Clarke, Richard A. Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2004. xiii + 304 pages. Index. $27.00. ISBN: 0-7432-6024-4.
The opening chapter of Against All Enemies describes the scene at the White House during and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Fearing that another plane was aiming for Washington, the Secret Service ordered the building to be evacuated. Richard Clarke, the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counterterrorism, and a few stalwart souls hang in there, monitoring events, calling upon the resources of other agencies, and generally managing the response to the disaster. This is what the permanent staff of the government does: They manage crises. The story makes a great set piece to lead off the book, and it establishes Richard Clarke’s credentials as a man at the center of events, respected by his colleagues, and in command of the reins of power.
Richard Clarke reached that eminence by serving in a series of posts in the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House during a thirty-year civil service career. One of the characteristics that Mr. Clarke brought to these various posts was a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that appears to have arisen from his belief that professional military, intelligence, and diplomatic officers regarded civil servants as less accomplished, or less dedicated, than themselves. Mr. Clarke makes a point of noting that his hiring other civil servants when he was Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs irritated the career Foreign Service personnel with whom he worked. He also makes a point of every petty bureaucratic battle he ever won.
The remainder of the book is both a history of the U.S. Government’s efforts to come to grips with terrorism, foreign and domestic, and an account of Mr. Clarke’s working life. Chapter 2, “Stumbling into the Islamic World,” reviews the experience of the Reagan administration, including the several disasters in Beirut, Lebanon, during that period. The chapter title conveys Mr. Clarke’s impression of the direction of our efforts in that part of the world. The chapter ends with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and apparent American victory which would eventually turn to ashes in our mouths.
In subsequent chapters Mr. Clarke reviews the first Bush administration’s experience with the Gulf War, which he refers to as “unfinished,” the rise of Islamic terrorism during the Clinton years, and the many threads that led to the discovery of Al Qaeda. This is in some ways the strongest part of Against All Enemies, as Mr. Clarke recounts how the investigations of apparently unrelated events led eventually to the realization that there was a single organization behind the World Trade Center attack of 1993, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, the 1998 attacks on U.S. Embassies in Africa, and this strange Saudi businessman, Osama bin Laden. This historical review ends, with Chapter 9, in the observation that the Bush administration found it rather odd that the Clinton people identified the elimination of bin Laden as one of the top national security priorities.
The chapter on “Before and After September 11,” in which Mr. Clarke critiques the Bush administrations counterterrorism efforts is probably the most quoted part of the book. After all, this is where he shows Bush’s national security team ignoring his many warnings about terrorism, and choosing to focus on missile defense and doing away with the ABM treaty. In fact, he concludes that there was very little chance, given the developments to date, that Bush could have stopped the 9/11 attacks. There might have been a chance for Clinton to have disrupted Al Qaeda enough to have prevented that kind of action, but, by January 20, 2001, the die was cast. As for the period after 9/11, Clarke characterizes the decision to invade Afghanistan as “plainly obvious,” but Bush’s efforts as “slow and small.” His assessment of the decision to invade Iraq – “Far from addressing the popular appeal of the enemy that attacked us, Bush handed that enemy precisely what it wanted and needed, proof that America was at war with Islam, that we were the new Crusaders come to occupy Muslim land.”
In the final chapter, “Right War, Wrong War,” Richard Clarke gives us his policy prescriptions for the dealing with terrorism. Rather, for dealing “with the fundamental problems revealed by the terrorist attacks.” Clarke’s three items are: “a massive effort to eliminate our vulnerabilities to terrorism at home,” “a concerted effort globally to counter the ideology of al Qaeda and the larger radical Islamic terrorist movement,” and to cooperate with other countries to “round up terrorists” and to “strengthen open governments and make it possible politically, economically, and socially for them to go after the roots of al Qaeda-like terrorism.” Which open governments? Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
One oddity that I need to mention here is that there is a point on which Richard A. Clarke and Doug Feith, the former Undersecretary for Policy in the Defense Department, agree. They both assert that the U.S. government has not developed an effective means to counter the ideological message of the Islamist movement. I might add that such a means, if we could develop and apply it, would make both turning America into a fortress, and rounding up terrorists overseas, unnecessary.
If you are interested in the origins of the September 11 attacks, and in the manner in which the U.S. government developed (or failed to develop) its counterterrorist policies, Against All Enemies is a good place to start.
Glenn A Knight
In my study
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Reviewing Books by Unpleasant People
If you look at the sidebar on the right-hand side of this blog, you'll see Richard A. Clarke's Against All Enemies. This is one of the earliest "insider" books about the September 11 attacks, and Clarke looks at both the events leading up to 9/11 and the Bush administration's reaction to that supreme act of terrorism. A number of the other books on the subject are reacting to Clarke in one way or another. Michael Scheuer spends quite a bit of time in Marching Toward Hell, which was reviewed on this blog some time ago, criticizing Clarke.
My own review of Against All Enemies is half-written. I find Clarke easy to criticize. He's pompous; he is critical of others but never finds fault with his own actions or omissions; he has the defensive attitude one finds in people who feels they've been left out of the inner circle. In fact, a lot of Clarke's criticism of the Bush administration as a whole, and Condoleeza Rice in particular, comes down to "They didn't listen to me!" In short, Clarke is a rather unpleasant person. It would be easy to dismiss him as a self-justifying ass.
But that isn't the whole truth. Clarke was an insider, and he was involved in counterterrorism and related activities for many years. He worked at the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House. He was in on a lot of investigations and discussions. He was "read in" on the subject to an extraordinary degree. So there is a lot of valuable material in Against All Enemies. You just have to get past the blowhard, know-it-all narrator to find it.
All of which is by way of saying that I have found this a very difficult book to review. I found myself spending a lot of time criticizing Clarke's personal qualities, rather than attending to the substance of the book. Now that I've gotten this off my chest, I hope the review itself will be easier to finish.
Have a good day!
My own review of Against All Enemies is half-written. I find Clarke easy to criticize. He's pompous; he is critical of others but never finds fault with his own actions or omissions; he has the defensive attitude one finds in people who feels they've been left out of the inner circle. In fact, a lot of Clarke's criticism of the Bush administration as a whole, and Condoleeza Rice in particular, comes down to "They didn't listen to me!" In short, Clarke is a rather unpleasant person. It would be easy to dismiss him as a self-justifying ass.
But that isn't the whole truth. Clarke was an insider, and he was involved in counterterrorism and related activities for many years. He worked at the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House. He was in on a lot of investigations and discussions. He was "read in" on the subject to an extraordinary degree. So there is a lot of valuable material in Against All Enemies. You just have to get past the blowhard, know-it-all narrator to find it.
All of which is by way of saying that I have found this a very difficult book to review. I found myself spending a lot of time criticizing Clarke's personal qualities, rather than attending to the substance of the book. Now that I've gotten this off my chest, I hope the review itself will be easier to finish.
Have a good day!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Relying on Foreign Intelligence Services
The accompanying article has a quite interesting summary of, and link to, a story about the U.S. relying on foreign intelligence services for all sorts of things, such as kidnapping people off the street, torturing them, and disposing of their bodies. That's kind of old news, though the story has the twist that President Obama's policies limiting what U.S. agencies can do "have left him with few options." Somehow, it escapes Mr. McShane that one of the President's options is to stop ordering the commission of illegal acts.
Here's a link to the original New York Times story http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/24intel.html?ref=todayspaper
On a more serious note, I don't see the problem with U.S. intelligence agencies providing other countries' police or intelligence services with information about suspected terrorists, given that we've accepted that other countries may not have judicial systems meeting our standards. The real problem is that we apparently want to contract out interrogation (torture), kidnapping, and murder, while evading responsibility for the consequences of our actions.
There is also the question of the practicality of a policy which has us turning suspected terrorists over to agencies, such as Pakistan's ISID, which may well have recruited and trained them in the first place.
Here's a link to the original New York Times story http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/world/24intel.html?ref=todayspaper
On a more serious note, I don't see the problem with U.S. intelligence agencies providing other countries' police or intelligence services with information about suspected terrorists, given that we've accepted that other countries may not have judicial systems meeting our standards. The real problem is that we apparently want to contract out interrogation (torture), kidnapping, and murder, while evading responsibility for the consequences of our actions.
There is also the question of the practicality of a policy which has us turning suspected terrorists over to agencies, such as Pakistan's ISID, which may well have recruited and trained them in the first place.
Preventive Detention Erodes the Constitution
The attached article includes a link to a New York Times analysis of the idea of preventive detention suggested by President Obama in his speech on May 21. The Constitution provides for the right of habeas corpus, meaning that a person can only be incarcerated for a limited amount of time before being charged or released. Period. End of statement.
The Constitution says, in Article I, which covers the powers of Congress, "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, and the Supreme Court found (but not until after the war) that he lacked the authority to do so. As far as I can tell, there is no rebellion underway in the United States at this time, nor is the country subject to a foreign invasion. Therefore, no one in the government has the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.
In other words, whether there are "bad dudes" at Guantanamo, or elsewhere, isn't the question. The only question is whether the government is prepared to bring criminal charges against the people it has detained. If not, it should turn them loose immediately. Preventive detention has no place in the American Constitutional system, and I am amazed that the President would even suggest that we make room for it.
The Constitution says, in Article I, which covers the powers of Congress, "The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, and the Supreme Court found (but not until after the war) that he lacked the authority to do so. As far as I can tell, there is no rebellion underway in the United States at this time, nor is the country subject to a foreign invasion. Therefore, no one in the government has the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.
In other words, whether there are "bad dudes" at Guantanamo, or elsewhere, isn't the question. The only question is whether the government is prepared to bring criminal charges against the people it has detained. If not, it should turn them loose immediately. Preventive detention has no place in the American Constitutional system, and I am amazed that the President would even suggest that we make room for it.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Marching Toward Hell - A Review
Scheuer, Michael. Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq. New York, London, and Toronto: Free Press, 2008. xvi + 364 pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $27.00.
Michael Scheuer spent some twenty years in the CIA, including three years as head of Alec Station, the virtual station in Langley charged with intelligence on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He wrote two previous books, both published anonymously because Scheuer was still employed by CIA at the time. I have seen him a time or two on The Newshour on PBS discussing questions about terrorism. He is also a highly opinionated man who doesn’t seem to mind putting controversial views front and center. I say “seems” because Mr. Scheuer’s feeling were apparently hurt by criticism of his views as expressed in his earlier books.
Scheuer’s thesis is fairly simple, although both the evidence for it and his projected policy options to deal with have a number of ramifications. Scheuer restates his thesis a number of times in the course of the book. That thesis is that the Islamist groups who have attacked the United States and American interests are not motivated by some generalized hatred toward our lifestyle and our freedom. Indeed, polls taken in the Muslim world consistently show widespread approval of the American people and our way of life. Rather, these groups are motivated by dislike for a number of specific policies and actions which the United States has pursued over a period of many years.
I think I should say two things here. First, Mr. Scheuer is not saying that anything the United States might have done would justify terrorist actions. He is saying, however, that such actions may be motivated by other people’s perceptions of our polices and actions. Second, there is another book out recently, Choice of Enemies, which makes something of the same point, though at greater length and with more sophistication. The United States did not have to go to war against any of the Middle Eastern countries, nor were we forced to befriend any of them. We chose to support certain countries rather than others, and we have backed some regimes and tendencies within countries, at some cost to their rivals.
What are the policies and actions of the United States which have made us unpopular to the point that people all over the Muslim world believe that the killing of American soldiers and civilian is acceptable? Mr. Scheuer offers a list of six items:
Much of Marching Toward Hell is devoted to explicating this list, pointing out how our actions and policies appear to the residents of Muslim countries, and explaining why the United States has adopted such a self-defeating posture.
The first point is that, from a Muslim point of view, the United States declarations of support for democracy and freedom mean very little. Since the end of World War II, we have consistently supported military regimes, kingdoms, and dictatorships which have oppressed their own peoples. We have armed and re-armed Israel, and declared that we would never abandon Israel, when Israel has engaged in constant violence against Muslim people. But perhaps the worst thing is that we are there. We are present, in force, with bases in a number of Muslim countries, including parts of the Arabian peninsula which are regarded as sacred ground.
Mr. Scheuer tries to explain why we pursue these policies. I’m not sure that his explanations are sufficient, though they may contribute something to the debate. He strongly believes that we are losing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that we will continue to lose wars in the Muslim world unless we get out of Cold War habits of thinking, try to understand the inhabitants of those countries, and disengage from local politics.
Scheuer contends that the Cold War casts a long shadow on U.S. military and political attitudes. One example is our tendency to try to find proxies to fight our wars for us. The failure of our Iraq policy may be attributed to the simple fact that Iraqis were not willing to kill other Iraqis (at least, Iraqis of the same confession) to forward our purposes. Similarly, I doubt that any Pakistani government will be able to sustain itself by cooperating in our mission to kill hundreds or thousands of Pakistani people. People helped us fight the Soviet Union because they believed that the Russians were evil, and there was plenty of evidence for that view. Scheuer doubts that we can persuade Muslims to believe that their fellow Muslims are evil.
This is partly due to a problem we have in much of the world. We don’t learn the local languages, we know nothing of the local cultures, we expect everybody to act just the way they do back home in Ashtabula. Do you think that the Iraqis are unaware of the contempt in which they are held by U.S. soldiers who speak no Arabic, and that they do not return that contempt in spades.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Scheuer recommends that we attend to American interests first and stop arming both sides in a religious war. Who is responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict lasting for 60 years? We are. And neither Israel’s interests nor those of the Saudis are identical to those of the United States.
No matter how you look at it, Michael Scheuer has written a contentious book. The prose isn’t always elegant, but his sincerity shines through. Sincerity is, of course, no guarantee that Mr. Scheuer is right. This book will anger some people, perhaps especially supporters of Israel. But it raises questions that are worth raising and discussing.
Michael Scheuer spent some twenty years in the CIA, including three years as head of Alec Station, the virtual station in Langley charged with intelligence on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He wrote two previous books, both published anonymously because Scheuer was still employed by CIA at the time. I have seen him a time or two on The Newshour on PBS discussing questions about terrorism. He is also a highly opinionated man who doesn’t seem to mind putting controversial views front and center. I say “seems” because Mr. Scheuer’s feeling were apparently hurt by criticism of his views as expressed in his earlier books.
Scheuer’s thesis is fairly simple, although both the evidence for it and his projected policy options to deal with have a number of ramifications. Scheuer restates his thesis a number of times in the course of the book. That thesis is that the Islamist groups who have attacked the United States and American interests are not motivated by some generalized hatred toward our lifestyle and our freedom. Indeed, polls taken in the Muslim world consistently show widespread approval of the American people and our way of life. Rather, these groups are motivated by dislike for a number of specific policies and actions which the United States has pursued over a period of many years.
I think I should say two things here. First, Mr. Scheuer is not saying that anything the United States might have done would justify terrorist actions. He is saying, however, that such actions may be motivated by other people’s perceptions of our polices and actions. Second, there is another book out recently, Choice of Enemies, which makes something of the same point, though at greater length and with more sophistication. The United States did not have to go to war against any of the Middle Eastern countries, nor were we forced to befriend any of them. We chose to support certain countries rather than others, and we have backed some regimes and tendencies within countries, at some cost to their rivals.
What are the policies and actions of the United States which have made us unpopular to the point that people all over the Muslim world believe that the killing of American soldiers and civilian is acceptable? Mr. Scheuer offers a list of six items:
- The U.S. military and civilian presence in the Arab Peninsula
- Unqualified U.S. support for Israel
- U.S. support for states oppressing Muslims, especially China, India, and Russia
- U.S. exploitation of Muslim oil and suppression of its price
- U.S. military presence in the Islamic world – Arabian Peninsula, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
- U.S. support, protection, and funding of Arab police states.
Much of Marching Toward Hell is devoted to explicating this list, pointing out how our actions and policies appear to the residents of Muslim countries, and explaining why the United States has adopted such a self-defeating posture.
The first point is that, from a Muslim point of view, the United States declarations of support for democracy and freedom mean very little. Since the end of World War II, we have consistently supported military regimes, kingdoms, and dictatorships which have oppressed their own peoples. We have armed and re-armed Israel, and declared that we would never abandon Israel, when Israel has engaged in constant violence against Muslim people. But perhaps the worst thing is that we are there. We are present, in force, with bases in a number of Muslim countries, including parts of the Arabian peninsula which are regarded as sacred ground.
Mr. Scheuer tries to explain why we pursue these policies. I’m not sure that his explanations are sufficient, though they may contribute something to the debate. He strongly believes that we are losing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that we will continue to lose wars in the Muslim world unless we get out of Cold War habits of thinking, try to understand the inhabitants of those countries, and disengage from local politics.
Scheuer contends that the Cold War casts a long shadow on U.S. military and political attitudes. One example is our tendency to try to find proxies to fight our wars for us. The failure of our Iraq policy may be attributed to the simple fact that Iraqis were not willing to kill other Iraqis (at least, Iraqis of the same confession) to forward our purposes. Similarly, I doubt that any Pakistani government will be able to sustain itself by cooperating in our mission to kill hundreds or thousands of Pakistani people. People helped us fight the Soviet Union because they believed that the Russians were evil, and there was plenty of evidence for that view. Scheuer doubts that we can persuade Muslims to believe that their fellow Muslims are evil.
This is partly due to a problem we have in much of the world. We don’t learn the local languages, we know nothing of the local cultures, we expect everybody to act just the way they do back home in Ashtabula. Do you think that the Iraqis are unaware of the contempt in which they are held by U.S. soldiers who speak no Arabic, and that they do not return that contempt in spades.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Scheuer recommends that we attend to American interests first and stop arming both sides in a religious war. Who is responsible for the Arab-Israeli conflict lasting for 60 years? We are. And neither Israel’s interests nor those of the Saudis are identical to those of the United States.
No matter how you look at it, Michael Scheuer has written a contentious book. The prose isn’t always elegant, but his sincerity shines through. Sincerity is, of course, no guarantee that Mr. Scheuer is right. This book will anger some people, perhaps especially supporters of Israel. But it raises questions that are worth raising and discussing.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Causes of Terrorism
In the accompanying article, Michael Ledeen takes issue with President Bush's characterization of terrorism as arising from hopelessness. Without necessarily agreeing with Mr. Bush's opinion that hopelessness is the only basis of terrorism, I think Mr. Ledeen misses the point by finding that some famous terrorists have, like Osama bin Laden, been well off.
Terrorism is famously a method of the weak. If the Palestinians had a real army and air force that could compete with the Israeli Defense Forces on an equal footing, you wouldn't see suicide bombings in Netanya. If the insurgent forces in Iraq had fully equipped and trained military forces, with secure bases, and all the trappings of a real army, they wouldn't be using improvised explosive devices. Anyone who has read Mao Tse-tung on guerrilla warfare, or, for that matter, any good history of the Civil War, knows that the weaker side, if it acknowledges that it is unlikely to lose by conventional means, but is unwilling to concede defeat, may resort to the guerrilla or terrorist tactics.
On the other hand, terrorism is also the weapon of the politically weak. If the Iraqi Sunnis believe that they are going to lose benefits, status, and power under any conceivable political settlement, and are unwilling to accept that loss, they may return to terrorist and guerrilla methods.
So, we can say that terrorists have no hope of victory through conventional military means, or through democratic political means. To that degree, Mr. Bush is right to associate terrorism with hopelessness. The terrorists, however, wouldn't be acting at all if they were entirely without hope of affecting the outcome. Terrorism is the only method that holds out hope, however remote, of winning without the means to obtain a conventional victory. In fact, hope may be all that terrorists have, because the odds of duplicating the successes of Mao Tse-tung and Fidel Castro are very remote indeed.
One of the problems this analysis raised for policy-makers is that, to remove terrorism from the table, one much offer either some realistic hope of achieving political goals through other means, or some absolutely incontrovertible demonstration that they have no hope of achieving those goals at all. Perhaps, then, it is unfortunate that the old saying "Where there's life, there's hope" has such a large share of truth.
Terrorism is famously a method of the weak. If the Palestinians had a real army and air force that could compete with the Israeli Defense Forces on an equal footing, you wouldn't see suicide bombings in Netanya. If the insurgent forces in Iraq had fully equipped and trained military forces, with secure bases, and all the trappings of a real army, they wouldn't be using improvised explosive devices. Anyone who has read Mao Tse-tung on guerrilla warfare, or, for that matter, any good history of the Civil War, knows that the weaker side, if it acknowledges that it is unlikely to lose by conventional means, but is unwilling to concede defeat, may resort to the guerrilla or terrorist tactics.
On the other hand, terrorism is also the weapon of the politically weak. If the Iraqi Sunnis believe that they are going to lose benefits, status, and power under any conceivable political settlement, and are unwilling to accept that loss, they may return to terrorist and guerrilla methods.
So, we can say that terrorists have no hope of victory through conventional military means, or through democratic political means. To that degree, Mr. Bush is right to associate terrorism with hopelessness. The terrorists, however, wouldn't be acting at all if they were entirely without hope of affecting the outcome. Terrorism is the only method that holds out hope, however remote, of winning without the means to obtain a conventional victory. In fact, hope may be all that terrorists have, because the odds of duplicating the successes of Mao Tse-tung and Fidel Castro are very remote indeed.
One of the problems this analysis raised for policy-makers is that, to remove terrorism from the table, one much offer either some realistic hope of achieving political goals through other means, or some absolutely incontrovertible demonstration that they have no hope of achieving those goals at all. Perhaps, then, it is unfortunate that the old saying "Where there's life, there's hope" has such a large share of truth.
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