Tag: Mali
Lawful but awful
I don’t usually get worked up over the drone wars and killing terrorists. I’d rather see many of them dead before a single innocent victim is killed or maimed. But the Justice Department “white paper” on “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or an Associated Force” has chilled my blood.
I hasten to note that I am not a lawyer. If you want the opinion of one, try Lawfare. But I spent decades as a bureaucrat. I could drive a massacre through the policy loopholes outlined in this memo.
The obvious first: the memo focuses on “imminent” threats, but then it includes in “imminent” an operation that hasn’t even yet been planned. That’s a neat trick. By that standard, Ron Paul’s election as president was imminent before he announced he was running. That’s not what the word means. If you call a horse’s tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?
Capture has to be “infeasible” for the killing to be lawful. But infeasible is in the eye of the beholder. I suspect it is infeasible more often than not because we no longer have anyplace to put such captives. Or is it only infeasible because a military operation with capture as its purpose cannot be mounted without unreasonable risks? And what would unreasonable risks be?
But the problems don’t end there. The decision-maker in the memo is not the president of the United States. It is a well-informed senior official. Presumably he or she gets a delegation of authority from the president. Do we really think killing a U.S. citizen in Yemen by a drone operator in Utah does not require the decision of an elected leader? It should be done by a GS-15? Admittedly we delegate the authority to decide whom to kill on a battlefield to 18-year-old soldiers. But that is the difference between targeted killing at a great distance and conventional warfare requiring split-second decisions to protect our forces.
What is a “senior operational leader?” Here the white paper is more explicit: it is someone known to be “actively engaged in planning operations to kill Americans.” I’ve got no problem with targeting someone who is targeting Americans. But how do we know that a particular person is a senior operational leader? The obvious problem is someone like Anwar al Aulaqi, who certainly encouraged killing Americans but publicly available evidence that he was an operational commander at the time of his killing in 2011 was thin. Did the Administration have more? Or is the definition of “senior operational commander as loose as the definition of imminence? Did some well-informed senior official get worked up over Aulaqi’s explicit incitement of violence against Americans?
Then there’s that “associated force” loophole. Is the Taliban a force associated with Al Qaeda? Their goals are certainly distinct, but they have been associated. Is the Movement for the National Liberation of Azawad (the Tuareg rebel organization in northern Mali) associated with Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM)? It certainly was for a while last spring, but right now it seems to be helping the French do in AQIM. Is the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence directorate “associated” with the Haqqani network? Some days yes, who knows right now?
Let’s not forget the problem of collateral damage: innocent people (including children) who happen to be nearby when a Predator strikes, or targeting errors. That too is a problem on the conventional battlefield, but I might hope that it could be considered more fully when our own soldiers are not at risk. We need to ask the obvious question: are drone strikes creating more enemies than they are killing? Are we raising the risks to ourselves rather than lowering them?
What difference does it make that the person killed is a U.S. citizen? A lot of the problems I see would be just as troubling if the person were not. Nor do I see much in this paper that makes me think it could not also be applied inside the United States. Now that gets a bit paranoid, but would we feel comfortable with drone strikes against terrorists–U.S. citizen or no–holed up in a bunker in Alabama?*
This white paper raises more questions than it answers. It is hard to imagine that no mistakes are made. Judicial review is the method we use to avoid mistakes in the criminal justice system. A soldier’s behavior on the battlefield is subject to military judicial review. But there is no judicial review of drone strikes, before or–if the Administration continues to have its way–after the fact. Nor is it clear that the bureaucratic process envisaged is adequate to minimize error.
I’m convinced: killing terrorists is not unlawful. But for more than legal reasons we need to be careful about who, how, when, where and why we do it. The white paper suggests the system in place is still far from adequate, even after several hundred drone strikes that have killed thousands. That really is awful.
*PS, March 6, 2013: For those who think I was hallucinating about drone strikes inside the US, read what Attorney General Eric Holder has now said on the subject.
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Some good news
There is good news this morning: French forces in Mali have taken the northern town of Kidal, donors have pledged over $450 million for Mali and $1.2 billion for Syria. These are not small things, but they are not the end of the story either.
In Mali, there is now the question of Azawad, the largely desert area northwest of Kidal where Tuareg live. They have been seeking independence–it was their rebellion that touched off the Islamist insurgency that in turn precipitated the French intervention. The Islamists have not fought the French advance. Instead they have retreated northward. The question now is whether the Tuareg will help the French do them in, or at least expel them from Mali. France is already calling for the Mali government to talk with the Tuareg, hoping of course to keep them on side even if independence is out of the question.
A second important issue is deployment of African troops under UN command to Mali. The UN Security Council has already approved a mission, but organizing it, financing it and deploying it will be a big challenge. The French will presumably take the lead in trying to make this happen, as they would like out before anyone discovers that their troops might be an easy target. The Mali government and Tuareg insurgents are likely to want to keep the French in, each hoping that they will gain advantage in a negotiation over the north that is not likely to go smoothly.
In Syria, the gigantic pledges at yesterday’s donors’ conference in Kuwait are at least a sign that the world is appalled at what is happening, but humanitarian assistance is really not an adequate response to Bashar al Asad’s homicidal behavior. The head of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, Moaz al Khatib, is offering to meet the Syrian regime in various Middle Eastern capitals. That is an offer unlikely to be taken up. UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is thought to be close to giving up on the search for a political solution, as Kofi Annan did before him.
What is needed in Syria is the kind of decisive move that France took in Mali. The trouble is no one has come up with what that might be. Boots on the ground aren’t going to happen. A no-fly zone might be a big help to the rebels, but President Obama is showing no appetite for it, fearing the Russians would retaliate by denying him support for the Northern Distribution Network for Afghanistan and the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. The Israelis yesterday reportedly attacked a convoy in Syria most likely thought to consist of missiles headed for delivery to Hizbollah in Lebanon. That kind of pinprick from that source is not going to make a difference.
Unequivocal support for a new government in Syria, appointed by the National Coalition, is about the best proposition out there these days. It will guarantee nothing, but at least it would signal determination to make the inevitable happen: the fall of Bashar al Asad.
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Round 1 to the French
As the residents of Timbuktu and Gao celebrate their French liberation from Islamist extremists, it is tempting to think that things are now okay and we can go back to ignoring Mali. Nothing could be further from the truth. If Mali was a problem last week, it is still a problem this week too. What the French have done is to chase the extremists northwards, into even more forbidding terrain. They were not resoundingly defeated. If given the chance, there they will regroup.
Here’s your primer on the main jihadi players. Get ready for the pop quiz. None of them sound like people who will be giving up the cause anytime soon.
One key to what happens now are the Tuareg. Their National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA) precipitated the current difficulties with a rebellion last spring that chased the Malian army from the north, with cooperation from al Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists. But the Tuareg fell out with the Islamists. They will now presumably try to take advantage of the Islamist defeat at the hands of the French to reassert control over “Azawad” and continue their push for independence.
Will the French contest the Tuareg? They are more likely to try to get them on side. They will be relieved if the Tuareg oust the Islamists and hope thereafter to broker a deal between the Tuareg and the central government in Bamako. Will the Tuareg do in the Islamists? Hard to tell. It is not clear they can, even if they try. The jihadi betrayed them first time around, and proved a more formidable fighting force, but if independence is their objective the Tuareg cannot really expect to get it from the French, who support the government in Bamako. Nor from the trans-national jihadi.
Meanwhile, the African Union is pledging to solve Africa’s problems. With the French army retaking northern Mali and conflicts raging in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and elsewhere, that seems unlikely. But it is still worth considering the proposition of getting African forces more engaged than they have been so far in Mali. There is already UN Security Council authorization. The question is whether the Africans can get their act together to field a serious force, as they appear to have done in Somalia.
The French army seems to have won this round. Good for them, and for Malians who like music. But the war is unlikely to be over.
PS: Here’s a piece I participated in for Voice of America that tries to make similar points:
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Peace picks this week
1. The Nuclear Issue: Why is Iran Negotiating?
Date and Time: January 28, 9 am-11 pm
Address: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Michael Adler, Bijan Khajehpour, and Alireza Nader
Description: Three top experts in the field will discuss Iran’s domestic, foreign policy, and nuclear challenges.
Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-nuclear-issue-why-iran-negotiating
2. America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace: POSTPONED
Date and Time: January 28, 11 am-1 pm
Address: US Institute of Peace, 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, D.C.
Speakers: Daniel Kurtzer, William Quandt, Shibley Telhami, and Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen
Description: As President Barack Obama is sworn in for his second term, and in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection, many warn that time is running out for the two-state solution. On the occasion of its publication, David Ignatius will join three of the authors of ‘The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace’ and USIP’s Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen to discuss their own views on whether and why that door is closing, and what the next Obama administration can do to keep it open. ’The Peace Puzzle’ was written by Daniel C. Kurtzer, Scott B. Lasensky, William B. Quandt, Steven L. Spiegel, and Shibley Z. Telhami and co-published by USIP Press and Cornell University Press. It offers a uniquely objective account and assessment of the American role in the peace process over the last two decades, concluding with 11 recommendations for the next administration to strengthen its role in resolving the conflict. While the tone of the book remains optimistic, the authors question whether the ‘determined, persistent, creative, and wise’ American diplomacy and leadership that have ushered in breakthroughs in the past can be recaptured and whether the lessons learned from two decades of failures will be embraced. Please join us for this discussion with David Ignatius on the prospects for a breakthrough in the peace process and the lessons offered in ‘The Peace Puzzle.’
Register for this event: http://www.usip.org/events/americas-quest-arab-israeli-peace
This event will be webcast live beginning at 11:00am on January 28, 2013 at www.usip.org/webcast.
3. The Rise of Islamists: Challenges to Egypt’s Copts
Date and Time: January 28, 4:30pm – 6:00pm
Address: Institute of World Politics, 1521 16th Street NW Washington, DC
Speakers: Nina Shea (Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Religious Freedom Hudson Institute) and Samuel Tadros (Research Fellow, Center for Religious Freedom Hudson Institute)
Description: This event is sponsored by IWP’s Center for Culture and Security. An international human-rights lawyer for over thirty years, Nina Shea joined Hudson Institute as a Senior Fellow in November 2006, where she directs the Center for Religious Freedom. Shea has served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for 13 years. Her many writings include widely-acclaimed reports on Saudi Arabia’s curriculum of hatred and the book Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide (Oxford University Press, 2011). She co-authored the forthcoming book, Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (Thomas Nelson, March 2013). Samuel Tadros is a Research Fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and a Professorial Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. Prior to joining Hudson in 2011, Tadros was a Senior Partner at the Egyptian Union of Liberal Youth, an organization that aims to spread the ideas of classical liberalism in Egypt. His many articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, National Review, World Affairs, and the Weekly Standard. He is the author of the forthcoming book: Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity.
Register for this event here: http://iwp.edu/events/detail/the-rise-of-islamists-challenges-to-egypts-copts
4. Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia
Date and Time: January 29, 12:00 to 1:00 pm
Address: Middle East Institute, Boardman Room 1761 N Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20036
Speaker: Dr. Joseph A. Kéchichian
Moderator: Kate Seelye
Description: At a time when many wonder how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will adapt to challenging regional crises, confront exacerbating internal problems, and manage sensitive ties with leading world powers, Riyadh is on the docket to also ensure a smooth royal succession. Critics of the Kingdom’s reform policies allege that Riyadh is ill-suited to face the massive social, economic and political challenges it faces, some even anticipating its total collapse. Joseph A. Kéchichian argues, however, that serious reforms are under way, including changes in the judicial sector, a genuine “National Dialogue,” and an inclination within the royal family to expand the boundaries of political debate. Kéchichian will also examine relations between the Al Sa’ud and the conservative clerical establishment, and offer an assessment of the legacy of King ‘Abdallah bin ‘Abdul ‘Aziz as prospects for a passing of power to a new generation become clearer.
Register for this event here: https://www.mei.edu/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=295
5. Al Qaeda Country: Why Mali is Important
Date and Time: January 29, 2013 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Address: Lindner Family Commons, Room 602 1957 E Street, NW
Speakers: Peter Chilson (Associate Professor of English, Washington State University ) and David Rain (Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs, George Washington University)
Description: Prizewinning author Peter Chilson is one of the few Westerners to travel to the Mali conflict zone. There he found a hazy dividing line between the demoralized remnants of the former regime in the south and the new statelet in the north – Azawad – formed when a rebellion by the country’s ethnic Tuareg minority as commandeered by jihadi fighters. In this inaugural lecture of the African Research and Policy Group of the Institute for Global and International Studies, Chilson will lay out the lines of conflicting interest in Mali as some of the world’s great forces take notice. He is the author of the recent book, We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from the Lost Country of Mali.
Register for this event here: https://docs.google.com/a/aucegypt.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGQ3bHk0eW5SSHNDSzRpUHdrQ0tieUE6MQ
6. Should the United States Save Syria?
Date and Time: January 30, 5:00pm – 6:30pm
Address: The U.S. Navy Memorial Burke Theater
701 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Robert Kagan (Brookings Institution), Leon Wieseltier (The New Republic), Joshua Landis (University of Oklahoma), Aaron David Miller (The Wilson Center)
Moderator: Elise Labott (CNN)
Description: In the best American tradition of open inquiry, spirited discussion and practical action, the McCain Institute is introducing a series of structured, reasoned foreign policy debates aimed at developing practical policy options. The debates will include seasoned experts and practitioners of varying affiliations and perspectives. They will be distinctly non-partisan, aiming to look forward at future policy choices, not to look backward to criticize. Audience participation is strenuously encouraged.
Register for this event here: http://mccaininstitute.org/events/mccain-debate-and-decision-series2
7. After the Jordan Elections: Challenges Ahead for the Hashemite Kingdom
Date and Time: February 1, 12:00-1:00 pm
Address: Middle East Institute, Boardman Room 1761 N Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20036
Speakers: Leslie Campbell and Danya Greenfield
Moderator: Kate Seelye
Description: The Middle East Institute is proud to host Leslie Campbell, senior associate and regional director for the Middle East, and Danya Greenfield, deputy director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, for an assessment of the Jordanian elections and an examination of the political challenges ahead for Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Both Campbell and Greenfield monitored the parliamentary elections on January 23rd and return to Washington from Amman with fresh insights about the implications of Jordan’s democratic reform efforts and the pressures faced by King Abdullah II as he seeks to address growing frustration with his rule.
Register for this event here: After the Jordan Elections: Challenges Ahead for the Hashemite Kingdom | Middle East Institute.
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Frugal superpower puts on airs
With Senate hearings scheduled for January 24 for former Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State and January 31 for former Senator Charles Hagel as Secretary of Defense, the American press is wondering what their nominations portend. Will there be big changes in policy? Or will there be more continuity?
At least one of my colleagues worries that Hagel’s nomination will be seen as undermining President Obama’s commitment to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but Hagel will also have a great deal of credibility the day he tells the Iranians the deal they’ve been offered is the very best they can expect. Even on Iran, I anticipate more continuity in attitude than abrupt change in direction. That is partly because Obama is still in charge. Hagel will not only conform what he says to the Administration’s policy, he will also want to maximize the chances for success in blocking Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That necessarily means making the military option credible, even if in private life he was inclined against it.
But for other issues circumstances may not remain constant. In particular the budget challenge is likely to be greater than in the past. The government ran on continuing resolutions throughout Obama’s first term, to the dismay of conservatives. That gives government departments relatively decent financing, compared to what they would get if Congress triggers the sequester or if the House Republicans get the dollar cut in expenditures for every dollar increase in the budget ceiling that they are demanding. If instead of continuing current expenditure levels, we head in the direction of big cuts, both Defense and State are likely to get hammered.
Defense, bloated after years of doubling its budget even without counting Iraq and Afghanistan war spending, can afford it better than State, though State (and USAID) are relatively flush as well. The problem is that both institutions have far-flung capital commitments to bases and embassies that are essentially fixed costs. Even if you cut back on personnel presence overseas, you can’t turn off the heat and electricity. It will take time and effort to de-accesssion unneeded facilities. Bureaucrats at both State and Defense will be more inclined to keep the heat and lights on, hoping for budget increases in the future.
Senator Kerry visited Rome once when I was Charge’ d’affaires ad interim there. He wondered why we needed 800 people in the diplomatic mission to Italy. I said we didn’t, but that 36 different agencies of the U.S. government had made separate decisions that put them there. He threatened to cut the Embassy budget. I noted that would leave more than 90% of the staff still screaming for State Department services–their salaries and benefits were paid by the mostly domestic agencies that put people in Rome.
None of this will be discussed in the confirmation hearings, which are conducted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC). It has no budgetary responsibility–that is the purview of the appropriations subcommittees in both House and Senate. SFRC will focus not on budget and overseas presence but rather on “policy” issues. Right now that likely means the Benghazi murder of U.S. diplomatic personnel (Hillary Clinton will appear in Congress a day before Kerry’s hearing to testify on that unforgiving subject), the Al Qaeda push in Mali, the hostage crisis in Algeria, Iran’s nuclear program, maybe a bit of Syria and Egypt and a quick look at Asia (rising China, nuclear North Korea, America’s treaty obligations). My order of priority might be different, but that’s because I’ve got a 3-5 year time frame. The Congress has more like a one week-one year time frame.
There is little doubt that Hagel and Kerry will be confirmed. The question is how far they will have to go to satisfy Congressional critics in committing the United States to military action in Iran, Syria and Mali. The President seems determined to keep his powder dry for Iran, but there is a good deal of agitation for more military support to the Syrian opposition and for assisting the French intervention in Mali. Neither budgets nor domestic politics will warrant much more than that, even if the Senators give eloquent speeches advocating it. We are in the era of the frugal superpower, but you won’t know it from the upcoming hearings.
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If Mali matters, what doesn’t?
Op/eds on why Mali matters and why we must help save it are sprouting this winter just as fast as the Islamist rebels move south towards Bamako. What they don’t tell us is what we should bump off the priority list. Syria? Egypt? Afghanistan? Yemen? Maybe Iraq, which we aren’t paying much attention to anyway? Nor do they acknowledge the obvious: Mali didn’t seem to matter much a couple of weeks ago, when the threat of Islamist extremists might have been met cheaply and easily; why does it matter now, when it will cost much more in (mostly French) treasure and (mostly Malian) lives to fix?
I doubt Mali really does matter more than a lot of other places: neighbors Mauritania and Niger as well as nearby Nigeria for starters. Some argue its location makes it particularly important. I might argue that its isolation and forbidding topography and climate make it an ideal place to keep an eye on Islamic extremists. Secretary of Defense Panetta is saying we have to prevent them from establishing a base in Mali. Why? Without easy access to an international airport, it would be hard for Al Qaeda to use Mali as a base for attacking the United States or even Europe. I much prefer they be there, under watchful eyes, than plotting out of sight in Munich (or Boston).
Their presence in “ungoverned” space panics the Defense Department. Certainly their trafficking (drugs and people) and kidnapping enterprises are troublesome, especially to any Westerners in the neighborhood (witness what is going on nearby in Algeria). But such spaces are only ungoverned if you ignore the people who live there. The indigenous tribes will have their own forms of governance, which may be better adapted to the topography and demography than the Western-style governance Bamako has been trying to assert–with negative results–for many years. We’d do well to recognize that traditional governance really is governance and worry about getting its mechanisms on our side. That is going to be difficult with the French shooting up the countryside.
While Mali’s democracy is not holding up well under pressure from Tuareg rebels and radical Islamists in the north, there is no reason to believe that the population is interested in harboring Al Qaeda or other extreme groups. Malian women and music are not going to readily conform to Islamist requirements. French troops, who will provide the Islamists with a rallying cry against foreign intervention, may be necessary to blunt an immediate threat, but a far more nuanced approach is needed to win the war. All those displaced people are not necessarily going to blame the Islamists for the humanitarian crisis that is rapidly emerging.
Mali is the West’s next test: can we act earlier, smarter and with appropriate tools to discourage Islamist radicalization? It is not more important than other places, just more urgent because of our own failure to respond appropriately to a threat that was well known. There are political and economic equations to be solved, not just a military one. We failed to act quickly enough, when it would have been cheaper and easier. Now let’s see if we can react smartly, with civilian as well as military responses.
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