US NATSEC: A FLAWED STRATEGY? PETER HUESSEY EXCLUSIVE
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6785/pub_detail.asp
Exclusive: US National Security – A Flawed Strategy?
Peter Huessy
The Administration’s new National Security Strategy (pdf) attempts in part to rhetorically de-link diplomacy from military power when in fact the two are indispensably tied together. Every administration finds itself trying to distinguish between diplomacy—good—and the use of military force—bad—as the lexicon of our drive-by media and their political allies would have it.
But diplomacy without military force is either prayer or without effect; and military force with diplomacy is without direction. As Dr. Henry Kissinger explained in 2007, “A free standing diplomacy is an ancient American illusion. History offers few examples of it. The attempt to separate diplomacy and power results in power lacking direction and diplomacy being deprived of incentives.†Former Senator Malcolm Wallop put it perhaps more succinctly: “Diplomacy without the threat of force is but prayerâ€, [former Senator Malcolm Wallop, farewell Senate address, October 1994].
The administration is understandably trying to draw a distinction between what is often described as the “cowboy diplomacy†of the previous administration with the more reasoned and nuanced “soft power†now much in vogue. However one wants to describe the differences between the two American security policies, for most people in this country it comes down to a more prosaic issue: what are you going to do about those who use terror against us here at home and abroad? What is the threat? Who is our enemy?
Here, unfortunately, there is much confusion. The Director of the FBI implied in a recent statement that home-grown “militia†types—generally “right-wing†in their outlook, were a greater threat than Al Qaeda or other terrorists. This echoed a briefing put together earlier by the Department of Homeland Security. Before that, the Secretary of State had explained that a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda securing a nuclear weapon was a greater threat than either Iran or North Korea, even if both had nuclear weapons.
We have terror groups in this country raising funds and operating as small cells. We have had attempted violent attacks in Times Square and real violence at military bases. A military recruiter in Arkansas was killed. A doctor at Ft. Hood killed more than a dozen American soldiers. A terrorist on a plane failed to detonate a bomb in his underwear.
The administration says that our new security strategy will concentrate on stopping these threats here at home. As for overseas, we will withdraw from Iraq because apparently Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11, but we will do the job in Afghanistan because the Taliban that ruled there did provide sanctuary for the terrorist group—Al Qaeda—that attacked us on 9/11.
Mr. Brennan, of the National Security Council, says we cannot be at war with “Islam” because that will prove Osama Bin Laden right—in that Bin Laden says the US is “at war with Islam” and thus asks all Moslems to rally behind Al Qaeda to protect the faith. And that may be why we see the Attorney General avoiding at all costs in recent testimony before Congress confirming any link between “Islam†and “terrorist attacks†against the United States.
There is some basis here for such thoughts; we do not want to be at war with over one billion Muslims. And to the extent we give the impression that this is a fight between Islam and the West, we definitely give some help to those such as Al Qaeda and others who recruit followers to the mosques and madrassas by claiming the violence against the West is simply a “defense†of Islam.
For many Americans, however, Islam, or what is strangely termed “radical Islam†certainly appears to be a present danger. And thus for many Americans square in the middle of making national security policy, such a position taken by Mr. Holder and Mr. Brennan invites incredulity. Every day, we see terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, Abu Sayef and a host of others, as well as individuals, claiming to be acting “in the name of Islamâ€, with many claiming Islam itself requires them to attack the United States and those that are not sufficiently correct Moslems.
What is missing in this picture? First, a little history might be in order. Early in the Reagan administration, the then director of the CIA, William Casey, asked his intelligence people to determine whether or not the Soviet Union sponsored and supported terrorism. To his surprise, the agency bureaucrats responded that no, the Soviets did not sponsor nor support terrorism.
This was not simply an academic exercise. There was a raging debate on this subject. The US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, had spoken up about the issue of terrorism and said that the US needed “to go to the sourceâ€. And in the General’s view, the source was the Soviet Union. This did not sit well, however, with the Washington elite. They were already upset with the President himself—all this talk about evil empires and missile defense and nuclear modernization—was really too much. For these folks, so much better was the soothing world of détente and peaceful co-existence. And connecting the Soviet Union with terrorism—as Claire Sterling and others were doing—was considered, well, bad manners.
The agency staff answered Director Casey’s inquiry with the surprising assessment that the Soviet Union was not involved in terrorism. As evidence they attached to a memo justifying their position numerous editorials from Tass and Pravda denying any Soviet connection to terrorism. In the view of Moscow, and apparently many of the analysts at the CIA, terrorism against the United States and its allies bubbled up from “local grievancesâ€, worsened and accentuated by bad US policies such as our imperialism, capitalism, and, of course, support for Israel.
Let us turn to today and the fight we are in. Andy McCarthy, in his 2008 book “Willful Blindness†and Laurie Mylroie, in her 1998 book “Study of Revengeâ€, provide us some of the key answers to the question: “Whom are we fighting?†and “Why are we so confused about what strategy we need to fight successfully?â€.
McCarthy, who prosecuted the Blind Sheik in the New York trial over the latter’s incitement to commit violence against the US, (note: the cleric did not direct the 1993 World Trade Center bombing which is commonly assumed), explained that the Clinton administration saw the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as well as other terrorist attacks as primarily the work of loose networks of individuals motivated by a hatred of the United States, in part due to our transgressions against the Moslem world.
One notable example other than the 1993 World Trade Center was the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah building which the Clinton Administration ultimately blamed on right-wing talk radio and conservative politicians in America. Clinton said McVeigh and Nichols were angry at the Federal Government for what happened at Waco, where the US government destroyed a compound of Branch Dravidians.
The “anger†at the US Government was then blamed on talk radio. Talk radio was seen as the primary outlet for those concerned with the size of the Federal Government. It was easy for the Clinton administration to blame such commentators by conflating a concern with governmental intrusion in our life as somehow no different than blowing up government facilities.
As anyone with half a brain knows, conservative Talk Radio was hardly an advocate or supporter of any kind of violence at all. If anything, the left, including labor unions and some radical environmental groups, were guilty of violence against people and property. Rush Limbaugh famously labeled the Reverend Sharpton and Jackson the “Justice Brothers†for their famous threats to start riots if justice was not served—“No Justice, No peaceâ€.
But the drive-by media had their template. Time and Newsweek in the weeks following the Murrah building bombing dutifully portrayed “right wing†militias, dressed in military camouflage fatigues, running around the woods of Michigan playing at “Ninjaâ€, linked in some tortured way with Republican members of Congress and “talk radioâ€, as the new menace.
McCarthy correctly explains the result of this policy—the US counter terrorism efforts were mis-directed. Instead of looking at the issue as primarily a “law-enforcement†matter, as the Clinton administration did, where we go arrest the bad guys but generally after an attack has occurred, we should look at the issue as more a matter of “taking the fight†to the enemy and stopping attacks before they happen.
But McCarthy’s thesis in “Willful Blindness†is incomplete. And that brings us to the book by Laurie Mylroie. She unearths an extraordinary story about the plot to destroy the World Trade Center that culminated in the 1993 bombing. She identifies the crucial and missing link in the terrorism template facing America. And that was that states—and their intelligence services, military establishments and other entities—establish terror groups, as well as sponsor, train, finance and arm them. They also penetrate existing terror groups or cells and direct them for their own purposes. And then leave behind the “banana heads†to get arrested!
For example, it is widely understood that Iran and terrorists they recruited blew up our Marine barracks in Beirut. (These terrorists later became what is now Hezbollah). Iran with the help of Libya blew up the Pan Am jet over Lockerbie. Iran blew up the Israel embassy in Argentina—for which the current Defense Minister in Iran has been indicted. Libya was responsible for the bombing in the disco in Berlin.
And we now have the Czech government releasing proof of Saddam’s order to blow up Radio Free Europe in Prague in the spring of 2003, an attack stopped only by our liberation of Iraq. And we know from cell phone records that Iraq was responsible for an attack on a US base in the Philippines.
But 1993 was going to be the “big time†for Iraq. In a detailed account of the 1993 attacks, and especially from an examination of the government evidence developed about the 1993 conspirators, Mylroie makes the case that the key bomb builders for the attack were Iraqi agents, who penetrated a New York based cell of Moslem nut jobs who were themselves incapable of blowing up a mouse trap. And it is telling the attack occurred on the anniversary of the day Iraq surrendered in the Gulf War 1991.[This is but one of connections between key anniversary dates in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and seven terrorist attacks against the United States, as detailed by investigative reporter Jack Cashill].
Just as the Soviets were responsible for much of the terror in the world during the height of the Cold War, it might be useful to determine the extent to which states—Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Cuba—and their allies are today responsible for the arming, training and financing of terror groups worldwide. After all, the US Department of State annually publishes a list and description of “state sponsors of terrorismâ€. Shouldn’t we explore who they are?
The former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet testified that there is an important connection between the World Trade Center attacks of 1993 and 2001. It is not as commonly believed, Al Qaeda. In fact, the US Government says the first attack against the United States by Al Qaeda was the embassy attacks in Africa in 1998. Nowhere does the US Government claim the 1993 attacks in New York were the result of Al Qaeda. [All this can be gleaned from Mylroie’s more recent publications].
But what Tenet claimed was the connection between the two attacks were two people: Ramzi Yousef and his uncle, Khalid Sheik Muhammad. Both were from Baluchistan an area where Saddam’s Iraq recruited people to work against Iran, among other purposes. Both were certainly not “devout†Muslims. But they were both Iraq intelligence agents.
This is no way underestimates the threat from the home-grown terrorists we are finding here in America or the terror cells affiliated with Hezbollah and other terror groups. But it does raise the issue of whether we are ready to find the connections—if any–to their overseas “mastersâ€. And it directs us to understand that the distinction is critical: state sponsors, such as Iran or Iraq, have the potential to have nuclear or biological or radiological weapons as part of their deadly arsenals. These weapons could then be given to terror groups specially created solely for the purpose of detonating such a weapon in an American city. As David Sanger of the New York Times explained some weeks ago, while we often speak of a terrorist group stealing or buying a nuclear weapon, we rarely speak of a terrorist organization being GIVEN a nuclear weapon.
Just as the Soviets farmed out the supply of explosives to the former Czechoslovakia, and wet work to the Bulgarians, and guerilla war trainers to Cuba, so too there is what the former head of the Northern Alliance called a “poisonous coalition,” that included “Pakistani and Arab intelligence agencies; impoverished young students bused to their deaths as volunteer fighters from Pakistani religious schools; exiled Central Asian Islamic radicals; … and wealthy sheikhs and preachers who jetted in from the Persian Gulf.” And as he explained, Al Qaeda was just one part of that alliance and a rather insignificant one at that. [This gentleman, Massoud, was murdered by agents of Al Qaeda just days before 9/11. And of course, the Northern Alliance were the key partners of the US military that went to war and overthrew the Taliban].
And as Michael Ledeen repeatedly emphasizes, in such a coalition, what is most important are not the puppets but the puppet masters. Unfortunately, we now have had two successive administrations’ that have, in part, concentrated on AQ because that is who we say attacked us on 9/11. Logically, we now go after them so they will not attack us again. And that is why Americans do not understand why we are in Iraq—after all, they say, Al Qaeda was not provided sanctuary in Baghdad by Saddam.
And while “jihadis†are attacking us in Afghanistan (the Taliban) and Iraq, (largely Ba-athist directed) and here in America, (Ft. Hood, the Christmas bomber), and thus we have to go after these people so they will not attack us again, critics argue that we are being attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan only because we went there in the first place.
The truth of the matter is that whatever the motives of the state sponsors of terrorism, and whatever they claim are the reasons for their war on us, and whether or not individuals are motivated by Islam, many states are at war with us and they mean to destroy us.
There is an intellectually justified position to say we are not at war with Islam; but there is also an intellectually correct position that there is a vast canvass of violence across the globe and much of it is being painted by those who claim guidance from Islam. That must be addressed.
And this threat is not either just Al Qaeda or mostly Al Qaeda. It is just as Massoud said: we are facing a powerful and deadly “poisonous coalition†of states, intelligence agencies, charities, arms suppliers, and an army of recruits from madrasas and mosques that supply the cannon fodder that tragically is being used to kill Moslem and “infidel†alike.
In January 2004, David Kay, our leader of inspectors in Iraq had this to say before the US Senate: “The threat from Iraq is even more serious not because of stockpiles of weapons but because Iraq had become prior to its liberation a ‘terrorists bazaar’ where weapons of mass destruction know-how could be stolen, bought or smuggled.†Our rhetoric can make us prisoners of policies that turn out to be wrong-headed; but it also can imprison us in a political template that disregards the facts, however unsettling they may be.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Huessy is on the Board of the Maryland Taxpayers Association and President of Geostrategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland, a national security firm.
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