A January 2011 report by the Afghan NGO Security Office noted that public statements made by U.S. and ISAF leaders at the end of 2010 were “sharply divergent from IMF, [international military forces, NGO-speak for ISAF] ‘strategic communication’ messages suggesting improvements. We encourage [nongovernment organization personnel] to recognize that no matter how authoritative the source of any such claim, messages of the nature are solely intended to influence American and European public opinion ahead of the withdrawal, and are not intended to offer an accurate portrayal of the situation for those who live and work here.”
The following month, Anthony Cordesman, on behalf of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that ISAF and the U.S. leadership failed to report accurately on the reality of the situation in Afghanistan.
“Since June 2010, the unclassified reporting the U.S. does provide has steadily shrunk in content, effectively ‘spinning’ the road to victory by eliminating content that illustrates the full scale of the challenges ahead,” Cordesman wrote. “They also, however, were driven by political decisions to ignore or understate Taliban and insurgent gains from 2002 to 2009, to ignore the problems caused by weak and corrupt Afghan governance, to understate the risks posed by sanctuaries in Pakistan, and to ‘spin’ the value of tactical ISAF victories while ignoring the steady growth of Taliban influence and control.”
Truth, lies and Afghanistan – February 2012 – Armed Forces Journal – Military Strategy, Global Defense Strategy
9 FebGuantanamo’s deepening failure – War on Terror – Salon.com
7 FebRather than developing these few cases to conform to the rules of regular federal court, the U.S. has tried to develop an irregular military court to accommodate the cases. The end result – at least until the next reform attempt – is a process where an accused can spend a decade or more waiting for his day in court; nearly all of the information is classified and the accused only gets to see what the prosecution decides is appropriate; the government demands that it gets to see the information shared between the accused and his attorney; and even if the accused wins, he is likely to still spend the rest of his life in prison.
via Guantanamo’s deepening failure – War on Terror – Salon.com.
Democratic Individuality: Are American war crimes above the law?
2 FebSam Morison, a Department of Defense lawyer for prisoners in Guantanamo, sent the following letter about the violation of the rule of law there. Big Brother monitors the phone conversations (the only ones allowed) between lawyers and the prisoners in violation of the principle of lawyer-client confidentiality. Further, the Pentagon acts covertly to prevent the New York bar ethics committee from asserting this principle (one might also imagine that the lawyer in question is simply a sycophant – see here and here).
via Democratic Individuality: Are American war crimes above the law?.
H/T ComeHomeAmerica.
Leon Panetta’s explicitly authoritarian decree – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
30 JanHere we have the U.S. Defense Secretary, life-long Democrat Leon Panetta, telling you as clearly as he can that this is exactly the operating premise of the administration in which he serves: once the President accuses you of being a Terrorist, a decision made in secert and with no checks or due process, we can do anything we want to you, including executing you wherever we find you. It’s hard to know what’s more extraordinary: that he feels so comfortable saying this right out in the open, or that so few people seem to mind.
via Leon Panetta’s explicitly authoritarian decree – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Tell Congress: Don’t roll back defense spending cuts
29 JanTell Congress: Don’t roll back cuts to defense spending.
It’s undeniable that we have a grotesquely bloated military budget. Even with the reductions, the United States will be on track to spend more on defense than the next ten countries combined.2
Yet Republican Rep. Buck McKeon has just introduced a bill that will substitute a reduction of the federal government workforce by 10% in place of the first year of mandatory cuts.3 And this will likely be the first of many attempts to change the law to shield military spending.
Republicans and some Democrats are now saying that the sky will fall if we do not exempt the Department of Defense from mandatory spending cuts – even as they insist that our deficit is such a problem that we must make brutal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid
Click the link and sign the petition!
How the U.S. Can Help Humanity Achieve World Peace (Yes, World Peace) | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network
18 JanThe U.S., which continues to cling to the atavistic adage that peace can only be assured by fighting and preparing to fight, remains a major impediment to a post-war world. We insist that we are a peaceful people, and yet we maintain a global military empire, with soldiers deployed in more than 100 countries. In the past decade we have been embroiled in two major wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as contributing to the recent bombing campaign against Libya.
Consider, moreover, these statistics from SIPRI, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a respected, independent tracker of trends in conflict. The U.S. military budget has almost doubled in the past decade to $700 billion. If you include spending on nuclear weapons and homeland security, our annual outlays approach $1 trillion, which exceeds the defense budgets of all other nations combined. We spend more than six times as much on defense as China, our closest competitor, and more than 10 times as much as our former nemesis Russia.
The U.S. is also by far the world’s largest arms dealer.
The Greatness of Ron Paul – Robert Wright – Politics – The Atlantic
9 Jan…Paul is making one contribution to the foreign policy debate that could have enduring value.
It doesn’t lie in the substance of his foreign policy views (which I’m largely but not wholly in sympathy with) but in the way he explains them. Paul routinely performs a simple thought experiment: He tries to imagine how the world looks to people other than Americans.
This is such a radical departure from the prevailing American mindset that some of Paul’s critics see it as more evidence of his weirdness. A video montage meant to discredit him shows him taking the perspective of Iran. After observing that Israel and America and China have nukes, he asks about Iranians, “Why wouldn’t it be natural that they’d want a weapon? Internationally they’d be given more respect.”
via The Greatness of Ron Paul – Robert Wright – Politics – The Atlantic.
The Forgotten Wages of War – NYTimes.com
4 JanTHE end of the Iraq war occasioned few reflections on the scale of destruction we have wrought there. As is our habit, the discussion focused on the costs to America in blood and treasure, the false premises of the war and the continuing challenges of instability in the region. What happened to Iraqis was largely ignored. And in Libya, the recent investigation of civilian casualties during NATO’s bombing campaign was the first such accounting of what many believed was a largely victimless war.
We rarely question that wars cause extensive damage, but our view of America’s wars has been blind to one specific aspect of destruction: the human toll of those who live in war zones.
We tune out the voices of the victims and belittle their complaints about the midnight raids, the house-to-house searches, the checkpoints, the drone attacks, the bombs that fall on weddings instead of Al Qaeda.
Panetta’s Sacred Hippopotamus | The Nation
3 JanFact is, to reduce spending, major defense systems will have to end, the size of the U.S. Army and Marines will have to be dramatically reduced, enormous cuts will have to be made on salaries, pensions and health care benefits for troops and military retirees, and America’s vast worldwide system of bases oversea must be slashed. In slow-motion recognition of that fact, the Defense Department is already planning to shrink the army and Marines, and to shift planning away from land wars and counterinsurgency wars to power-projection via the air force and navy. Some of that, naturally, will be designed to build up U.S. forces in the Pacific to counter China, a fool’s errand if there ever was one – especially since China’s military is unable to do much outside its borders and lacks anything close to American technology. Far better to find a peaceful accommodation with China that recognizes Beijing’s legitimate national security interests and that doesn’t seek to sustain American hegemony in the Far East.
Paul’s Foreign Policy Stance Divides Many G.O.P. Voters – NYTimes.com
30 DecBut Mr. Paul’s national security positions draw raves from many veterans, students and others who believe his noninterventionism would curtail a dangerous trend toward military adventurism and strengthen America’s influence and prestige while diverting resources to pay down the national debt. In interviews at Paul campaign events this week, many said they embraced his national security proposals, rather than reluctantly accepting them.
via Paul’s Foreign Policy Stance Divides Many G.O.P. Voters – NYTimes.com.
Truth and Traditions 