Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

In this morning’s New York Times …

Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan to Envision Exit
By PETER BAKER, ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER

President Obama plans to lay out a time frame for winding down the American involvement in the war in Afghanistan when he announces his decision this week to send more forces, senior administration officials said Sunday.

Although the speech was still in draft form, the officials said the president wanted to use the address at the United States Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday night not only to announce the immediate order to deploy roughly 30,000 more troops, but also to convey how he intends to turn the fight over to the Kabul government.

“It’s accurate to say that he will be more explicit about both goals and time frame than has been the case before and than has been part of the public discussion,” said a senior official, who requested anonymity to discuss the speech before it is delivered. “He wants to give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”

The officials would not disclose the time frame. But they said it would not be tied to particular conditions on the ground nor would it be as firm as the current schedule for withdrawing troops in Iraq, where Mr. Obama has committed to withdrawing most combat units by August and all forces by the end of 2011.

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I occasionally encounter posts like this on various blogs. They always give me a sense of loss.

From Abu Muqawama, November 23:

Allow me to re-introduce myself: My name is Andrew Exum, and I have edited and authored the “Abu Muqawama” blog since February 2007. After much deliberation and consultation, I have decided to stop daily blogging. I owe it to the readership to explain both why and also how it will affect this site.

First off, I have steadily grown dissatisfied with blogging as a medium since returning fulltime in December of last year. The best bloggers I know — the ones I read and enjoy, like Spencer Ackerman, Tom Ricks and Andrew Sullivan — are either also journalists or started out as journalists. They are much better at offering on-the-spot commentary and analysis on the events of the day. My friend and boss Nate Fick, meanwhile, accurately described me last week as being someone who enjoys taking a more deliberate approach and digging deep down into an issue before offering comment. Blogging forces me into more or less split-second reactions to complicated policy events before I have had the opportunity to research and weigh opposing views. In addition, the AD/HD nature of this medium — as well as its format — has harmed both my research abilities as well as my ability to write in the long form. Blogging, like any medium, is one you get better at with practice. As I have become a better blogger, my long-form writing skills have atrophied.

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In the past couple of days I’ve searched the blogosphere for comment on Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try KSM and four other defendants in federal court.  As far as I can judge, opinion concerning this decision is largely — one might almost say overwhelmingly — negative.  But equally, as far as I can judge, these opinions appear in venues hostile to the Obama administration, which leads me to question whether their authors have weighed the issue dispassionately.  Certainly “dispassionate” is the last adjective I would apply to their assessments.

Here’s my sense of the most common objections to a civilian trial, followed by the responses I find most persuasive:

1.  Objection:  A trial in civilian court would compromise our intelligence sources.  Response:  Yet methods are used in military commissions to protect intelligence sources, and these methods are transferable to civilian trials.

2.  Objection:  KSM et al. would use a civilian trial to rant about their hatred of America, etc. Response: So what?  Judges have very little tolerance for rants, whether they emanate from defendants or counsel (defense or, for that matter, prosecution).  Even such rants as did emanate would be utterly predictable, persuasive only to the already persuaded.

3.  Objection:  Trial in civilian court would turn into a media circus.  Response:  This would require the willing complicity of the media.  I leave it to the journalists among my readership to tell me whether the media would like to have a media circus, or if one is somehow unavoidable.  This is actually a real question with me.  I honestly don’t know whether the media — certainly elements of the media, anyway — is capable of behaving responsibly in this matter.

4.  Objection:  Trial in civilian court would require elaborate security measures.  I just visited the New York City Counterterrorism Division last week.  Elaborate security measures in the vicinity of the federal court house, Foley Square, Police Plaza, etc. are already in place, since that district has long been recognized as a high value terrorist target.  The Division has since its formation in 2002 developed elaborate relationships with other counter terrorism agencies.  A trial in federal court would undoubtedly require the intensification of security arrangements, but this would be an incremental increase over measures already in place.

5.  Objection:  KSM et al. might be acquitted.  Response:  Given the weight of evidence against KSM et al., I think such an outcome is vanishingly small.  But in any fair trial, this is necessarily a possible outcome, otherwise the process has no legitimacy.

A general advocates for social utilities.  In Federal Times, Nov. 20, 2009

Why I Tweet
By Gen. Craig McKinley

Air Force Gen. Craig McKinley is chief of the National Guard Bureau. He can be followed on http://twitter.com/chiefngb

The impact of social networking programs such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter is transforming the way we work with media, the way we recruit and sustain our force, and the way we interact with the American people. Such tools are essential to linking our deployed men and women with their families, friends and communities at home. Recently, it became clear to me that I needed to get engaged in much the same way our soldiers and airmen have. I offer my early experiences with Twitter, as an example (but not an endorsement).

My first exposure to Twitter, a “micro-blogging” service, happened in Europe at our State Partnership Program conference. The conference chair opened with an announcement about the conference hash tag for Twitter. I had no idea what he was talking about, but several attendees did. Those attendees pointedly told me the information was useless to National Guard members since our networks blocked access to Twitter. Well, we fixed that problem, and I began to learn more about this new phenomenon and its potential impact on how we communicate.

It may surprise some to learn how high up the chain of command interest in social networking sites has risen. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Jim Stavridis, commander at U.S. European Command; and Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, all were on the bow wave of the tweeting trend. Price Floyd (@PriceFloyd), the principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, has been an outspoken supporter, along with other civilian DoD leaders, of broader use of Internet capabilities for communications.

I asked the help desk technician to sign me up for an account. Today, I am up and running on Twitter, have a great group of followers, and follow many users. It may not be the most powerful tool in my communications arsenal, but it is certainly the most personal and the most enjoyable.

How do I use Twitter?

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Last evening I saw “Theater of War” at the U.S. Army War College, a selection of readings from two plays by Sophocles:  Ajax and Philoctetes.  Directed by Bryan Doerries and supported by an array of actors, it illustrates how (to quote the flyer) “these ancient plays timelessly and universally depict the psychological and de-mystify and de-stigmatize psychological injury and to facilitate open dialogue about the challenges faced by Service members, Veterans, and their families.” It’s being performed at U.S. military military installations around the country. Powerful stuff, especially the Q&A it provoked afterward.  The following nine and a half minute video provides an introduction and gives some flavor of the performance and resulting discussions.

For a report on some of the early performances, see “The Anguish of War For Today’s Soldiers, Explored by Sophocles,”New York Times, Nov. 12, 2009.

Reprinted with permission of World War II Magazine

It is April 12, 1945. The defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich is assured. The Soviet army is barely 30 miles from Berlin, the British have surrounded a German army group in the Netherlands, and the Americans have encircled another in the Ruhr valley.  Spearheads of Lt.Gen.George S. Patton’s Third Army have crossed the border of Czechoslovakia. The U.S.Ninth Army,under Lt. Gen.William H. Simpson, has achieved a bridgehead across the Elbe River, just 50 miles from Berlin and an obvious springboard if the western Allies wish to capture the city. . . .

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A lot of opinion about Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court seems to turn on what might be called gut level sentiment. The tendency is not to discuss the issue in a measured way but to regard Holder’s decision as idiotic on its face. My own gut level sentiment is that a commitment to the normal American judicial process trumps all other considerations. Consequently I found the article below to be refreshing.

It is disturbing that our basic assumptions that a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, that he is entitled to a zealous defense, etc., are being so widely and so readily dismissed. A common assessment of the impact of terrorism is that it has the effect of encouraging societies to set aside or abridge their core values. It seems to me that everyone, to include Holder and Obama, has given short shrift to the overriding value of justice being done and of seeing it being done.

I realize that many insist that military commissions also meet this basic requirement. Yet the emphasis has been on ensuring a conviction and protecting intelligence sources. I can understand why this would be so, and I have respect for some of the rationales being offered. But I simply cannot make myself feel at ease with it. If a normal trial in federal court presents challenges, tough. It reflects the kind of country I want to live in.

Holder’s reasonable decision
By Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith
Washington Post, Friday, November 20, 2009

Reasonable minds can disagree about Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 perpetrators in a Manhattan federal court. But some prominent criticisms are exaggerated, and others place undue faith in military commissions as an alternative to civilian trials.

Mohammed is many things: an enemy combatant in a war against the United States whom the government can detain without trial until the conflict ends; a war criminal subject to trial by military commission under the laws of war; and someone answerable in federal court for violations of the U.S. criminal code. Which system he is placed in for purposes of incapacitation and justice involves complex legal and political trade-offs.

A trial in Manhattan will bring enormous media attention and require unprecedented security. But it is unlikely to make New York a bigger target than it has been since February 1993, when Mohammed’s nephew Ramzi Yousef attacked the World Trade Center. If al-Qaeda could carry out another attack in New York, it would — a fact true a week ago and for a long time. Its inability to do so is a testament to our military, intelligence and law enforcement responses since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In deciding to use federal court, the attorney general probably considered the record of the military commission system that was established in November 2001. This system secured three convictions in eight years. The only person who had a full commission trial, Osama bin Laden’s driver, received five additional months in prison, resulting in a sentence that was shorter than he probably would have received from a federal judge.

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