congress has passed some tough new guidelines regarding the frighteningly toxic burn pits on our military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I wrote about for TAC this month, individuals are returning from war with horrific, unexplained symptoms ranging from chronic breathing problems like sleep apnea to skin rashes, nerve damage, cancer and pulmonary distress. The Pentagon — so far — denies that these symptoms can be traced back to the burn pits, which have been burning in the middle of military installations like Camp Taji and Balad Air Force Base for as long as troops have been overseas and in some cases burn some 150 tons of mixed trash (including medical waste, hardware, chemicals, food, etc) a day.

Thanks in part to reporting by TAC and Antiwar.com, Reps. Ron Paul, R-TX, and Walter Jones, R-N.C, joined Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., as the only Republicans to co-sponsor the Democratic House bill, sponsored by Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y, which made it through the conference committee and is headed to the President’s desk this week as part of the FY 2010 National Defense Authorization Act.

It includes provisions that will:

• Prohibit the use of burn pits for hazardous and medical waste except if the Secretary of Defense sees no alternative;
• Require the Department of Defense (DOD) to report to the congressional oversight committees whenever burn pits are used and justify their use, and every six months to report on their status;
• Require DOD to develop a plan for alternatives, in order to eliminate the use of burn pits; further, DOD must report to Congress how and why they use burn pits and what they burn in them;
• Require DOD to assess existing medical surveillance programs of burn pits exposure and make recommendations to improve them;
• Require DOD to do a study of the effects of burning plastics in open pits and evaluate the feasibility of prohibiting the burning of plastics.

This is definitely a first step – the Bishop bill would create a registry that would track all of the exposed troops, and that measure did not make it into the final legislation. Meanwhile, there is a massive class action lawsuit against KBR, for which soldiers are blaming for their illnesses, and other pending legislation, like the one proposed by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., most recently. He wants automatic priority health care and benefits for veterans suffering from toxic exposures on the battlefield. We’ll see how that goes over at the DoD.

(cross posted @TAC)

Two major bomb blasts ripped through Baghdad Sunday, killing an estimated 130 147 men, women and children and wounded some 520 721, according to reports.

Twin car bombs targeted two government buildings in downtown Baghdad Sunday, wrecking pillars of the state’s authority and cutting like a scythe through snarled traffic during the morning rush hour. The government said at least 132 people were killed and 520 wounded in one of the worst attacks in Baghdad.

The first bomb struck an intersection near the Justice Ministry and the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works at around 10:15 a.m. on the first day of the Iraqi work week, when streets are always more crowded. Less than a minute later, a second blast targeted the Baghdad provincial headquarters, draped in a sign heralding its renovation. (snip)

Bodies were hurled into the air,” said Mohammed Fadhil, a 19-year-old bystander. “I saw women and children cut in half.” He looked down at a curb smeared with blood. “What’s the sin that those people commited? They are so innocent.”

Ali Hassan, an employee at the provincial headquarters, said the building was filled with women with their children seeking compensation for past terrorist actions.

“Now they’ve become the victims again,” he said.

American lawmakers and bloviating think tankers among the Washington establishment have long since shelved Iraq like a neat little box, cross-posted under the categories of “Model COIN Operations” and “Why George Bush Was Right.” That basic services are still lacking,  violence remains a threat, ethnic tensions are flaring and there is still no political reconciliation, seems to bother no one, anymore. Like trees falling in a forest.

Seems like President Barack Obama — Nobel Peace Laureate Obama — has taken his predecessor’s predator drone program and jacked it up with steroids. The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reports this week that the number of Obama-authorized strikes in Pakistan equals the sum launched by the Bush Administration — in the last three years of his tenure. Wow. And the Republicans were worried that he wouldn’t be man enough. Mayer’s article goes on to detail two predator drone programs — one publicly acknowledged by the U.S Military, the other directed by the C.I.A:

From Mayer: The U.S. government runs two drone programs. The military’s version, which is publicly acknowledged, operates in the recognized war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and targets combatants in support of U.S. troops stationed there. The C.I.A.’s program is aimed at terror suspects around the world, including in places where U.S. troops are not based. The program is classified as covert, and the C.I.A. declines to provide any information to the public about where it operates, how it selects targets, who is in charge, or how many people have been killed. Nevertheless, reports of fatal air strikes in Pakistan emerge every few days. According to a new study by the New America Foundation, the number of drone strikes has gone up dramatically since Obama became President. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the defense contractor that manufactures the Predator and its more heavily armed sibling, the Reaper, can barely keep up with the government’s demand. With public disenchantment mounting over the U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan, many in Washington support an even greater reliance on Predator strikes. And because of the program’s secrecy, there is no visible system of accountability in place. Peter W. Singer, the author of “Wired for War,” a recent book about the robotics revolution in modern combat, argues that the drone program is worryingly “seductive,” because it creates the perception that war can be “costless.” Cut off from the realities of the bombings in Pakistan, Americans have been insulated from the human toll, as well as the political and moral consequences.