The stories ex-Gitmo detainees tell
January 12, 2012
The stories ex-Gitmo detainees tell
(Scott Johnson)
Tom Joscelyn notes that on Sunday, the New York Times published two op-eds by former Guantanamo detainees claiming they were wrongly detained innocents who were abused and tortured. Tom writes in an email message that the Times might have overlooked a few relevant facts: “Apparently, the Times didn’t realize that one of the two has previously claimed he was tortured more at Gitmo under the Obama administration than the Bush administration. So either the Obama administration is pro-torture, or the ex-Gitmo detainee is lying. As I explain in a lengthy Weekly Standard piece, there are plenty of reasons to doubt every word both ex-detainees say.” Analysts at Gitmo deemed both of the Times op-ed contributors “high” risks to the U.S. and its allies and recommended that they remain in the Defense Department’s custody.
Tom’s Weekly Standard piece makes the case that the Times has made itself the vehicle for disinformation fabricated by — oh, let’s come right out and say it — terrorist operatives. It’s not an airtight case; you have to use common sense to draw the necessary inferences, which is what the Joint Task Force Guantanamo did. According to Tom, JTF-GTMO deemed both of the Times op-ed contributors “high” risks to the United States and its allies and recommended that they remain in the Defense Department’s custody.
Tom’s piece is “The stories ex-Gitmo detainees tell.” Tom leaves a question hanging that is implicit in his piece: Why would the Times make itself the vehicle for terrorist disinformation?
I should add that the Times has done worse, but still…
List of Gitmo Detainees Obama Is Considering To Release In “Peace Deal” With The Taliban…
January 9, 2012
List of Gitmo Detainees Obama Is Considering To Release In “Peace Deal” With The Taliban…
Just the fact that he’s considering it is enough to make your blood boil. Via WaPo’s Marc Thiessen: President Obama is reportedly considering releasing several senior Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay as an enticement to get the Taliban to the peace table. If he does so, he will do tremendous harm to American national security [...]
Read more here.
Meet the Taliban leader Obama wants to release from Guantanamo
January 4, 2012
Meet the Taliban leader Obama wants to release from Guantanamo
Meet the Taliban leader Obama wants to release from Guantanamo
Read more here.
Obama’s Muddled Thinking on Afghanistan
December 23, 2011
Obama’s Muddled Thinking on Afghanistan
The Washington Post has an article today about the umpteenth instance of failed talks with the Taliban, with the U.S. apparently offering to release Taliban detainees from Guantanamo in return for a (worthless) promise from the Taliban to renounce international terrorism. The deal was scuttled, according to the Post, by (legitimate) objections from Hamid Karzai, but it is not clear if the administration could have carried out its end anyway because of domestic opposition to releasing more hardened terrorists from Gitmo.
What was really fascinating to me in this article was a section from the middle:
President Obama has already ordered the withdrawal by September of the 33,000 troops he sent to Afghanistan last year. “The big debate,” a Defense official said, is “can you come up with another number for what happens over the next 12 months” after that drawdown. “The argument will once again be the military saying let’s keep it at 68,000,” the number of troops who will remain in September, “and [Vice President] Biden saying let’s get it down to 20,000 really quickly, with the reality somewhere in between.”
Although Biden lost the argument over the surge in late 2009, officials said the internal administration balance has shifted toward a steeper glide path that would put the Afghans in charge sooner rather than later, in conjunction with a political settlement.
This is a fair description, I believe, of the president’s deeply muddled thinking on the future of Afghanistan. It suggests that he will make future decisions as he made decisions in the past: on a split-the-difference model. In 2010, he tacitly endorsed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request to pursue a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy but provided the minimal amount of resources required—only about 30,000 extra troops, which was at the “high risk” side of the options offered by McChrystal. This was in essence an attempt to compromise between McChrystal and Joe Biden, who advocated sending even fewer troops and pursuing a lesser, counterterrorism-focused mission. Then in June of this year, Obama ordered the premature withdrawal of those 30,000+ troops—they will be pulled out by September 2012, well ahead of the recommendations of military commanders. Now, with military commanders asking to keep at least 68,000 troops through 2014, President Obama seems set to draw down much faster than they recommend—although not to the extent advocated by the most strident anti-war voices.
You can see the political logic of what Obama is doing: He is trying to please both hawks and doves. Unfortunately, war is not a realm where half measures are likely to succeed. Adopting an ambitious strategy, as we’ve done in Afghanistan, but not resourcing it adequately, as Obama has also done, is a recipe for slow-motion failure. It is a high-risk strategy that is likely to get a lot of troops killed and for no good reason. Paradoxically, sending more troops would actually reduce casualties by making it easier to dominate the battlefield.
Not only does this make little sense strategically, it makes little sense politically: Obama will get just as much flak for keeping 50,000 troops in Afghanistan
as he would for 68,000. But the higher number provides a greater chance of success; more troops still would heighten our chances even more. If we are going to fight in Afghanistan, Obama needs to go “all in” as President Bush did during the surge in Iraq. He should not pin his hopes on peace talks which are unlikely to go anywhere.
Iraqi refugee pleads guilty to 23 counts of terror-related charges
December 17, 2011
Iraqi refugee pleads guilty to 23 counts of terror-related charges
Courts or Gitmo? Either/or, in this case.
An Iraqi refugee who turned out to have participated in the insurgencies prior to arriving in the US and took part in supporting them after his arrival created a controversy between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Obama administration. Waad Ramadan Alwan lived in Kentucky, McConnell’s state, and his arrest by the FBI on [...]
