The Political Conundrum!

U. S. Army soldiers provide security while Afghans walk through the streets of Carabar village of Parwan province, Afghanistan, July 4, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Richard W. Jones Jr. DefenseLink.mil

On July 10, a group of national security and terrorism experts including prominent officials of both the Clinton and Bush Adminstrations wrote Congress urging that Guantanamo be closed, that detainees be brought to the U.S. for trial, and that the U.S. be prepared to accept and resettle a small number of any non-dangerous Guantanamo detainees who could not be returned to their home countries because of the threat of persecution.

The experts made three findings. First, that closing Guantanamo will be a net benefit to our counterterrorism efforts. Second, that doing so, would "likely require bringing some terrorists to the U.S. for trial, detention, or, if appropriate, resettlement." Finally, the experts stated that "America should not be afraid to bring Guantanamo detainees to the U.S," and that "transferring some Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. will aid the fight against terrorists.

In laying out the rationale for trying the detainees in the US, the experts noted that the U.S. has successfully tried numerous accused terrorists in the U.S, with 216 inmates currently housed in federal prisons for crimes related to international terrorism, including the masterminds of the first World Trade Center bombing, the terrorist who plotted to bring down multiple US airliners, and terrorists who planned to blow up bridges and tunnels in New York.

As set forth in the letter, the experts, who included former senior military officers, intelligence officers, law enforcement personnel, and political appointees from both parties, Message to Congress 7_10_09.pdf also reminded Congress that no terrorist has ever escaped from a U.S. prison.

Signatories included M.E. (Spike) Bowman, former Senior Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Deputy Director of the National Counterintelligence Center; Frank Cilluffo, formerly Special Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and now the Director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University; Major General Albert C. Harvey, who chairs the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security and is a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve (Ret.); Robert Hutchings, former Chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council; former Republican Congressman and Brigadier General David R. Irvine, formerly Deputy Commander for the 96th Regional Readiness Command; Brian Jenkins former Security Advisor to the National Commission on Terrorism and a Member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety; Dr. David Kay, the head of the Iraq Survey Group; Brigadier General Mark T. Kimmit, who served as Assistant Secretary off State for Political Military Affairs and Deputy Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy; David H. Laufman, who served as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General, as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and as a military and political analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency; James A. Lewis who served for many years in the intelligence community and is now Director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); John MacGaffin, who held senior positions with the CIA and FBI and has been involved in matters of intelligence collection, law enforcement, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and security for over 40 years; Daniel Marcus, former General Counsel of the 9/11 Commission and Associate Attorney General at the Department of Justice; Ronald Anthony Marks , former senior CIA official and as Intelligence Counsel for U.S. Senators Bob Dole and Trent Lott.; Mary McCarthy, formerly National Intelligence Officer for Warning and as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs; Rear Admiral James E. McPherson, JAGC, U.S. Navy (Ret.), who served as the Judge Advocate General of the Navy from 2004 until his retirement in 2006; Paul Pillar, who served as Deputy Chief of the Director of Central Intelligence’s Counterterrorist Center and as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East; William S. Sessions, who served as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Ali Soufan, a former FBI Supervisory Special Agent who investigated and supervised highly sensitive and complex international terrorism cases, including the East Africa Bombings, the attack on the USS Cole, and the events surrounding 9/11; Suzanne E. Spaulding, former Executive Director of the National Commission on Terrorism, Assistant General Counsel at CIA, Minority Staff Director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and General Counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Philip Zelikow, who served as Counselor of the Department of State, executive director of the 9/11 Commission, on President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and as co-director of Harvard’s Intelligence and Policy Project. The signatories also included three contributors to the CT Blog, Michael Jacobson, Matthew Levitt, and this writer.

The experts would seem to have the support of history. Some members of Congress may find it useful to be reminded that the U.S. today holds one of the worst-of-the-worst safely in the United States, the blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, serving a life sentence in federal prison as a result of his involvement in bringing about the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Before arresting, trying, convicting, and sentencing Abdel-Rahman, the U.S. did a poor job protecting itself from his incitements to murder. He was a known terrorist in Egypt when he was issued a tourist visa to visit the US in July 1990 despite being listed on a US State Department terrorist watch list. On the way to the U.S., he visited Saudi Arabia, Peshawar, and Sudan, hooking up with antecedent comonents of Al Qaeda. Once in the U.S., he issued a fatwa declaring it lawful to rob banks and kill Jews in America, encouraging Muslims to "destroy [the non-Muslim] economy, burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land." He organized followers who joined him in conspiracies which included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, conspiracy to use explosives against New York landmarks, and plotting to assassinate U.S. politicians. On October 1, 1995, he was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. His inmate registration number is 34892-054, and he has been held at ADX Florence, Colorado and at the Butner Federal Correctional Center in Butner, North Carolina. Unlike domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh who the U.S. executed without incident in June 2001 for the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the blind Shekih is merely sentenced to life.

The U.S. has demonstrated that it can safely hold Sheikh Rahman within its territory. We have yet to be advised of a concrete reason why this would not be the case of even the most vicious people who have been held at Guantanamo.

A U.S. Soldier who the military says fatally shot a fellow soldier in Iraq by accident has been sentenced to three years’ confinement but will serve 30 months.

Almost 145 years after former slave Amos McKinney fought for his freedom and to preserve the Union, America said "Thank you." In a ceremony befitting a hero, more than 200 gathered Saturday as the Civil War veteran got a military grave marker almost 100 years after his death.

A secret intelligence program canceled by CIA Director Leon Panetta was meant to find and then capture or kill al-Qaida leaders at close range rather than target them with air strikes that risked civilian casualties, government officials with knowledge of the operation said Monday.

Sen. John McCain moved Monday to eliminate $1.75 billion recently inserted into the proposed 2010 defense budget for more fighter jets from Lockheed Martin.

A roadside bomb blew up Sunday near a convoy that was carrying U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill, but no injuries were reported, the U.S. announced Monday.

The last few weeks have seen a renewed focus on the issue of foreign fighters--particularly Somali-American exiles--who are traveling to Somalia in hopes of joining the militant Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement. A former Islamic Courts Union (ICU) leader-turned Somali president Shaykh Sharif Ahmed spoke directly to the issue on Sunday, quoted by CNN as urging, "the Somali-American community not to send their youth to Somalia to fight alongside al-Shabaab... I am saying to those young men from abroad: 'Your families fled your home to America because of insecurity. You should not return here to ferment violence against your people."

On the same day, the New York Times published a lengthy article on the recruitment of Somali-Americans by Shabaab, along with an accompanying video presentation with analysis from a host of various Shabaab watchers, including myself.

All of this is probably worth taking a look at, but I would just add some supplementary thoughts to my commentary in the New York Times video. I believe that Dr. Ken Menkhaus is largely correct in his assessment that the underlying motivations for most Shabaab fighters are remarkably nationalistic. At least to some degree, the constant rhetorical posturing by Shabaab is a political tool -- a way to galvanize support among Somalis who may not be fundamentalists themselves, but who chafe at rampant crime and corruption, and who share a natural resentment to the presence of foreign troops in their homeland. As the Taliban have demonstrated in Afghanistan, when a political force is able to establish strict "law and order" in a chaotic, war-torn region, sometimes desperate citizens are willing to accept increasingly tangential conditions in order to preserve that sense of basic stability.

All that being said, we must be very careful not to simply dismiss outright the potential of regional and international terrorism delivered care of Shabaab al-Mujahideen. For its part, the Movement has repeatedly threatened to extend its war beyond the borders of Somalia, and has been disturbingly specific in issuing those threats. As cited in my NEFA Foundation report on Shabaab al-Mujahideen:

- In March 2007, the official logistical partner of Shabaab's media wing, the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), published a document titled “Ways to Support Our Brothers in Somalia.” The document called on Muslims “to attack the interests of our enemies outside of Somalia… especially economic, military, and political targets, such as embassies and factories… One of the most important places to target the Ethiopian enemy is their international airport.”

- In January 2008, Shabaab al-Mujahideen published a lengthy condemnation of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM. According to that treatise, "If the Somali capital Mogadishu… is subject to heavy bombardment and destruction at the hands of the Ugandan-Ethiopian-Burundian alliance, then it is only the balance of justice for the capitals of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Kampala in Uganda, and Bujumbura in Burundi to experience the same pain and bitterness… They have become the target of those who are launching strikes in order to defend the Muslims and their religion.”

- In April 2008, Shabaab al-Mujahideen repeated its threat to “punish” Uganda, Burundi, and Ethiopia—within their own borders. In a published communique, Shabaab boasted, “the wager made on the Ethiopians, Ugandans, and Burundians in Somalia was a failure, and history has proven it. Allah willing, we will attack them, roam [through their ranks], cut off every path they will take, chase away those who follow them, and fight them as insects and wolves. [We] will give them a taste of the heat of flame, and throw them into hell.”

- In May 2008, Shabaab’s former chief spokesman Shaykh Mukhtar Robow stated in an Arabic-language interview, “we will retaliate against these countries and their people, in their own lands, in a just punishment—yes, in their very own lands, just like they did [to us], and Allah is fulfilling his promise, but most people are unaware.”

- In an audio recording released on June 1, 2008, the top commander of Shabaab al-Mujahideen, Shaykh Mukhtar Abu Az-Zubair, boasted of how “the Muslim people of Somalia have merged with the most elite fighters from the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement… Allah willing, international jihadi units will be launched from the Land of the Two Migrations [the Horn of Africa] to haunt and destroy the infidels and their interests around the world… We are an integral part of the vanguard of the global jihad.”

A self-styled Islamist movement with largely nationalist ambitions, or "an integral part of the vanguard of the global jihad" -- will the real Shabaab al-Mujahideen please stand up? At least for the moment, Shabaab increasingly appears to be trotting down the latter path.

I want to put in a good word for the VA and briefly describe my recent experience with them. Being a current unemployed veteran and in need of some prescription medications that I can not afford to pay for out of pocket, I decided to enroll in the VA’s prescription drug benefit program. Never previously having used this valuable service I was skeptical at what this experience might prove to be. I was also concerned on a personal level that I might be taking medical assistance or time away from a much more worthy veteran who was perhaps suffering from some malaise or injury that was a result of a combat operation. Outside of needing some prescription medication required for health maintenance I am much more healthy and fit than one might expect to be at the age of 54.

The treatment and respect I received from the VA was beyond anything I had ever imagined it to be. Every step along the way through the process was without incident and the service provided was superior to ANY that I have ever experienced in my dealings with for-profit, out-patient care through a civilian family medical practice. The facility I went to in KY was absolutely spotless. I commented to the LPN who accomplished the majority of the intake process and all of the lab work how remarkably clean the facility was. Her response to me was that the standard they are held to is non-negotiable and the entire facility is scrubbed top to bottom every single day. I tell you it was spotless. I had envisioned something more akin to my military experiences 27 years ago which were not as uneventful or as favorable. This facility had the most modern and up-to-date technology available whether it was computer systems, diagnostic equipment, or medical staff. The staff are all VA civilian employees, on a salary, and don’t have to worry about the hassles of malpractice insurance, overhead costs, and profitability. The number one mission in their job role is to provide care to veterans. Period! And these folks did it extremely well by this former SSG’s yardstick. I was actually told by the Doc to not be concerned about “me taking time away from vets that were in greater need than me”. The way the VA care system works is real simple. If the caseload reaches a certain point the VA simply adds more personnel. I was made to feel that the service I was receiving was deserving and not taking resources away from someone in greater need than myself.

I encourage all veterans to get into the VA system now in case some unfortunate life event in the future causes them to be on the ‘wanting/needing’ end of a long line of others who don’t have the VA as an option to them. Life happens and sometimes it happens to you due to circumstances beyond your capability to control. Getting into the VA system is as easy as filling in a short form and mailing it along with a copy of your DD 214 to your state’s VA processing center. If you haven’t done so lately go to the VA’s website and peruse all of the benefits you, as a veteran, have available to you just for the asking.

I won’t speak to anyone else’s personal VA experience but my VA experience in KY was a 5 star rating and I highly recommend VA services to all employed, under-employed or unemployed veterans. Our service to our country is respected and honored by these VA folks and they care about us. That said, now I want to be a more active member of this organization and will be trying earnestly to become employed by them. If that’s not an even greater endorsement than my brief description above I don’t know what would be.

Airborne All The Way!

Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano visited the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Frank Drew in Portsmouth, Va., to discuss maritime security and view a demonstration by a Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT)—a Coast Guard counterterrorism unit with advanced interdiction capabilities.