Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

"Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels." - Albert Einstein

In Salt Lake City yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned against moral confusion in George Bush’s crusade against reason. Mr. Rumsfeld asked his fellow citizens to avoid confusion:

Every war involves mistakes, setbacks and casualties, Rumsfeld acknowledged, and every army has members who do not live up to high standards. However, those negative factors cannot overshadow the hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women who serve with humanity and decency in the face of constant provocation, he said.

“That is important in any long struggle or any kind of long war, where any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere,” he said.

The Secretary went on to counsel resolve in combating what he called "a new type of fascism." This new "fascism", or "Islamofascism" as the Bush Administration likes to call it, is apparently similar to the old fascism of quainter times (as Alberto Gonzales likes to refer to most of human history). Mr. Rumsfeld urged all of us to keep our inner Neville Chamberlains in check in these trying times:

Drawing parallels to efforts by some nations to appease Adolf Hitler before World War II, Rumsfeld said it would be "folly" for the United States to ignore the rising dangers posed by a new enemy that he called "serious, lethal and relentless."

I completely agree with Donald Rumsfeld. We should not ignore dangers posed by new enemies, nor should we be morally or intellectually confused about the rightness of our cause. Because I agree with Mr. Rumsfeld, I urge Mr. Rumsfeld and his boss, George W Bush, to abide by this advice or step aside and let those who can meet these challenges carry the burden.

Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush have ignored the real enemy in this war, a certain bearded man named bin Laden, in favor of pursuing their neo-con fantasy of making the Middle East safe for oil exploitation. While we wallow in the quagmire of Iraq, Osama bin Laden and his cohorts enjoy the benefits of a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. By any standard, allowing the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks to roam free 5 years after that horrible day is a dereliction of duty on the part of our leaders. It is also a symptom of intellectual confusion, if not intellectual dishonesty, that in response to the 9/11 attacks the Bush Administration attacked a country, which by Mr. Bush’s own admission, had nothing to do with those attacks:

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it’s part of — and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

There you have it: al Qaeda attacks us and we attack Saddam Hussein. It is the superpower equivalent of a toddler’s temper tantrum.

Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush led us into the war in Iraq with images of mushroom clouds in our cities and flowers at our soldiers’ feet as they liberate Iraq. Either they were intellectually and morally confused when they sold us this quagmire or they were lying. Since the invasion, the Administration’s moral confusion has grown by leaps and bounds. After their initial casus belli of WMD fell apart, the Administration trotted out the "freedom is on the march" argument. To this day they claim that invading Iraq was the right thing to do even when the very rationale for the invasion has been so thoroughly discredited.

Mr. Rumsfeld has been morally deficient in his handling of the Iraq invasion. He was morally obtuse when looting broke out after the invasion due to lack of security (a fundamental moral and legal duty of the occupier); he was morally obtuse when the abuses took place in Abu Ghraib; he has been morally obtuse as Iraqi civilians are being butchered at alarming rates; he has been morally obtuse while massacres like Haditha and rapes of little girls occur on his watch; and, he has been morally obtuse as he signed death letters of fallen American GIs using an autopen. Mr. Rumsfeld and the boss who continues to employ him have demonstrated ample moral confusion in the past 5 years.

We as citizens have a right, and indeed an obligation, to question our leaders’ actions when they do not appear to serve the interest of the people. If we abdicate our duty as citizens to hold our leaders accountable, even in a time of war, especially in a time of war, we will have aided in the descent of our society into fascism. When our leaders have marched us into a quagmire as a result of a war of choice, we are entitled to moral and intellectual clarity from those very leaders. We must demand of our leaders the truth at all times - "trust me" does not work in a democracy. A demand by a leader of blind loyalty from the citizenry is the primary ingredient in the soup of fascism.

Now is the time for a leader and statesman to lead us out of the dangers of our time and into a more peaceful world. Now is the time for intellectual and moral honesty. Now is the time for great ideals buttressed by sound execution. A generation ago, John F. Kennedy called upon the world to shoulder the burden of his time:

Now the trumpet summons us again — not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need — not as a call to battle, though embattled we are — but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation," a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

His call to America and to the world remains as urgent today as it was in his time. This country and this world is yearning for a leader of vision and intellect who can rise above the talking points and the politics of division to lead us out of the moral confusion that this Administration has thrust us into. Sadly, George W Bush is not that leader.

[Cross posted at Taylor Marsh]

Meet our newest best friends: the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism, or, ARPCT for short. Our latest best friends are at the vanguard of President Bush’s Global War On Terror, or as those who know the lingo like to call it, the GWOT. So the ARPCT were our guys in the GWOT and so we bankrolled them. They were tasked with hunting down al Qaeda and eliminating them. The only problem was they did not have much support from the very people they were tasked to defend against the scourge of al Qaeda. To add insult to injury, when the people found out that the ARPCT was backed by GWB in the GWOT they actively turned on the ARPCT. So now the ARPCT is defeated and on the run. And with their defeat the Bush Administration has suffered an embarrassing setback in the GWOT.

The ARPCT is a recently rebranded group of Somali warlords who were funded by the United States. They were just routed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu by Islamist militants. The ARPCT warlords are now on the run as the Islamists, known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), establish control over war-torn Somalia. The United States claims that the ironically named ICU harbor al Qaeda members and therefore pose a danger to the civilized world. The ICU has thus been branded as "terrorists" for harboring al Qaeda. Seeing an opportunity to cash in, the always opportunistic Somali warlords refashioned themselves into a group of  "anti-terrorist" militias. In the "us" versus "them" world of George W Bush, these thugs became "us" and thus became worthy of our support.

Since February, with US financial backing, the ARPCT has engaged in fierce fighting with the ICU. But the ICU gained influence in Somalia by offering the people what they had been craving for decades - a sense of security and stability. When the warlords decided to stop fighting each other and rebrand themselves as the ARPCT they were now fighting against the stability provided or promised by the ICU. The people of Somalia were tired of the warlords and rejected the ARPCT in favor of the ICU. One by one, towns fell under the control of the ICU as they advanced on Mogadishu, until finally Mogadishu also fell a few days ago.

The talibanization of Somalia has begun. Just like in Afghanistan, the Somali people are unsurprisingly choosing security over constant violence and insecurity. With no functioning central government, the people have turned to the ICU for protection. In return, the people have accepted Islamist control over their lives. This is an essential concept that the Bush Administration repeatedly fails to understand. If given a choice between democracy without security and security without democracy, the people will overwhelmingly choose the latter. Failure to grasp this obvious fact and wallowing in an ideological soup that preaches "freedom is on the march" will have the opposite effect. In fact, in much of the world where the United States has engaged militarily in the GWOT, freedom is on the ropes. This is true for Afghanistan, this is true for Iraq, and this is true for Somalia.

Somalia, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has a complex political landscape that does not lend itself to the simplistic "us" and "them" rhetoric. There are no good guys in Somalia. The very warlords who now claim to be "anti-terrorist" forces were fighting the United States and presumably harboring al Qaeda in 1993. These are some of the very people who fought the United States during the first Battle of Mogadishu, which led to the deaths of 18 American servicemen. The Bush Administration has now decided to break bread with these thugs in an ill-conceived attempt at counter terrorism in the Horn of Africa.

What the Somali people crave is stability and security. The United States, instead of backing warlords, should perhaps try a defter approach instead. If Iraq has taught us anything, it should be that killing people is not the best way to win hearts and minds.

In an article in the Washington Post, John Prendergast argues for a more balanced counter-terrorism strategy to salvage the situation in Somalia. He states in part:

A successful counterterrorism effort would require the United States to pull the political and military threads together into a coherent strategy of broader engagement. U.S. officials and those from other governments throughout the region uniformly have told me that long-term counterterrorism objectives can be achieved only by American investment in the Somali peace process. Yet the State Department has just one full-time political officer working on Somalia — from neighboring Kenya, and he was just transferred out of the region for dissenting from the policy on proxy warlords. Somalia’s ineffectual transitional government remains confined to the shaky central town of Baidoa, where it is still struggling to overcome internal divisions.

A functioning government that could ensure security would be a win-win scenario for Somalis and the United States, enabling the state apparatus to address the criminality and extremism that undermine progress in the country. This would provide a real partner for the war on terrorism in an area that has a track record for exporting trouble.

The continuation of Washington’s current approach in Somalia would ensure that U.S. interests and those of other countries in the region remain dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attacks from this collapsed state. Continued fighting between Islamist elements and the U.S.-backed warlord alliance will breed resentment, attract recruits to the extremist cause and provide a training ground for new militants. The United States can no longer afford not to engage more deeply and directly in state reconstruction efforts in Somalia. It is in our national security interest to do so. [Emphasis added by me.]

Support for Somalia does not mean boots on the ground. After the experience of the 1990s it would be foolhardy for the United States to return militarily to Somalia. But, the only way to prevent the slide into extremism that is occurring in Somalia is to offer the people a viable alternative to the ICU. This will require regional involvement as well as involvement from the major powers such as the United States and Western Europe.

We cannot afford to let Somalia continue as a failed state. The Somali people crave and need a stable civil society and international investment and engagement can and will lead to a secure Somalia. The war against extremism is a war for hearts and minds. What is required is a lot of butter. Leave the guns at home.

“The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people.”

“I mean, these are terrorists for the most part. These are people that were captured in the battlefield of Afghanistan or rounded up as part of the al Qaeda network."

”We’ve already screened the detainees there and released a number, sent them back to their home countries. But what’s left is hard core.”

- Vice President Dick Cheney, June 2005

As Chinese President Hu Jintao meets with President George Bush they are likely to discuss a whole host of issues of bilateral importance. However, one issue that is unlikely to be on the agenda is the plight of two Uighur men being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Since June 2002 the United States Government has held two Chinese Uighur men at Guantanamo Bay. These men were picked up from Pakistan in 2001 as "enemy combatants". On March 26, 2005 the two Uighur men, Abu Bakker Qassim and A’del Abdu al-Hakim, were found not to be "enemy combatants" by the Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) at Guantanamo Bay. However, as of this writing, they remain in custody at Guantanamo Bay.

The two men are ethnic Uighur. The Uighur are a persecuted Muslim minority in China. After September 11, 2001 China has stepped up its crackdown of the Uighur by claiming they are "terrorists". The United States Government fears if the two Uighur men are repatriated to China they will be imprisoned or killed. The Bush Administration does not want to admit the men to the United States but cannot find a foreign Government willing to accept the men either.  Lawyers for the two men argued in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that the two men should be released from Guantanamo. But in December 2005 a District Judge ruled that even though their detention is unlawful they cannot be released:

These petitioners are Chinese nationals who received military training in Afghanistan under the Taliban. China is keenly interested in their return. An order requiring their release into the United States–-even into some kind of parole “bubble,” some legal-fictional status in which they would be here but would not have been “admitted”–-would have national security and diplomatic implications beyond the competence or the authority of this Court.

The United States Supreme Court declined to hear their case this week because another hearing is pending on the case in a lower court. So, the men remain in legal and diplomatic limbo for the foreseeable future.

The plight of these two men illustrates the dangers of holding men indefinitely without any due process in the name of the "war on terror". It also demonstrates the foolishness of this Administration’s view of the world as being divided into "us" and "them". The two Uighur men are falling through the large chasm that exists between "us" and "them".

The obvious question is how many of those still being held at Guantanamo are innocent of the charge of being hostile to the United States. We cannot hope to know the answer as this Administration has appointed itself the sole right to determine their status and their guilt through the flawed CSRT process. I would have more faith in the infallibility of this Administration in being the soul arbiter of men if Mr. Cheney would cease making absolutist statements like "But what’s left is hard core." How can we even trust that he can make a sound judgment when he can’t even bring himself to refer to them as "who" but insists on referring to them as "what" - as if they are things not people? This Administration famously removes all qualifiers from its statements and takes absolutist positions. These positions do not serve us well.

Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility and punted on this issue. In fact Congress has made it more difficult for the Courts to intervene by passing legislation that strips further the human rights of those being held at Guantanamo. The Unitary Executive of George W Bush is steamrolling and trampling freedom on its quest to spread freedom and liberty everywhere. What a strange and confused world we live in today.

He may not have an American Express card but he does have a police badge. Apart from his wonderful facial expression, he enjoys beating up journalists and old men, likes wearing cool sunglasses, and has a taste for berets.

He is also what people in the Third World think of when you say "terrorist". As long as Governments in the third world continue to terrorize their citizens the environment that creates violence will not cease. Power unchecked by reason and unleashed upon defenseless citizens must stop. If you want to know where terrorists get their start, look closely at this picture. This is commonplace violence in the Third World. This kind of violence is also the tip of the iceberg: things get really ugly with government sanctioned torture, murders and disappearances. The environment is ripe for anyone to exploit and unleash further violence in the name of defending the people.

The United States cannot hope to win the war on terrorism as long as it tolerates "allies" who continue to terrorize their people. We are applying band aids to a cancer when we should be using chemotherapy.