"We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us"

When President Obama first came into office in 2009, many people (including the President) talked about the fact that the United States was involved in two wars: Iraq and Afghanistan. I have always tried to point out that this was a mistake. There was actually a third war underway - the one Bush called "the global war on terror" that President Obama re-focused as the "war on al Qaeda." This is the one that people either didn't want to acknowledge or has been discussed as if it was all about civil liberties (i.e., targeted drone strikes) instead of war.

Because so few people have talked about this war on al Qaeda, the strategy announced by President Obama to degrade and destroy ISIS is too often discussed as if it was a re-engagement of the war in Iraq. The President has been clear that it is not.

I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years. And it is consistent with the approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners wherever possible to address broader challenges to international order.

This explains why, within the Obama administration, there has been some confusing rhetoric over whether this is a "counterterrorism campaign" or a "war." Back in May 2013, President Obama suggested that it was time to get ourselves off a "war footing" when it came to dealing with terrorism.  He even suggested that Congress should revisit the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force that provides the president with the authority to wage war on al Qaeda. He said that it was time to end the indefinite war and develop  an ongoing counterterrorism strategy.

I am struck by how closely his remarks last week resemble what he said last year. For example, here's what he said about the nature of the threat back then:

So that’s the current threat -- lethal yet less capable al Qaeda affiliates; threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad; homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism. We have to take these threats seriously, and do all that we can to confront them. But as we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.

And here's what he said last week:

Still, we continue to face a terrorist threat. We can’t erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm. That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today. And that’s why we must remain vigilant as threats emerge. 

His references to "before 9/11" are an attempt to get us out of a fear-based mode with regard to an examination of the current threats. Meanwhile, folks like Sen. Lindsay Graham are doing everything they can to stoke irrational fears to keep the indefinite war going.

The Obama administration has always been clear that they have the authority to wage a "war on al Qaeda" (and its affiliates) based on the 2001 AUMF. Cass Sunstein made the argument that this is the authority President Obama has to wage war on ISIS, for those who missed the fact that the President identified them as a "formerly al Qaeda affiliate" in his statement last week.

But here's what bothers me about all of that. Until Congress grapples with developing an ongoing counterterrorism strategy that respects the separation of powers (the way President Obama asked them to do back in May 2013), any president going forward will have the authority to wage this as an indefinite war.

This is exactly why I've been so frustrated with the way the left has mischaracterized the current situation (focusing on questions about civil liberties instead of war) and avoided taking a position on these difficult questions. And now pundits and journalists are all over the map in misunderstanding the core questions involved.

I suspect that President Obama is no more optimistic than I am that Congress will take up these questions in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, it rests on his shoulders to develop a strategy to deal with ISIS. But I am seriously concerned about the baton he'll be passing on to his successors.

So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

President Barack Obama, May 2013

"We have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom"

Up at the top of this blog you'll see a tab titled Ending the Indefinite War. For almost three years now I have been advocating that its time to start talking about ending what George Bush called "the global war on terror" and what President Obama refocused as the "war on al Qaeda." The explosion of ISIS on the scene in Iraq and Syria means that is unlikely to happen anytime soon. And so I'm dealing with my disappointment in having to let that go. But my disappointment is not directed at President Obama. It is focused where it belongs...on ISIS.

Back in May of 2013, President Obama gave a speech that indicated perhaps we could finally start talking about ending the indefinite war. I was ecstatic at the possibility. In my elation, I didn't focus as much on the reality that his speech was really an outline of how we move forward with a rational counterterrorism strategy. And so today I went back and re-read the speech. Its interesting to listen to what the President said about all this more than a year before he announced his plan for military intervention against ISIS. Take a look at some highlights.

Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions -- about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them...

So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. 

The President went on to propose a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. He gave a lot of details, but summed it up here:

Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance -- through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the homeland and mitigate threats to Americans overseas.

That has been President Obama's strategy all along. In that speech he invited us to ask the hard questions. Unfortunately, that has not happened. Instead we have had ongoing prescriptions from left libertarians who pretend like we can just ignore the problem and neocons who think every problem can be solved by simply invading yet another country. I believe that last night's speech from the President was an attempt to tamp down the fear so that perhaps we could get in touch with some of that hard-earned wisdom.

To be honest, I don't know if the President has chosen the right strategy for dealing with ISIS. I long for a discussion about what our options are that is based on seeing the situation as clearly as he laid it out over a year ago. Anyone who tells you that Obama's plan is either guaranteed to be a success or doomed to failure don't know what they're talking about. They are simply mouthing the surety of the ideologue.

What I do know is that by the time President Obama has made a tough decision like this, he's weighed all of his options and calculated the possible unintended consequences of each one. As he did when he made the decision to go after Osama bin Laden, he knows that at times like this, the risks of failure are very real and the consequences of that failure could be devastating. But until I see critiques apply the same process to their alternatives, I'll go with the guy who has demonstrated a pretty solid grasp of hard-earned wisdom.

A negotiated peace in Afghanistan is the goal

At this point, the hysteria about Sergeant Bergdahl's home-coming is so perverse that its almost impossible for actual information to penetrate. But as I've been saying since day one of this prisoner exchange, there is a bigger context to the story. At least the Associated Press, via reporter Kathy Gannon, is telling it.

The announcement that the U.S. government had secured the release of missing U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and that it was freeing five senior Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay has been portrayed first and foremost as a prisoner exchange. But the four-year history of secret dialogue that led to Saturday's release suggests that the main goal of each side may have been far more sweeping.

It was about setting the stage for larger discussions on a future peaceful Afghanistan.

Gannon then goes on to describe the fits and starts to this process of attempting to set up negotiations that began in 2010. So why does it seem to have finally come to fruition now?

Why did the Taliban go for the exchange now? One possibility is that the older generation of Taliban wanted to show younger, more skeptical fighters that talks with the U.S. and the Afghan government are worth pursuing.

The U.S. wants out of Afghanistan, but it doesn't want to leave behind complete chaos. In the past, it at least wanted to start a process of talks that could have some traction.

As the Taliban insurgency rages on, the question is whether the next Kabul government will risk talks with the militants, and whether the Taliban themselves may wish to negotiate for a share in power or will stay on the course of war.

In either case, the deal that came about this week after such a long gestation was about more than six men and their respective paths toward captivity and now freedom.

Only time will tell if these efforts by the Taliban and new leadership in Afghanistan signals that its possible to set the stage for a negotiated peace in that country. But a simple focus on the six men involved in this exchange totally misses the bigger context for this story.

Watching so much of our media become consumed with the hysteria generated about this story is a perfect example of why I've contemplated a regular series titled "dumb stuff reporters say." But this time its not just one dumb reporter. The hysteria narrative has taken hold of most of them.

All I can say is: don't join the hype. Keep your eye on the ball President Obama is playing here. A negotiated peace in Afghanistan is the goal...and its certainly one worthy of our support.

Why the prisoner exchange is a big issue for the neocons

We're hearing all kinds of hysteria about the prisoner exchange that resulted in the release of Sergeant Bergdahl. The media is indulging claims about Bergdahl's state of mind, whether or not the President was required to consult with Congress prior to finalizing the exchange and stories about soldiers who may have died trying to rescue him. But that's all hyperbole designed to gin up the anti-Obama base. I propose that the real issue for conservatives actually centers on the other side of the exchange...the release of the 5 Taliban detainees from Gitmo.

Ken Gude writing at Think Progress is one of the few journalists who got to the heart of the issue with an article titled Why the Five Taliban Detainees Had to be Released Soon, No Matter What.

The United States is engaged in an armed conflict in Afghanistan against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces authorized by Congress under the 2001 Authorizations to Use Military Force...President Obama recently announced that the combat role for the United States in the armed conflict in Afghanistan will end this year and all participation will completely cease by 2016.

When wars end, prisoners taken custody must be released. These five Guantanamo detainees were almost all members of the Taliban, according to the biographies of the five detainees that the Afghan Analysts Network compiled in 2012. None were facing charges in either military or civilian courts for their actions. It remains an open question whether the end of U.S. involvement in the armed conflict in Afghanistan requires that all Guantanamo detainees must be released. But there is no doubt that Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan must be released because the armed conflict against the Taliban will be over.

One question I've had about all this is whether it would have been better to simply be forced to release these detainees once the war in Afghanistan was over - or whether releasing them now to Qatar with security precautions in place is the smarter move.

But all that aside, President Obama has been clear that it is time to take the United States off the permanent war footing that was launched by the Bush/Cheney administration after 9/11. Here's how he talked about that two years ago:

My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaeda...

This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.

As he's said more recently, the United States no longer faces an existential threat. We have to be vigilant about the ongoing threat of terrorism, but the time for war is over.

Following 9/11, the neocons counted on having a replacement for the Cold War in an ongoing global war on terrorism. That's because in order for their military adventurism to sell, Americans need to be convinced that we have a powerful evil enemy that threatens us.

As President Obama ends that war, we can expect the neocons to ramp up the fear rhetoric to try and convince us its not over. Unfortunately, Sergeant Bergdahl has just become a pawn in that game. We need to remember that he is not the issue. We're all glad he's home. But there are bigger issues at stake. Its finally time to end indefinite war.

Passing on a clean slate

Yesterday's release of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was joyous news to his family, his community and his country.  But in order to understand the broader importance of this news, it needs to be placed in context.

Following 9/11, the Bush/Cheney administration attempted to put this country on a permanent war footing to fight the global war on terror. In doing so, they took actions that go against our basic ideals as a country and called America's leadership in the world into question. That included invading another country based on lies, the use of torture and setting up a prison for indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay. These actions left legal and foreign policy challenges that - while not as imminent as the financial crisis - were necessary to address.

When President Obama assumed office, he began working on cleaning up the mess from day one. His first actions were to stop the use of torture and re-focus the global war on terror into a war on al Qaeda. The latter action provided for the possibility of specific goals that could be met rather than an open-ended engagement. He ended the war in Iraq and attempted to defeat al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan and eventually Yemen.

A little over two years ago, Vice President Biden articulated the diplomatic work this administration had undertaken to ensure that Afghanistan would never again be a safe haven for terrorists.

We were in Afghanistan for two reasons. One is to deal with, curtail, begin to dismantle, and eventually eliminate al Qaeda. Not only from being able to come back into Afghanistan and control Afghanistan but from the region—to decimate al Qaeda...

The second reason for us to be in Afghanistan was to make sure that a country with tens of millions of people and nuclear weapons called Pakistan did not somehow begin to disintegrate or fall apart. That is a hell of a lot tougher job...

That is part of what the reconciliation process is about right now. We are not just deciding that all we are doing is supporting a government and building up their military capability. We’re engaged in a reconciliation process. Whether it will work or not is another question. But we are in a position where if Afghanistan ceased and desisted from being a haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America and their allies, that’s good enough. That’s good enough. We’re not there yet.

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us. So there’s a dual track here:

One, continue to keep the pressure on al Qaeda and continue to diminish them. Two, put the government in a position where they can be strong enough that they can negotiate with and not be overthrown by the Taliban. And at the same time try to get the Taliban to move in the direction to see to it that they, through reconciliation, commit not to be engaged with al Qaeda or any other organization that they would harbor to do damage to us and our allies.

Over the last few years, attempts to bring together Afghanistan and the Taliban to negotiate towards a stable government have been underway, but have moved forward in fits and starts. Over that time, a successful prisoner exchange between the U.S. and the Taliban has been seen as an opening statement of trust for the negotiations to begin in earnest. I believe that is what happened yesterday with the release of Sergeant Bergdahl in exchange for the 5 detainees at Guantanamo. Notice how President Obama's statement yesterday echos what VP Biden said two years ago.

This week the United States renewed its commitment to the Afghan people and made clear that we will continue to support them as they chart their own future. The United States also remains committed to supporting an Afghan-led reconciliation process as the surest way to achieve a stable, secure, sovereign, and unified Afghanistan. While we are mindful of the challenges, it is our hope Sergeant Bergdahl’s recovery could potentially open the door for broader discussions among Afghans about the future of their country by building confidence that it is possible for all sides to find common ground.

So this wasn't just a prisoner exchange. It was perhaps the opening step in the reconciliation process between the Afghan government and the Taliban. As such, it was also one more step in this President's efforts to fix the mess that was left to him by his predecessor and take us "off a permanent war footing."

If you haven't already, I highly recommend that you listen to/read President Obama's interview with NPR just after his speech at West Point. Here's how he summarized all this:

...I want to make sure that when I turn the keys over to the next president, that they have the ability, that he or she has the capacity to — to make some decisions with a relatively clean slate...

You know, these are all parts of what I consider a — a major piece of business during my presidency, which is recognizing we've got very real threats out there and we can't be naive about protecting ourselves from those threats. At times we're going to have to take very tough actions to make sure that our people, our children are protected, but that there's a way of doing it that comports with our laws, our values, our ideals, that gains legitimacy around the world and that is therefore sustainable...

And, you know, we're not done yet, but we've made enormous progress...I'm confident that by the time I'm leaving the presidency, the next president will still have some tough choices to make, but I think they'll have a basis for making them that is consistent with our best traditions.

The President has often talked about the slow but steady progress of righting this huge ship of state. He's determined to have it back on course by the time he's done.

Not listening makes actual reporting pretty impossible

The other day I wrote about the importance of understanding President Obama's goals in foreign policy in order to measure his success. But perhaps I should have taken it one step further. It would be helpful if we started by actually listening to what he says.

In an age where we can re-read speeches or listen to the video-tapped recordings of them, this kind of reporting on the outcome of the President's speech last year on counterterrorism is a perfect example of why our media has lost credibility. The title of the article pretty much tells you all you need to know: One Year After Obama's Big Drone Speech, Many Promises Left Unkept.

First of all, it was not a big drone speech!!!!  It was a speech about the indefinite war we've been waging since 9/11 (of which drones are a part) and a call for the country to contemplate ending that war. If you don't get that, you don't get the speech.

When someone knows how to put together a speech that makes a logical argument (as this President certainly does), you look for the opening statement that summarizes what the whole speech is about. After talking about the attacks on 9/11 and our response to them, the President said this:

So America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror...But what we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom. That begins with understanding the current threat that we face.

But here's how the reporters in the article linked above summarized the speech:

One year ago last Friday, President Barack Obama gave a major address on drones, targeted killing and terrorism. The president and administration officials promised that the drone program would operate within limits protecting civilians, control would be transferred from the CIA to the Pentagon, and a new era of transparency would begin.

Assuming those are promises the President made in this speech, they conclude:

"I would give the president an 'F' based on his promises a year ago," said Alka Pradhan, the counterterrorism counsel for the human rights group Reprieve U.S.

They pretty much missed the whole point of the speech and then gave him an "F" for not fulfilling the promises they suggest he made. So lets take a look at what they think he promised and compare it to what he actually said. On limiting the drone program in order to protect civilians, he was pretty clear-eyed.

America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set.

Now, this last point is critical, because much of the criticism about drone strikes -- both here at home and abroad -- understandably centers on reports of civilian casualties. There’s a wide gap between U.S. assessments of such casualties and nongovernmental reports. Nevertheless, it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in every war. And for the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, those deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred throughout conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But as Commander-in-Chief, I must weigh these heartbreaking tragedies against the alternatives. To do nothing in the face of terrorist networks would invite far more civilian casualties -- not just in our cities at home and our facilities abroad, but also in the very places like Sana’a and Kabul and Mogadishu where terrorists seek a foothold. Remember that the terrorists we are after target civilians, and the death toll from their acts of terrorism against Muslims dwarfs any estimate of civilian casualties from drone strikes. So doing nothing is not an option.

What I hear is a President grappling with the world as it is - doing everything in his power to minimize civilian casualties but recognizing that his actions risk just that - while doing nothing risks more. I hear no promises; only an explanation of the call that rests on his shoulders.

Nowhere in the speech did the President make a statement about transferring control of drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon. That leak came two months prior to this speech from unnamed senior officials, so I'm not sure what it has to do with an analysis of this speech. Even so, at the time of the leak it was predicted that such a transfer would take a year or more to implement. So perhaps its a bit soon to give it a grade.

I see no great emphasis on transparency in the President's speech. But he did say this:

And for this reason, I’ve insisted on strong oversight of all lethal action. After I took office, my administration began briefing all strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan to the appropriate committees of Congress. Let me repeat that: Not only did Congress authorize the use of force, it is briefed on every strike that America takes. Every strike. That includes the one instance when we targeted an American citizen -- Anwar Awlaki, the chief of external operations for AQAP.

He also made a couple of suggestions he was open to exploring with Congress.

Going forward, I’ve asked my administration to review proposals to extend oversight of lethal actions outside of warzones that go beyond our reporting to Congress. Each option has virtues in theory, but poses difficulties in practice. For example, the establishment of a special court to evaluate and authorize lethal action has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority. Another idea that’s been suggested -- the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch -- avoids those problems, but may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national security decision-making, without inspiring additional public confidence in the process. But despite these challenges, I look forward to actively engaging Congress to explore these and other options for increased oversight.

But that's it on the topic of transparency. Once again, I fail to hear any promises.

Finally, in an article that purports to hold President Obama accountable for the promises he made in a speech, there is NO mention of the other strategies he discussed.

1. Effective global partnerships
2. Diplomatic engagement and assistance
3. Striking the appropriate balance between security and civil liberties
4. Refining and ultimately repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force
5. Closing the Guantanamo Bay prison

But I guess when you've already decided that this was "a big drone speech," all that talk goes in one ear and out the other.

I thought it might be helpful to systematically unpack just one article that missed the mark so badly in order to make a point. The authors obviously had an agenda in mind and then simply used that to measure what they assume the President said. That this kind of thing is what often passes for reporting these days speaks to the willful blindness and/or laziness of much of our media. There are days that it feels like we could spend all of our time simply correcting the record...just to get us into a position to debate it.

A summer of action for President Obama

There will be no lazy days of summer for this White House. If you want to know what we'll all be talking about soon, take a look at how President Obama is setting the table for action over the next few months.

First of all, tomorrow he will give the commencement address at West Point.

President Barack Obama will use his speech at the West Point commencement Wednesday to lay out a broad vision of American foreign policy that a White House official Saturday called “both interventionist and internationalist, but not isolationist or unilateral.”

Those of us who have been listening to him since his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech and watching him act on the world stage will likely hear the Obama Doctrine affirmed. But for the isolationists and unilateralists, it will once again confuse them and spark an interesting debate.

Next Monday President Obama will announce the new EPA rules governing carbon emissions from existing power plants. As Jonathan Cohn suggests, this is a BFD.

Along with other steps the administration has taken, like setting higher fuel standards for cars and trucks, the new regulations could make climate change action one of Obama’s signature achievements—something historians will cite alongside Obamacare, rescue of the auto industry, and the Recovery Act. As Jonathan Chait has written in New York magazine, “By the normal standards of progress Obama has amassed an impressive record so far on climate change.”

Coral Davenport reminds us that this announcement will impact the discussion about climate change beyond our own borders.

China and the United States, the world’s two largest economies and greenhouse gas polluters, are locked in a stalemate over global warming. While today China pollutes more than the United States, Chinese officials insist that, as a developing economy, China should not be forced to take carbon-cutting actions. China has demanded that the United States, as the world’s historically largest polluter, go first. Chinese policy experts say that Mr. Obama’s regulation could end that standoff.

“If the standard is really stringent, that will make a difference in the domestic debate in China,” Mr. Qi said.

In mid-June Afghanistan will finalize their presidential election, which should pave the way for a status of forces agreement with the U.S. and a formal end to that war. Then the question becomes: will we finally be ready to end the indefinite war that began 13 years ago following 9/11?

My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaeda...

This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.

July brings the deadline for negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program. If a deal can be finalized, that will be a HUGE vindication of the Obama Doctrine.

And finally, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have given Speaker Boehner until August to pass comprehensive immigration reform. If he fails to do that, the President will sign an executive order altering the current priorities for deportations and setting off a firestorm of debate on that issue.

So while Republicans continue to ensure that this is the least productive Congress in modern history and want to focus on non-existent scandals related to Obamacare and Benghazi, this President is working on all of the above PLUS his Year of Action agenda. That should provide an interesting contrast for the upcoming midterm elections.

Oh, and about that lame duck President thingy? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!! Don't make me laugh.

Intelligence community is fighting back on ending the indefinite war

For over two years now I've been saying that rather than focusing on drones and Gitmo, liberals should be talking about actually ending the indefinite war. A year ago this week, the President said we should do just that. But as Eli Lake reports, he's facing some pretty tough opposition on that front from the intelligence community. The title of his article is telling: 'Over My Dead Body': Spies Fight Obama Push to Downsize Terror War.

In interviews with many of them, a common theme is sounded: The threat from al Qaeda is rising, but the White House is looking to ratchet down the war against these Islamic extremists.

Lake goes on to dutifully quote many in the intelligence community about why we should still be afraid of "the terrorists" - even if it means ramping up the current furor over Benghazi! and the freak-out about ending the war in Afghanistan. But to get an idea of how the President views all of this, here's a fascinating exchange.

Tommy Vietor, who served as the spokesman for the National Security Council in Obama’s first term, recalled a meeting he attended with Obama on the crisis in Mali. He said the president understood the threat from al Qaeda’s core leadership had diminished, while the threat of affiliates had grown stronger. At the end of the meeting though, he said the president remarked, “What will be required for a crisis like that is not a drone-based program dotting the continent. It will be a sustained political process that includes economic development.”

It’s an irony for Obama, who has been attacked by progressives for relying too heavily on drone attacks in his war on terrorism.

An irony indeed! This is the perfect example of why so few people really understand President Obama. When he came into office he was clear that the Bush/Cheney administration had mangled this country's response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11: the Iraq War had to end, the Taliban in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) had to be defeated, and the "global war on terror" had to be narrowed and re-focused on al Qaeda.

Working towards all that was seen by many on the left as "warmongering." Rather than simply agree/disagree with any particular action, that frame became the narrative though which everything is filtered. And so even as the number of drone strikes has dropped dramatically (zero in Pakistan in 2014) and the President is openly advocating for an end to the war on al Qaeda, the narrative persists.

All of this is coming to a head because today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing to discuss the reform/repeal of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force that is the legal framework for the war on al Qaeda. Eli Lake's article is obviously an attempt by the intelligence community to weigh in on that debate. A google search of "news" for "Senate Foreign Relations Committee AUMF" indicates that not one liberal/progressive pundit/blog has written anything about it. Imagine that...President Obama has called for an end to this indefinite war, a Committee in Congress is holding a hearing to discuss that and the intelligence community is fighting back. But the only thing liberals seem interested in talking about are questions that have already been asked and answered. Shame on you!

Its time to weigh in on ending the indefinite war

A year ago President Obama said this:

Now, all these issues remind us that the choices we make about war can impact -- in sometimes unintended ways -- the openness and freedom on which our way of life depends. And that is why I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorism without keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing.

The AUMF is now nearly 12 years old. The Afghan war is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.

So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

This week there will be bi-partisan efforts in both the House and Senate to reform and/or end the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that began our indefinite war.

Liberals who have been vocal in their opposition to the activities this war has enabled (Guantanamo prison, drone strikes, surveillance) have typically been silent about actually ending it. But President Obama has signed on to do just that.

The AUMF doesn't need to be reformed...it needs to be repealed. As the article above says regarding Gitmo:

...ending the AUMF would remove the primary legal justification that allows them [Gitmo detainees] to be held.

I'd suggest that as Congress takes this up - its time to weigh in.

President Obama's legacy: A foundation for peace

Let's be honest - after the terrorist attack on 9/11 this country went on a bit of a freak-out...wars, torture, Gitmo, terror threat levels, TSA, warrantless surveillance, etc. Its easy to simply blame the Bush/Cheney administration. But the truth is, they got re-elected after most of that was underway. So there's plenty of blame to go around.

President Obama had to deal with the legacy of that freak-out from the moment he was first elected. He assumed office knowing that another terrorist attack like the one this country experienced in 2001 could ignite more of the same. And he knew that allowing that to happen would threaten any attempt to wage a lasting peace.

I've always maintained that President Obama has actually had to deal with three wars: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror. He proceeded to end the war in Iraq, and this year will end the one if Afghanistan. But the Global War on Terror was refocused into a War on al Qaeda. While he stopped the use of torture and tried to shut down Gitmo, he used drones to target al Qaeda and the NSA's surveillance programs to track them.

I can understand the arguments the President's critics make against his implementation of a War on al Qaeda. But they are left with either making a case that the threat doesn't exist or offering alternatives to deal with it. I almost never hear either one. That's why a few years ago I began to speak up about the need to end this particular war and to track the Obama administration's signals that they were attempting to do so.

We are now six years into the Obama presidency and not only is Osama bin Laden dead, but there have been zero attacks by al Qaeda on American soil. Last year, with very little fanfare from his critics on the left, the President called for an end to this "indefinite war." Other than preventing another great depression and passing/implementing health care reform - I believe this will be his great legacy.

Not only that, he's responded to the more imminent threats from Iran and Russia by mobilizing the world to respond via partnership rather that simply inflame the situation with bravado. When he did use military intervention, it was in partnership with NATO to stop the massacre of innocent civilians in Libya and his threats to use it in Syria resulted in an agreement to get rid of chemical weapons. Unlike many of his predecessors, President Obama responded to the Arab Spring by encouraging the dictators in those countries to respond to the will of their people rather than coordinate covert coups to prop them up (remember everything from Iran 1953 to Chile 1973).

While President Obama's efforts at peace-making have not always been perfect and some are yet to reach fruition, I challenge anyone to point to a president in our history with a more progressive record in this area. I believe that two years from now he will have laid a solid foundation for peace that his successor can build upon. I hope the country choses wisely.

President Obama is keeping his promise on ending perpetual war

Some of you might remember that it was only a year ago that libertarians and many liberals were consumed with talking about drones. Then in May, President Obama gave a speech in which he talked about ending perpetual war.

Of course, folks like Glenn Greenwald said it would never happen and then went on to mockingly deride the President's promises.

Until one sees actual changes in behavior and substance on those issues, cheering for those changes as though they already occurred or are guaranteed is the height of self-delusion...

How many times does Obama have to deliver a speech embracing a set of values and polices, only to watch as he then proceeds to do the opposite, before one ceases to view his public proclamations as predictive of his future choices?

Well, I have some news for the naysayers. Over the last year, I've been documenting the fact that the number of drone strikes has been dropping dramatically. And then today comes this report from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (one of the biggest critics of President Obama's drone policy):

John Brennan has now completed his first year as director of the CIA. In that time there has not been a confirmed report of a civilian casualty from a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, according to an analysis of Bureau drone strike data...

And there has not been a reported drone strike for more than two months in Pakistan.

In light of that, I'd suggest the following re-write of Greenwald's question from up above: "How many times does [President] Obama have to deliver a speech embracing a set of values and policies, only to watch as he then proceeds to fulfill them, before one begins to view his public proclamations as predictive of his future choices?" In typical Greenwald fashion, that's a lot of words to basically say: Obama keeps his promises...when are you guys going to finally start paying attention?

Now that everyone has dropped their vapors about the issue of drones and gone on to surveillance, perhaps its time to start believing what this President says.

NSA AND Drones...Oh My!

Anyone who has been watching Glenn Greenwald for as long as I have can probably get inside his head and figure out his strategies. So with the launch of the first stage of his new media platform, it doesn't surprise me that he went with a story that could maximize the fear-mongering by combining talk of drones AND the NSA.

The gist of the "revelations" is that the Obama administration uses signal intelligence collected by NSA to target the SIM cards of suspected terrorists for drone strikes. First of all...DUH!!! Their big leap is to suggest that since this is not coupled with affirmation from human intelligence, mistakes are likely. Yet they provide not one single piece of actual evidence to back up that claim.

In addition to the fact that their sources for this story seem to rely almost exclusively on the use of intelligence and drone strikes in Afghanistan (where we are clearly still engaged in a war with the Taliban), their assumption is that these mistakes inevitably lead to civilian casualties.

All of this might have been somewhat useful information back in 2010 when the U.S. implemented at least 127 drone strikes outside of Afghanistan. But as I've reported previously, we are talking about a total of 39 strikes in all of 2013. In addition, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (which has been especially critical of the Obama administration over drone strikes) reports that:

There were no confirmed reports of civilian deaths in the six months after [President Obama's counterterrosim] speech...Total civilian casualties have been falling since 2009, and the average number of civilian deaths in each strike has also been declining over the past four years.

I'll say this...Greenwald knows his audience. He's very aware of the fact that linking the topic of drone strikes to stories about NSA as the opening bid on this new media platform is a guaranteed way to prompt maximum outrage and generate clicks. His appeal is mostly to people who haven't noticed that President Obama is fulfilling his promise to end this perpetual war. And gawd knows Greenwald isn't about to inform them about that.

The big picture on surveillance

There was one moment in President Obama's speech on surveillance that stood out to me.

...after an extended review of our use of drones in the fight against terrorist networks, I believed a fresh examination of our surveillance programs was a necessary next step in our effort to get off the open-ended war footing that we’ve maintained since 9/11.

In other words, his overriding goal in all this is "to get off the open-ended war footing that we've maintained since 9/11." Just as with this administration's position on the use of drones, what too many of the people who are concerned with civil liberties often miss is the impact our "open-ended war footing" has on these policies - both psychologically on the American public as well as legally.

The President devoted much of his speech last May on counterterrorism to a discussion of how we might come to view these policies once we are prepared to end this indefinite war.

Now, make no mistake, our nation is still threatened by terrorists. From Benghazi to Boston, we have been tragically reminded of that truth. But we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions -- about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them.

Those are the questions he is asking us to grapple with now.  In this fascinating article by David Remnick, President Obama talks about his openness to that conversation.

And those who have questioned our drone policy are doing exactly what should be done in a democracy—asking some tough questions. The only time I get frustrated is when folks act like it’s not complicated and there aren’t some real tough decisions, and are sanctimonious, as if somehow these aren’t complicated questions.

What remains to be seen is whether or not we're prepared to have an adult conversation to tackle those tough questions.

Robert Gates' criticisms reflect well on our Commander-in-Chief

Instead of being filtered through Bob Woodward's bias, today we have former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his own words via an excerpt of his book in the Wall Street Journal. One of the most interesting passages came when he was talking about the similarities between George W. Bush and President Obama.

Both, I believe, detested Congress and resented having to deal with it, including members of their own party.

But then two paragraphs down, Gates goes on to talk about what appears to be his biggest problem with Washington:

Congress is best viewed from a distance—the farther the better—because up close, it is truly ugly. I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.

Kinda makes you wonder who exactly it is that "detested Congress and resented having to deal with it." I'll grant you, it might be that they all have a point. But Gates can hardly critique the 2 presidents he worked for when he so obviously shares their disdain.

Perhaps even more significant, however, is the fact that Gates asserts that President Obama didn't trust senior military leaders.

Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations.

And yet Gates himself is the one that tells us that right from the beginning of President Obama's first term, he had very good reason to be suspicious. From the Woodward article we saw that the President was angry when Petraeus leaked information to the press about his disagreement with the plan in Afghanistan. In this excerpt we learn what General McChrystal did just prior to that.

But I believe the major reason the protracted, frustrating Afghanistan policy review held in the fall of 2009 created so much ill will was due to the fact it was forced on an otherwise controlling White House by the theater commander's unexpected request for a large escalation of American involvement. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request surprised the White House (and me) and provoked a debate that the White House didn't want, especially when it became public. I think Obama and his advisers were incensed that the Department of Defense—specifically the uniformed military—had taken control of the policy process from them and threatened to run away with it.

Remember that both of these incidents involving senior military leaders (Petraeus and McChrystal) happened in the fall of 2009 at the very beginning of President Obama's first term. Even Gates acknowledges that these were attempts to put control of the policy process in the hands of the Generals rather than the Commander-in-Chief. And yet he still criticizes President Obama for being suspicious. It is actually a big concern to me that on two occasions in this short excerpt, Gates points out that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined him in this critique of the President. If she decides to run in 2016 it will be important to consider whether or not she would provide the kind of civilian oversight of the military that we should expect from our Commander-in-Chief.

Gates' big concern was that the non-military members of the administration were too controlling (ie, insisted on being part of the decision-making process). Early on he posits that this was about politics.

With Obama, however, I joined a new, inexperienced president determined to change course—and equally determined from day one to win re-election. Domestic political considerations would therefore be a factor, though I believe never a decisive one, in virtually every major national security problem we tackled.

Given that this administration walked into the threat of a second Great Depression, it should come as no surprise to anyone that domestic political considerations would be a factor in EVERY conversation. That would be necessary for both policy as well as political reasons. The fact that even Gates admits that these factors were never decisive in foreign policy matters should be viewed as a credit to the President and his administration.

Many of the things President Obama faced coming into office - including what to do in Afghanistan - were intractable problems that belied easy solutions. What we learn from Gates is a bit more about the tensions behind the scenes during that decision-making process. Going forward, we're likely to see some of the same tensions come into play as he continues efforts to end the war on al Qaeda, bring our troops home from Afghanistan, give diplomacy a chance in Iran, and reform the practices of the NSA.

In light of all that, I am reminded that a break from the U.S. hegemony of the past means that these foreign policy questions are going to be complicated and that any president will have to deal with the world as it is rather than as we want it to be. That will lead to both failures and successes. We must evaluate our Commander-in-Chief on how they manage the tensions that exist not only around the globe, but here at home - even within their own administration. And so contrary to what some are suggesting, I find that Gates' account enlightens us about the complexity involved in being this country's Commander-in Chief and I am once again impressed with the job President Obama is doing.

President Obama takes on the military and intelligence communities

In his speech on counterterrorism strategy last May, President Obama laid out some difficult ground for his administration to cover in the coming months - basically suggesting an end to the indefinite war that started after 9/11. Sometime this month he has also promised to give a speech outlining his administration's plans to reform the activities of NSA. Much of what he has and will propose won't be very popular with those involved in the military and intelligence communities. It has been my assumption for awhile that we terribly underestimate the pushback a Commander-in-Chief gets when he takes on those very powerful forces.

And then along comes Bob Woodward with a review of the book "Duty," by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. While I'm sure that Woodward and his neocon buddies will relish Gates' criticism of President Obama, it only serves to reinforce the reality that any president who wants to bring about reforms in this arena is facing a huge uphill battle.

For example, its fascinating to compare two accounts of the process President Obama used to decide whether or not to intervene in Libya. First of all, here is how it was described by Michael Lewis.

In White House jargon this was a meeting of “the principals,” which is to say the big shots...The senior people, at least those in the Situation Room, sat around the table. Their subordinates sat around the perimeter of the room...

The point of this particular meeting was for the people who knew something about Libya to describe what they thought Qad­da­fi might do, and then for the Pentagon to give the president his military options...The Pentagon then presented the president with two options: establish a no-fly zone or do nothing at all. The idea was that the people in the meeting would debate the merits of each, but Obama surprised the room by rejecting the premise of the meeting. “He instantly went off the road map,” recalls one eyewitness. “He asked, ‘Would a no-fly zone do anything to stop the scenario we just heard?’” After it became clear that it would not, Obama said, “I want to hear from some of the other folks in the room.”

Obama then proceeded to call on every single person for his views, including the most junior people. “What was a little unusual,” Obama admits, “is that I went to people who were not at the table. Because I am trying to get an argument that is not being made.” The argument he had wanted to hear was the case for a more nuanced intervention—and a detailing of the more subtle costs to American interests of allowing the mass slaughter of Libyan civilians...

The president may not have been surprised that the Pentagon hadn’t sought to answer that question. He was nevertheless visibly annoyed. “I don’t know why we are even having this meeting,” he said, or words to that effect. “You’re telling me a no-fly zone doesn’t solve the problem, but the only option you’re giving me is a no-fly zone.” He gave his generals two hours to come up with another solution for him to consider, then left to attend the next event on his schedule, a ceremonial White House dinner.

And here is how it is described by Gates via Woodward:

It got so bad during internal debates over whether to intervene in Libya in 2011 that Gates says he felt compelled to deliver a “rant” because the White House staff was “talking about military options with the president without Defense being involved.”

Gates says his instructions to the Pentagon were: “Don’t give the White House staff and [national security staff] too much information on the military options. They don’t understand it, and ‘experts’ like Samantha Power will decide when we should move militarily.” 

So while President Obama was looking for more military options to avoid a humanitarian disaster, Gates was telling his staff to limit the number of options they made available as a way to control the outcome. Is it any wonder that Gates writes about a atmosphere of “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.”

Or how about the time back in 2009 when Petreaus leaked to the press his dissatisfaction with the President's decision to announce an exit date for our troops in Afghanisan?

At a March 3, 2010, National Security Council meeting, Gates writes, the president opened with a “blast.” Obama criticized the military for “popping off in the press” and said he would push back hard against any delay in beginning the withdrawal.

According to Gates, Obama concluded, “ ‘If I believe I am being gamed . . .’ and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.”

Gates continues: “I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing” Petraeus, and perhaps Mullen and Gates himself, “of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus.

In other words, Gates was not upset that Petraeus was undermining the CIC to the press, but that the CIC called him out on it. Bad move Mr. Secretary.

And so as we watch the very slow progress we're likely to see on reigning in both counterterrorism strategies and surveillance activities, its important to keep this kind of tension in mind. We'd like to think of our President as someone who's positional power puts them above having to deal with these kinds of intransigent cultures and bureaucracies. But that would be naive.

Will 2014 be the year we finally end perpetual war?

This year one of the most important articles I wrote was about the reduction in the number of drone strikes. But that was way back in February. On May 23rd President Obama gave a speech about our counterterrorism efforts and focused specifically on our policy about the use of drones.

In the Afghan war theater, we must -- and will -- continue to support our troops until the transition is complete at the end of 2014. And that means we will continue to take strikes against high value al Qaeda targets, but also against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces. But by the end of 2014, we will no longer have the same need for force protection, and the progress we’ve made against core al Qaeda will reduce the need for unmanned strikes.

Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al Qaeda and its associated forces. And even then, the use of drones is heavily constrained. America does not take strikes when we have the ability to capture individual terrorists; our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute. America cannot take strikes wherever we choose; our actions are bound by consultations with partners, and respect for state sovereignty.

America does not take strikes to punish individuals; we act against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people, and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. And before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set.

He didn't promise to immediately end the use of drones, but provided us with the circumstances under which they would be used. And so, with 2013 coming to an end, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how this year compares to what has happened in the past.

This is data I compiled from the Washington Post and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism

A headline in Pakistan Today reflects what you see for that country in these numbers: Drone strikes lessen to all time low since 2008. It is also important to note that over half (7) of the drone strikes in Yemen came in July/August this year during the time that intelligence reports of threats prompted the US to shut down embassies all over the Middle East.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has been quite critical of President Obama on the use of drones, had this to say about the result of his efforts to curtail civilian casualties.

There were no confirmed reports of civilian deaths in the six months after the speech. However this could be a continuing trend rather than a direct consequence of the speech. Total civilian casualties have been falling since 2009, and the average number of civilian deaths in each strike has also been declining over the past four years.

I realize that we've all moved on from fear-mongering about drones to worrying about the NSA. But the truth is that President Obama is keeping his promise to bring an end to perpetual war. And as we look forward to the day our troops come home from Afghanistan in 2014, its pretty clear that he meant what he said back in May 2012.

My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaeda...

This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.

Are Americans ready to end perpetual war?

My advice to Glenn Greenwald would be to be careful with the contortions he's engaging to pat himself on the back because he could do permanent damage to his arm. Prior to releasing his next so-called "bombshell" (which has been pre-emptively debunked very thoroughly by Bob Cesca), Greenwald is taking some time to give himself credit for the major opinion shifts in NSA surveillance from the latest Pew Poll. Here's his very favorite finding:

Of course, he totally ignores this one:

Nonetheless, the public’s bottom line on government anti-terrorism surveillance is narrowly positive. The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 17-21 among 1,480 adults, finds that 50% approve of the government’s collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts, while 44% disapprove. These views are little changed from a month ago, when 48% approved and 47% disapproved.

Overall, as with other polling on this issue, the results are confusing at best (as they usually are on issue-polling as opposed to election-polling). But what I notice about the graph up above is that previous polling on this question preceded the killing of Osama bin Laden. One might be justified in wondering how much that event - coupled with the fact that there have been no al Qaeda attacks in the U.S. since 9/11 - might have reduced people's concerns about whether or not "government anti-terror policies have gone far enough to protect the country."

As with any human behavior, we have to be very careful about assuming causation. People change their minds as a result of very complex associations. But I agree with what President Obama said to Charlie Rose about all this.

I've got to tell you though Charlie, I think this is a healthy thing because its a sign of maturity that this debate would not have been taking place 5 years ago. And I welcome it.

I welcome not just the talk about surveillance, but also the President's suggestion that its time to talk about ending perpetual war.  It could be that our embrace of fear following the 9/11 attacks is finally coming to an end.

Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom.

Defining a strategy based on hard-earned wisdom is the task at hand. That means being engaged in a rational conversation that relies on neither the fear of terrorists nor the kind generated by those pedaling sensationalist hyperbole.

Taking on the MIC to end perpetual war

We saw the other day how the purity left reacted to President Obama's discussion about the need to end perpetual war. It probably goes without saying that most of the right went into freak-out mode over the idea. For example, Charles Krauthammer called it Obama's Dorothy Doctrine.

...much as Obama would like to close his eyes, click his heels three times, and declare the War on Terror over, war is a two-way street.

But the President seems to have an even bigger challenge to deal with in ending this war: the military industrial complex. Less than a week after President Obama gave his speech at the National Defense University, Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps gave a speech at the Brookings Institute.

President Obama last week said the United States is ready to move beyond the war on terror. The nation's military, meanwhile, is preparing for a future of continuous combat.

“I don’t see any indication that things are going to settle down or become peaceful,” said Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps.

Speaking at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., May 29, Amos said he is convinced that the U.S. military during the next two decades will be just as busy as it has been during the past 12 years of war. When asked to forecast the Marine Corps’ future missions, Amos said, “I see much of what we’re going through right now. I don’t see any of it waning away.

That kind of tension is exactly what was reported by Peter Baker in his inside look at the lead-up to the President's speech.

Under the stewardship of John O. Brennan, then the president’s counterterrorism adviser, officials spent months discussing how to be more transparent about a program that was still officially secret and how to define its limits. After last spring’s discussion with the president, Mr. Brennan began a more intensive, formalized interagency process to rewrite the rules...

In seemingly endless meetings, including a dozen or more with the president, Mr. Brennan and other administration officials grappled with the issue. Concluding that Al Qaeda’s core leadership had been decimated, some officials wanted tighter restrictions on the use of drone strikes, but the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon balked. 

This all took place before the President replaced Petraeus at CIA with Brennan and Gates at Defense with Hagel. As the new heads of these departments are more in line with his plans, one begins to see why their appointments were so important.

Some might suggest that since President Obama is the Commander-in-Chief, none of this tension should matter...he should just order them to do what he wants done. But that would be a massively naive thing to suggest. Many of the people involved are career public employees or military who preceded him in office and will be there long after he's gone. One of the many ways that could pose a problem is what we're seeing right now with respect to leaks of classified information to the press.

Due to all of this, I would expect that we'll continue to see the CIA conduct drone strikes in Pakistan over the next year while our military is still engaged in Afghanistan because that is where some attacks against our forces are being staged. The President alluded to this in his speech.

That suggests a process to end this perpetual war in 2014 - which is basically what the President promised a little over a year ago.

My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon. The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaeda...

This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end.

With opposition coming from the far left, the right and the MIC, I think it is critical that we have his back on this one. Along with all the other things he will have accomplished during his 2 terms, lets support him in his effort to end perpetual war.

No, the President didn't admit he was wrong about drones

Here's how Adam Serwer reacted to the news about President Obama's speech last week on counterterrorism.

This seems like an admission that the drone critics were right, and the administration's defenders were wrong. nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/…
— AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) May 23, 2013

That argument fails to take the historical record into account. When President Obama took office, the legacy he inherited from Bush/Cheney was that we were involved in THREE wars that were being mismanaged. He needed to get us out of Iraq, refocus the efforts in Afghanistan and narrow the "global war on terror" into a "war on al Qaeda."

In case anyone has forgotten, Osama bin Laden was still alive and actively plotting attacks. People like al Awlaki were preparing "underwear bombers" and sending people to blow up U.S. cargo planes. The President could have simply ignored all that. Or he could have invaded Pakistan and Yemen. He went into great detail in his speech last week to explain that neither of those options was feasible and that an operation like the one used against bin Laden was too risky to replicate. The option he chose was the use of drones.

I'd like to ask the Adam Serwer's of the world how they think the American people would have reacted if al Qaeda had been successful in pulling off another attack like the one's they were planning. It's difficult to engage them in a meaningful conversation about that since they never address alternatives to that risk. Perhaps they think that shouldn't be the President's concern. But as he said last Thursday, his calculation was that to fail to act would have been a dereliction of duty. You can bet that's how most American's would have seen it.

What President Obama did in his speech was to acknowledge that what he has done in the "war on al Qaeda" was a tough call - something he feels personally. But it was not an admission that he was wrong. He was also saying that its now time for that war to be over. And he was trying to prepare the American people to avoid allowing any future incidents to trigger the trauma-based fear that lingers for some after 9/11.

...we have to recognize that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11. With a decade of experience now to draw from, this is the moment to ask ourselves hard questions -- about the nature of today’s threats and how we should confront them...

Neither I, nor any President, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend. And to define that strategy, we have to make decisions based not on fear, but on hard-earned wisdom.

Greenwald struggles with cognitive dissonance (updated 2x)

After writing this, I think its important to acknowledge that Glenn Greenwald has apparently wiped enough egg off his face to comment on President Obama's speech on counterterrorism. As is his wont, he uses hundreds of words to basically say, "Obama doesn't mean it."

Until one sees actual changes in behavior and substance on those issues, cheering for those changes as though they already occurred or are guaranteed is the height of self-delusion.

I guess that's the best he can do with the cognitive dissonance he's feeling after declaring that the "war on terror" cannot end only to hear the President say its time to end it.

Greenwald seems to base his entire response to the speech on the idea that we can't believe what the President says.

How many times does Obama have to deliver a speech embracing a set of values and polices, only to watch as he then proceeds to do the opposite, before one ceases to view his public proclamations as predictive of his future choices?

And yet he provides not one example of this - not even a link (as is his habit) to an article where he made a similar accusation. And so, for his major thesis, he provides absolutely zero evidence. Interesting.

In order to deal with his dissonance about the substance of the speech, Greenwald simply dismisses it.

The terrorism speech, when dissected, provided very little in the way of actual concrete substance.

One has to wonder what he did with the parts of the speech where President Obama talked about:

1. Discussing options with Congress for additional oversight of drone strikes (ie, drone court or an independent oversight board within the administration)
2. Increasing foreign aid to fight poverty and sectarian hatred
3. Working with Congress to refine - and eventually repeal - the AUMF
4. Calling on Congress to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from Gitmo
5. Lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen

And of course that doesn't take into account the actions this administration has already taken that weren't mentioned in the speech:

1. The significant reduction in the number of drone strikes
2. The ending of the CIA drone program (including "signature strikes")

One can almost envision Greenwald sticking his fingers in his ears and singing "La-la-la-la" so as not to hear information that contradicts his Obama Derangement Syndrome.

His final attempt to tackle all that dissonance is to bring in quotes from all the other folks who suffer from ODS to bolster his delusion...Russ Douthat, Jeremy Scahill, Anthony Romero and Michael Hastings. He's basically saying, "See...my buddies all agree with me so I must be right!" One must keep in mind that even Sen. Ted Cruz could find 3 or 4 people who agree with him ;-)

Mr. Greenwald has always been pretty quick to accuse his opponents of being authoritarian. One of the hallmarks of that mindset is to close oneself off from the probing questions created by cognitive dissonance. In one of the most fascinating examples of projection I've seen in awhile - he demonstrated exactly how one goes about doing just that.

Now...if you want to clean up your brain from all that nonsense, go read what James Fallows wrote about President Obama's speech. Couldn't have said it better myself.

UPDATE: Via twitter, it seems that Mr. Greenwald thinks that I left the ACLU off the list of people he quotes on purpose. Because, as we all know...the ACLU is never wrong about anything (how very authoritarian!) So just to be clear, I added Mr. Romero to the list of people Greenwald quotes.

UPDATE II: Just to show what a classy guy he is, Greenwald edited his article to add a couple of links where I noted he had none - without acknowledging the edit. And then he suggests that I need to acknowledge my error. He did that to me once before when I noted an error of his in the comment section at The Guardian - so it comes as no surprise to me. But its worth noting how far this guy will go to avoid the dissonance.