While the full implications surrounding the “War on Terror” that was initially waged by George W. Bush after Sept. 11, 2001, have been brought to light many times before (here, here and here), Ta-Nehisi Coates with The Atlantic recently asked some hard questions that, because of Bush’s declaration and the United States’ commitment to ending terror, don’t admit to any easy answers.

Credit: Image of a woodcut depicting waterboarding included in J. Damhoudère's Praxis Rerum Criminalium, Antwerp, 1556.

One of the most important and morally gray questions: does torture work, and if so, should we be willing to use it to extract information that is vital to national security.  Coates notes some of the inconsistencies surrounding President Obama’s own policy on fighting terror:

The president is anti-torture — which is to say he thinks the water-boarding of actual confirmed terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was wrong. He thinks it was wrong, no matter the goal — which is to say the president would not countenance the torture of an actual terrorist to foil a plot against the country he’s sworn to protect. But the president would countenance the collateral killing of innocent men, women and children by drone in pursuit of an actual terrorist. What is the morality that holds the body of a captured enemy inviolable, but not the body of those who happen to be in the way? (Italics mine.)

I don’t have an answer to that last question. Critics of torture never tire of arguing — and as Quentin Tarantino argues in Reservoir Dogs — a person will say anything to make the pain stop. Or, in the infallible logic of Nice Guy Eddie:

If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he’ll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don’t necessarily make it fucking so!

Or, perhaps Mr. White’s rather nuanced view is correct:

Now if it’s a manager, that’s a different story. Managers know better than to fuck around, so if you get one that’s giving you static, he probably thinks he’s a real cowboy, so you gotta break that son of a bitch in two. If you wanna know something and he won’t tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb’s next. After that he’ll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. I’m hungry. Let’s get a taco.

What about the view of Creasy from Man on Fire:

I am going to ask questions. If you don’t answer fully and truthfully, you will suffer much more than you have to. I’m going to cut your fingers off. One by one, if I have to.

Or, how about Jack Bauer:

Jack Bauer: Ibraham Hadad had targeted a bus carrying over forty-five people, ten of which were children. The truth, Senator, is that I stopped that attack from happening.

Sen. Blaine Mayer: By torturing Mr. Hadad!

Jack Bauer: By doing what I deemed necessary to protect innocent lives.

Sen. Blaine Mayer: So basically, what you’re saying, Mr. Bauer, is that the ends justify the means, and that you are above the law.

Jack Bauer: When I am activated, when I am brought into a situation, there is a reason, and that reason is to complete the objectives of my mission at all costs.

Sen. Blaine Mayer: Even if it means breaking the law.

Jack Bauer: For a combat soldier, the difference between success and failure is your ability to adapt to your enemy. The people that I deal with, they don’t care about your rules. All they care about is results. My job is to stop them from accomplishing their objectives. I simply adapted. In answer to your question, am I above the law? No, sir. I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. I will let them decide what price I should pay. But please, do not sit there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions I have made. Because sir, the truth is … I don’t. (“Day 7: 8:00am-9:00am“)

I realize these are just arguments from the minds of entertainment writers, but the questions and concerns aren’t going away because of the Pandora’s Box that Bush opened when he first uttered the words “War on Terror.” Remember his remarks from 2007:

On every battlefront we’re on the offense, keeping constant pressure. And in this war on terror, we will not rest or retreat or withdraw from the fight until this threat to civilization has been removed.

Admittedly, the extremism would have arisen and grown with or without Bush; the president simply committed the United States and its allies to the impossible task of wiping terrorism in its totality off the map. That was the critical mistake that Bush made. The threat of violence from extremists will never be removed as long as zealots and extremists cultivate the idea that a religion or a powerful leader can rise to such heights that any amount of death and suffering are justified in order to protect them. This is why John Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” was so important, and why we should never forget his lyrics:

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people living life in peace

As long as zealots have something to kill or die for, they most certainly will because in their deluded and splintered minds, it gives them something, ironically, to live for.

This lengthy and detailed article takes a look at the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policy since taking office.

It’s a noteworthy read because it reveals what some of Obama’s campaign speeches in 2008 did not, namely that

… he has found that war is a messy business, and his actions show that pursuing an enemy unbound by rules has required moral, legal and practical trade-offs that his speeches did not envision.

and on terror operations in Yemen, Obama:

… who had rejected the Bush-era concept of a global war on terrorism and had promised to narrow the American focus to Al Qaeda’s core, suddenly found himself directing strikes in another complicated Muslim
country.

It also shows a Democratic president who has used a stronger — much stronger — military strategy than many thought he would.

Here is a telling graphic:

Graphic Credit: The New York Times; Source: Long War Journal

Detailed story here:

Buried deep in the archives of America’s intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush’s administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives — what is commonly referred to as a “false flag” operation.

The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah — a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. Jundallah, according to the U.S. government and published reports, is responsible for assassinating Iranian government officials and killing Iranian women and children.

But while the memos show that the United States had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, according to both intelligence officers, the same was not true for Israel’s Mossad. The memos also detail CIA field reports saying that Israel’s recruiting activities occurred under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London, the capital of one of Israel’s ostensible allies, where Mossad officers posing as CIA operatives met with Jundallah officials.

After the War in Iraq began in 2003 under the false pretenses of WMDs and then subsequently continued on claims that Al-Queda had strongholds in the nation under Suddam Hussein’s rule, the war is finally coming to an end. The U.S.’s presence in the nation has gone from 505 bases to two, and the plan is to eventually have no permanent military bases in Iraq. This is obviously good news for the troops, or at least the ones that can return home healthy and able to find steady work. Others, as we know, have suffered from PTSD and troubles getting reconditioned to civilian life. And then there are the 35,000 wounded or killed.

Here are tables outlines the casualties for the three main operations that the U.S. has been engaged in since March 2003 in the Middle East. See here for more details.

Operation Iraqi Freedom (March 2003-August 2011)

Operation New Dawn (After Sept. 1, 2010)

Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)

The question is: how will the Iraqi people, the military and the government respond now that their country is back in their hands? That’s a giant question mark, but I think pulling out will go along way in repairing the rather strained relationship the U.S. has had with some in the Middle East who have viewed us as an occupying force rather than a force for good. The success of the Iraqi government to defend its country, of course, will rely on how well the Iraqi security forces have been trained and how effective they can be in defending the nation’s borders against insurgents. This article doesn’t paint a positive picture, suggesting that even after years of training, the Iraqi forces are still ill-prepared, with about 10,000 having been killed since the force was formed, compared to the above 4,408 U.S. deaths.

U.S. Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen, commander of the NATO training mission, was more upbeat about their chances for success:

They can kick a door in and knock out a network’s leadership as good as anybody I’ve seen. I would say that they have the discipline and the tenacity to fight as well as anybody I’ve ever seen.

Of course, it would be in Caslen’s best interest to say such a thing, since it makes Caslen, as the commander of the training mission, look like he performed his job effectively. Nonetheless, these will be some critical next few months for a people that have for years and years either choked by dictatorial rein, government corruption, looming terroristic threats and crumbling infrastructure.

As of Friday afternoon, seven were reported dead and 15 injured following an explosion and shooting in Oslo, Norway. Here are some photographs:

The attack targeted government buildings, including a building containing the prime minister’s office. The shooting apparently took place at a Labor Party summer camp, in which most members were 15-16 years old.

A snippet from the most recent New York Times article:

“The situation’s gone from bad to worse,” said Runar Kvernen, spokesman for the National Police Directorate under the Ministry of Justice and Police, adding that most of the children at the camp were 15 and 16 years old.

A witness on the island told the state broadcaster that he saw between 20 and 25 bodies on the island after the shooting at the youth camp, The Associated Press reported. There was no official confirmation of deaths on the island.

Images of damaged government buildings, calling to mind past terror attacks in Beirut or Baghdad or Oklahoma City, rattled residents of this ordinarily peaceful Scandinavian nation that has been largely spared terror attacks in recent years. As fear of further attacks gripped the capital, police moved to lockdown large areas of the city center, where the streets were already nearly deserted.

By nightfall in Norway, a fuller picture began to emerge of apparently coordinated terror attacks. Norwegian news media, citing the police, said a shooting suspect had been arrested and that he was connected to the Oslo explosions.

Though the police did not immediately connect the explosions with terrorism, the mangled wreckage of a car could be seen in front of Oslo’s main government building, flipped on its side, damaged so badly that its make and color were not apparent, and a large area of sidewalk pavement was completely blown away. Reports in local media said that officials were assuming it was a deliberate bombing.

A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism. The message said the attack was a response to Norwegian forces’ presence in Afghanistan and to unspecified insults to the Prophet Muhammad. “We have warned since the Stockholm raid of more operations,” the group said, according to Mr. McCants’ translation, apparently referring to a bombing in Sweden in December 2010. “What you see is only the beginning, and there is more to come.” The claim could not be confirmed. It is not uncommon for terrorist groups to advance claims of responsibility for high-profile attacks, only to have the claims prove to be spurious.

Article first published as New York City: Two Towers Down But Still in the Game on Blogcritics. Originally written about midnight Sept. 12, 2010.

***

I admit it. I have not spent the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, tuning in to the 24/7 news cycle, which – and I know this just by mere channel surfing – seemed to feature loop after loop of the planes crashing into the buildings and the subsequent terror that surely shattered the hearts of many in Manhattan and Washington and Pennsylvania, and nay, the entire nation.

Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Today, I have mainly watched college football and read a book on the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth (highly recommended, by the way).

But between my various enterprises this Saturday, I have thought about that day and about what it means to me. I have thought about the many volunteers who gave of their time, and some of their very livelihood, the latter of which (some) suffer from incurable diseases, such as lung damage from those who inhaled various toxins on that day and in clean-up efforts.

I have thought of the regular folks on the street who witnessed the planes crashing into the buildings, and then found themselves encased in chaos and dust. I thought of the 9/11 Truth crowd who claim, with pomposity, that the whole thing was rigged from the start, by our own government, or at the very least, that our government under George W. Bush was privy to such tidings.

And I have thought about my own excursions to New York, “the concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” as the popular Alicia Keys/Jay-Z tune goes. I live in the Southeast now but once lived in Manhattan as an infant. But since that time, I have been to the city many times. And once, I was able to go to the very top of one of the Twin Towers and looked out over the city from that phantasmal height, and I was in awe. This is an experience for which I am thankful to have been given. The view is still fertile in my mind. There, across the rail. Through the tall, shiny glass windows. Soaring and a little nearer to sky and clouds than to Earth.

And now, probably some 15 years or more since I was there, that heralded skyline is no more. I don’t need the news stations to tell me how grave and important Sept. 11, 2001, really is to all of us who love the city. I felt the thud, an intense thud, like everyone else. My “thud,” perhaps, wasn’t quite as booming as that of, say, a Mets or Yankees or Giants or Rangers fan, but it was a real thud, but not awe, as Bush later proclaimed about Iraq. For, with war, there is no “awe,” just shock and death, and “awe” is a quite macabre way to describe war.

So, tonight, now 15 minutes into Sept. 12, I am reminded of two songs, one my Ryan Adams titled, “New York, New York” (which was shot, interestingly, only four days prior to the tragedy on Sept. 7, 2001) and one more poignantly directed at the 9/11 tragedy, The Beastie Boys’ “An Open Letter to NYC.”

Here is the second video:

[Photo caption: Credit: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times; Family members of 9/11 victims at the reflecting pool during the ceremony in New York.]

As my wife and I were in the dark, somewhere between Allentown, Pa. and New York City bound for Boston, Mass. on a very long, one-day car ride, we tuned in to the third of the presidential debates, where John McCain and Barack Obama again pleaded their cases, and again laid out their, even then redundant, plans to turn America around in the wake of George W. Bush’s errant policies.

Here, like in talks before, we heard McCain mention his concern (or lack thereof, we’re not sure) for Obama’s “associations” with

Mr. Ayers, I don’t care about an old washed-up terrorist.

In the very next breath:

But as Senator Clinton said in her debates with you, we need to know the full extent of that relationship.

It’s remarkable that someone could turn about-face in a matter of half a second. Regardless, Ayers was clearly an issue, and one of Obama’s Achilles’ heels throughout the election cycle.

Yesterday, Ayers broke his silence in a column posted on The New York Times’ Web site (The column was published in Saturday’s print edition).

In it, Ayers admits:

The Weather Underground crossed lines of legality, of propriety and perhaps even of common sense. Our effectiveness can be — and still is being — debated. We did carry out symbolic acts of extreme vandalism directed at monuments to war and racism, and the attacks on property, never on people, were meant to respect human life and convey outrage and determination to end the Vietnam war. — William Ayers, column published in The New York Times, Dec. 6, 2008

In the piece, of course, Ayers says he co-founded The Weather Underground, which we already knew, and that the organization did plant “several small bombs” in government offices, including ones at the Pentagon and the Capitol in protest to the Vietnam War. He said the Undergound’s protests were peaceful, intended to harm no one and not terrorist in nature.

He goes on to express confoundment that placing two people in the same room, who had very thin, at best, associates amounted to palling around, noting, “There is a long and sad history of guilt by association in our political culture, and at crucial times we’ve been unable to rise above it.”

We didn’t pal around, and I had nothing to do with his positions. I knew him as well as thousands of others did, and like millions of others, I wish I knew him better.

Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again. And let’s hope we might now assert that in our wildly diverse society, talking and listening to the widest range of people is not a sin, but a virtue. —Ayers

The McCain camp during the campaign seemed to present the opposite argument: hang with, shake hands with, view across the room those of unscrupulous, now or at any point in the past, and be forever married to those people’s hips. Ayers closing exposed what we knew: that the McCain camp was simply trying to stir the kettle of fear by dark associations, which almost hobbled Obama’s campaign. Interestingly, as if to hint at who he supported during the election — it was quite clear from the beginning of the column as well — Ayers injected Obama’s “not this time” phrase into his last paragraph.

Ayers did well to wait until after the election to flesh these thoughts out in public. Had he tossed his proverbial voice into the already crowded cauldron of plumbers and pigs, it could have resulted in a true political circus nightmare, if it hadn’t hit that point already. Ayers admits he regretted what he did way back when, and has served his community as a professor for decades now. Since the low-level tactic didn’t dupe enough Americans, I think at this, we can let it go. What is important now is to support education, not willful ignorance, understanding, not fear, at least until the next batch of presidential candidates rolls around and tests our mettle in discerning honesty from dishonesty.

I cannot imagine engaging in actions of that kind today. And for the past 40 years, I’ve been teaching and writing about the unique value and potential of every human life, and the need to realize that potential through education. —Ayers

What is the war on terror?

What defines it and at what point might we be able to declare “victory?”

One could suggest these questions might have been more relevant six or seven years ago when this debacle began after 9/11, but as we are still in a two-front war, still being affected globally by terrorism (See: Mumbai) and still hobbled under George W. Bush’s all-encompassing declaration of war on enemies both seen (mostly unseen), it’s still relevant today.

Frankly, I still don’t know what the war on terror means. I understand it’s an active roundup of people who seek to do harm on an international scale to innocents (For the record, the “Allied” forces have killed an estimated 90,000-97,000 civilian Iraqis since 2003.) and to catch those regimes who seek to intimidate and bully governments with which they don’t agree, but terrorism has existed since the Earth cooled (Possibly, but only possibly, is this an overstatement).

A few of many examples include:

• The Crusades

• The slaughter/scattering of the Native Americans

• John Brown, the Sons of Liberty, the Ku Klux Klan, the Irish Republican Army and numerous examples from the Cold War

Thus, terrorism is not a new thing. It wasn’t created on 9/11. And most importantly, it’s not a thing we can wrap our minds, our hands or our guns around. It’s a ubiquitous thing. Like the war on drugs, it’s so ubiquitous that we can’t even imagine it’s eventual victory. Acts of terror have pervaded for centuries. The fact that we are just now in the 21st century declaring a “war” on it precludes nothing from its history.

What does “victory” look like? What would that mean?

One supposes that it means eradicating those in the world who seek to do us (Us, meaning not only Americans, but innocents around the world) harm. But how does one carry this out to its end? To declare war presupposes that said war predicates an enemy and the possibility of victory over that enemy.

But we don’t have a clearly defined enemy. We have a group of erratic, ever-shifting, ever-evolving group of networks. They have no defined “nation” and no defined “allegiance.” Unless that allegiance is said to be to Allah. And if that’s the case, we are waging a war, ultimately, against a mythical god. One can see, then, how the war on terror, taken to its extreme, can appear wholly absurd, and not only ubiquitous, but otherworldly. For, if the god supposedly served by radical Islamic terrorists orders its subjects to kill infidels (or to kill anyone) in its holy text is not worthy to be served, praised or even acknowledged.

Moreover, the War on Terror is like a giant, never-ending escape clause, excusing us from the guilt of all kinds of atrocities that otherwise would not be put up with. When will this mythical war end? What defines its victory? What does victory even mean? It’s not a war against Iraq or a war against Afghanistan. It’s a war against an ideal, an intangible. At this point, we can not predict its end. And if we somehow knew what victory would mean, we shudder at its far-reaching, centuries-long consequences.

Pulling a quote from my own, randomly generated quote box on jeremystyron.com

Universal manhood suffrage, by establishing an aristocracy of sex, imposes upon the women of this nation a more absolute and cruel despotism than monarchy; in that, woman finds a political master in her father, husband, brother, son. The aristocracies of the old world are based upon birth, wealth, refinement, education, nobility, brave deeds of chivalry; in this nation, on sex alone; exalting brute force above moral power, vice above virtue, ignorance above education, and the son above the mother who bore him. — Susan B. Anthony

What will Sen. Barack Obama’s (half white, half black) election mean for the black race? For the white race? For our country? And how will it implicate this country’s past spiral down into slavery, its civil rights upheaval of the 1960s and its future?

First, Obama’s election is hugely emblematic. For centuries, speaking as a white person, we have had no problem, in other time periods, letting blacks cook for us, farm for us, serve us food, watch our children, cart us around, even make babies for us (albeit often illegitimate ones in the eyes of the then-law), but white America seemingly has never been fully confident (in fact, wholly fearful) of giving a black man the keys to the kingdom. In a couple months, Obama will hold those keys.

But what’s at the heart of such anxiety? That a semi-black president will attempt to initiate legislation that will benefit only black people? That a supposed less experienced senator from Illinois will irresponsibly guide us out of Iraq, thus perhaps upping the level of concern for terrorism at home? That he will bumble dealings with Putin in Russia’s harsh dealings with peripheral countries and that country’s ever-leanings toward the old Russia? That he will sit across the table from guys Chavez and Ahmadinejad, without preconditions, and attempt to instill reason into unreasonable characters? That he will set up abortion clinics at every corner so as to lay waste to sexual responsibility in preference to social irresponsibility?That we ultimately don’t trust him?

What’s in a name?

According to this video: http://eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=Q4IrVrkU much is in a name. The name given to you by your parents, gauging by this account, relegates you to a life of obedience to the implications of his/her own name. So, if your name is David, is it assumed you will, for instance, slay a giant with a slingshot and take as your mistress the wife of another? If your name is Abraham, should we assume you are expected to nearly slay your son (but be called back in the end), symbolically father thousands and lead a nation. If your name happens to be Jesus, as is the case in many Hispanic families, does it follow that you will go on to heal the sick, feed thousands and raise your friends, notwithstanding, yourself, from the dead. If one of your names is Hussein, are you thus relegated to the Islamic faith, or worse, terrorism? We don’t expect people named Abraham, David or Jesus to do such things in modern times, thus, why should we expect Obama to follow a similar trend? It’s astonishing that smaller symbols combined to form more cohesive, more meaningful, larger symbols can raise so much ire in a man’s middle name. Yet, this is the absurdity some have been reduced to during this election.

Some reduced to much worse

Forty-plus years removed from the Civil Rights movement and from segregation, racism is still a real and terrifying current running through American society, so much so that a black man can’t even begin talking about positive, uplifting notions of unity and accord in this country without talks of assassination. Some 150 years from slavery, nearly a century (or less) from lynchings and cross burnings, we still have yet to come to grips with our own mutual humanness.

A minority of white people actually feel bad about that black, dark (even the words to us denotes a negative) era of American history, such that some are willing to consider reparations to make up for the sins of their white ancestors and to make up for the toil, sweat and blood shed by the enslaved, which still today creates in many black folks lingering feelings of anger and resentment that the ancestors of masters, or even the ancestors of poor white folks, can’t pretend to understand. Other whites, though admitting it was a tragic step in a subversive direction for the country, make no claims of guilt and let the past speak for itself. The present isn’t implicated by the past, some may say, and we should move forward and seek to make the reality facing us today a better one. Some, evidenced by the above article, clearly haven’t moved on and are still waging the Civil War and carrying the cloak of the KKK, albeit largely in secrecy.

Forward

So, what now? The choices before us today are ironic by every account. The Republican headliner, John McCain, an aging, white male, at times, playing second tier in the headlines to Gov. Sarah Palin, the surprising vice president female choice, a largely unknown from Alaska, who is far more fundamentally evangelical, at least publically, far less professionally qualified and arguably, less ethical than her running mate (See: Troopergate). The champion of women’s rights, Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, long since bowed out of the election. Next, Joe Biden, another aging, white male, is following, not leading, the first black man in the country to head a major party ticket.

And Obama: the greatest irony of them all. A half white, half black, Harvard-law educated, erudite man poised — and with seeming tireless poise — is hours away from making this, if it isn’t already, the most historic presidential election. Assuredly, some, black and white, will vote purely on racial grounds, regardless of who is best fit for the job, which would be an anachronistic way to approach the most important decision a person can make as a citizen. Others, I’m confident, will make informed choices.

Assuming the polls are correct and assuming McCain doesn’t make a large push down the home stretch, will an Obama win erase the legacy of slavery or Jim Crow or segregation? Certainly not. Will it move us closer to obtaining racial harmony? Time will tell, and the country’s reaction to the election, whether there will be racial scuffles, more assassination attempts, nothing at all, or positive steps toward the unity among races of which Obama so frequently speaks, will testify to the evolution, or not, of our racial character since 1964. It will, for sure, test us like nothing since that year. And in my innermost whiteness, the ironically dark lurker beneath that eggs me on to lock my car doors in urban neighborhoods, some form of underlying anxiety persists at times, one from which I can’t deny or shirk away. It seemingly runs in all of us, at the core, black and white. It is this: for blacks, a nagging resentment; for whites, an often mistrust for those of other hews, that follows us through history like a ghost. Regardless of whether we want it there or not, it’s embedded in many of our ancestries and seated firmly in the roots of our family trees. Our ability to come to grips with these feelings, channel them and find new ways to respect and dignify our fellow man will dictate how the next four years play out. After all, at the core, we exist as humans across, and independent from, racial lines. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians have family and friends they love. They have children they want to see succeed. They live with the same basic needs. At times in our history, these truths have often teetered just out of reach. We can only hope that in the near future, they will be more fully realized.

I’m not a fan of just posting a link and that being my great thought for the day, but this is telling:

http://www.republicansforobama.org/?q=node/3027