As early as April 16, 1902, the New York World described the “American Public” sitting down to eat its breakfast with a newspaper full of Philippine atrocities:
It sips its coffee and reads of its soldiers administering the “water cure” to rebels; of how water with handfuls of salt thrown in to make it more efficacious, is forced down the throats of the patients until their bodies become distended to the point of bursting; of how our soldiers then jump on the distended bodies to force the water out quickly so that the “treatment” can begin all over again. The American Public takes another sip of its coffee and remarks, “How very unpleasant!”
“But where is that vast national outburst of astounded horror which an old-fashioned America would have predicted at the reading of such news?” the World asked. “Is it lost somewhere in the 8,000 miles that divide us from the scenes of these abominations? Is it led astray by the darker skins of the alien race among which these abominations are perpetrated? Or is it rotted away by that inevitable demoralization which the wrong-doing of a great nation must inflict on the consciences of the least of its citizens?”
Responding to the verdict in the Glenn court-martial, Judge Advocate General Davis had suggested that the question it implicitly posed -- how much was global power worth in other people’s pain? -- was one no moral nation could legitimately ask. As the investigation of the water cure ended and the memory of faraway torture faded, Americans answered it with their silence.
The Situation in Iraq: A Briefing from the Battlefield
Topic: War on Terrorism
7:27 am EST, Feb 18, 2008
Anthony Cordesman:
No one can spend some 10 days visiting the battlefields in Iraq without seeing major progress in every area. A combination of the surge, improved win and hold tactics, the tribal uprising in Anbar and other provinces, the Sadr ceasefire, and major advances in the use of IS&R have transformed the battle against Al Qaida in Iraq. If the US provides sustained support to the Iraqi government -- in security, governance, and development -- there is now a very real chance that Iraq will emerge as a secure and stable state.
The attached briefing provides detailed graphs and maps taken from material provided to me during my visit to Iraq. The briefing is an update on the situation throughout Iraq, and shows the trends over the past year. These graphs and maps measure major acts of violence, ethno-sectarian violence, and trends in IED and other forms of attack. These same trends emerge from a detailed examination of what is happening in Baghdad, Anbar, and Central Iraq. They show the war is far from over, but the violence has been sharply reduced, and perhaps to the minimum levels possible until Iraq improves its governance and development and moves much further towards political accommodation.
It is clear that Iraq can only succeed with years of additional US support in security, governance, and development. The progress in 2008 and 2009 cannot be decisive or irreversible. It will take strong US involvement throughout the life of the next Administration to succeed, and it may well take US aid through 2016.
Presumably Samantha Power is making this clear to Obama.
One of the world’s most notorious terrorists met a violent end late Tuesday night when a car bomb killed Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh in the Syrian capitol of Damascus. Until 9/11, Mughniyeh was responsible for more American deaths than any other single terrorist, including the 1983 attack in Beirut that killed 241 Marines. And while many in the counterterrorism community cheered Mughniyeh’s death as a victory against jihadism, some in U.S. intelligence circles now fear potential reprisal attacks from Hezbollah against U.S. targets.
Cul de Sac: 9/11 and the Paradox of American Power
Topic: War on Terrorism
7:34 am EST, Feb 12, 2008
Post-Cold War US security policy evinces a disturbing paradox: it has been delivering less and less security at ever increasing cost. The reasons reside not in the differences between the Bush and Clinton administration, but in their points of similarity.
What with this and the Anbar Salvation Council threatening to take up arms against the elected council and refusing to fly the new Iraqi flag and dismissing the entire Parliament as illegitimate and Awakenings leaders declaring that no Iraqi police are allowed in their territory and clashing with them when they do and blaming Shi'ite militias (and not al-Qaeda) for the wave of attacks against them and fighting over territory and threatening to quit if they aren't paid, it really is hard to see why anybody would think that there might be anything troublesome about the relationship between the Awakenings and the Iraqi "state". Nothing to see here but great big gobs of victory folks, please move along.
Angelina Jolie brought her star power to Baghdad Thursday ...
Jolie had a 30-minute meeting with the top US commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus and Paula Dobriansky, under secretary of state for global affairs, to discuss issues related to displaced people and humanitarian relief.
Her itinerary also included meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iraqi migration officials, as well as with UN officials, Iraqi employees of the US Embassy in Baghdad and internally displaced people, the embassy said.
Mission over Mechanism: Reorganizing the IC to Meet the Challenge of Asymmetric Warfare
Topic: War on Terrorism
7:34 am EST, Feb 12, 2008
In the age of asymmetric warfare, intelligence is tantamount to national defense. Our terrorist adversaries are too dispersed to destroy and too fanatical to deter. Our best hope of security is accurate, timely, accessible information and actionable analysis. We need to organize the Intelligence Community (IC) by mission—not collection mechanism—to take full advantage of our technical proficiency and analytic expertise.
Today, the IC is divided into an alphabet soup of organizations, with key agencies focusing on a single collection discipline, or “-INT.” The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) specializes in human intelligence (HUMINT), the National Security Agency (NSA) specializes in signals intelligence (SIGINT), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) specializes in imagery intelligence (IMINT), etc. This focus on function has enabled each agency to develop and refine the technologies and best practices associated with its particular collection capability, but the challenge of asymmetric warfare calls for a different organizational design. Structuring the IC by mission instead of collection mechanism would improve the depth and transparency of our intelligence analysis. The reorganization would act as a force multiplier for our existing analytic resources.
... essential ... superb, tough-minded ... meticulous ... assiduously investigated, brilliantly argued ... usefully horrifying ... devastating ... shattering ... powerful ... sharp, shaming ... grim, yet straightforward ... raises a great many uncomfortable, important questions. Sad, important and very difficult to watch.
The most effective way to gather intelligence and thwart terrorism can also be a direct route into morally repugnant terrain. A survey of the landscape of persuasion
