Great Game
by digby
I don't pretend to be an expert on Afghanistan, but I do know that it has been the definition of "quagmire" for hundreds of years for Western powers. It's a strange, impenetrable country in a strategically important place that ties modern, arrogant imperialists up in knots over and over again. So, it is with some trepidation that I see Barack Obama saying things like "this is a war that we have to win." I honestly don't know what that means. No western power has ever "won" a war in Afghanistan.
I realize that Democrats have been using this "took his eye off the ball" for years now in their criticism of Iraq. And maybe it's true. But frankly, I've never seen the evidence that if we had just put more troops into Afghanistan we could have "won." It seems to me that this war in Afghanistan isn't really even a war --- it's a manhunt. And we're looking for a man who probably isn't even there, but is rather holed up in neighboring Pakistan, our ostensible ally. And further complicating matters he may not even be alive, but even if we captured him and "brought him to justice" we'll just make him into a martyr and create a whole bunch more terrorists, many of them in European countries and maybe even here. I don't get the end game of this great game.
So what's this "war" all about and why are we agitating so strongly to escalate it? Can we accomplish anything by putting more troops over there? I hope so. But the Soviets had their 40th Army in there for ten years and it didn't work. I know that one American troop is worth twenty Russians and all, but itdoesn't seem like there are very good odds of success, even if we knew what that meant.
Like I said, I'm not a expert and I don't have answers. But I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical that the Democrats are using the notion of an Afghanistan escalation to bolster their macho street cred and that it's going to end up biting us all in the ass just like the last time a Democratic president escalated a war out of fear of being baited by the right. I hope that isn't the case.
I also hope that this escalation and tough talk doesn't set back the movement to close Guantanamo and end the torture and rendition regime. I worry that since we will be focusing once more on the threat of the biggest baddest terrorist boogeyman that all those guys down in Gitmo who were captured on "the battlefield" are suddenly going to look a lot more dangerous and be a lot more useful for the right to demagogue. If we are focused on Afghanistan as the big prize, then the idea of these low level grunts being a danger suddenly looks more real to a lot of people.
Here's our old pal Mike Mukasey setting the table with his remarks to the congress today. He's fear mongering and insisting that the congress come up with a new regime. As with FISA, they are going to insist that if the congress doesn't legalize and validate a repressive and unjust scheme, the terrorists are going to come into our homes and kill us all in our beds. And the congress will probably go along --- again. (After all, you wouldn't want to be called a terrorist symp nancy boy, now would you?)
“... uncertainty is not the only, or even the main, reason these issues should not be left to the courts alone to resolve. There is also the question of which branches of government are best suited to resolve them. . . . Congress and the Executive Branch are affirmatively charged by our Constitution with protecting national security, are expert in such matters, and are in the best position to weigh the difficult policy choices that are posed by these issues. Judges play an important role in deciding whether a chosen policy is consistent with our laws and the Constitution, but it is our elected leaders who have the responsibility for making policy choices in the first instance.”
“So today, I am urging Congress to act – to resolve the difficult questions left open by the Supreme Court. I am urging Congress to pass legislation to ensure that the proceedings mandated by the Supreme Court are conducted in a responsible and prompt way and, as the Court itself urged, in a practical way. I believe that there are several principles that should guide such legislation.”
“First, and most important, Congress should make clear that a federal court may not order the Government to bring enemy combatants into the United States. There are more than 200 detainees remaining at Guantanamo Bay, and many of them pose an extraordinary threat to Americans; many already have demonstrated their ability and their desire to kill Americans.”
“Second, it is imperative that the proceedings for these enemy combatants be conducted in a way that protects how our Nation gathers intelligence, and what that intelligence is. We simply cannot afford to reveal to terrorists all that we know about them and how we acquired that information.”
“Third, Congress should make clear that habeas proceedings should not delay the military commission trials of detainees charged with war crimes. Twenty individuals have already been charged, and many more may be charged in the upcoming months. Last Thursday, we received a favorable decision from a federal court rejecting the effort of a detainee to block his military commission trial from going forward, but detainees will inevitably file further court challenges in an effort to delay these proceedings.”
“Fourth, any legislation should acknowledge again and explicitly that the Nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us and who are dedicated to the slaughter of Americans—soldiers and civilians alike.”
“Fifth, Congress should establish sensible procedures for habeas challenges going forward. In order to eliminate the risk of duplicative efforts and inconsistent rulings, Congress should ensure that one district court takes exclusive jurisdiction over these habeas cases and should direct that common legal issues be decided by one judge in a coordinated fashion. And Congress should adopt rules that strike a reasonable balance between the detainees’ rights to a fair hearing on the one hand, and our national security needs and the realities of wartime detention on the other hand. In other words, Congress should accept the Supreme Court’s explicit invitation to make these proceedings, in a word repeated often in the Boumediene decision, practical….”
“Sixth and finally, because of the significant resource constraints on the Government's ability to defend the hundreds of habeas cases proceeding in the district courts, Congress should make clear that the detainees cannot pursue other forms of litigation to challenge their detention. ”
The point of all of this is to get bipartisan buy in. If they can do that then they can keep the Villagers from suffering the consequences of their actions. And because it looks like we're going to be in a full scale Afghan war, come hell or high water and with all that that implies for the foreseeable future, the powers that be of both parties undoubtedly feel it is necessary to keep up the fear and the fakery regardless of who is the president.
Marcy Wheeler has more on Mukasey's gambit.
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