Attackerman

C'mon, Peter

Washing yourself in the blood, eh, Mr. Feaver?

Indeed, the single greatest and undeniable foreign policy achievement of the Obama Administration -- tracking and successfully targeting Bin Laden -- came not because Obama reversed course from the previous Administration but because he stayed the course.

Um. You mean like how under Bush, the CIA disbanded the unit looking for bin Laden and under Obama it was the agency's top priority? I truly never want to have you in the car when I need a map read.

 

Fucking Over Idealistic Aspirations (F.O.I.A.)

Imagine my joy when I received a manila envelope in the mail bearing "DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE/OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL" in the upper left. How I should have known better.

"This is in response to your Freedom of Information Act request dated January 26, 2009," OLC Special Counsel Paul P. Colborn informed me. I forgot I filed a FOIA on January 26, 2009. Why? Because it's May 25, 2011. 

Apparently I was so seized with hope and change and such in those bygone days that I wanted to read the OLC's correspondence with the CIA about torture. Within my envelope was a memo, dated July 20, 2007 from acting OLC chief Steven Bradbury for John Rizzo, then the CIA general counsel: "Re: Application of the War Crimes Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to Certain Techniques that May Be Used by the CIA in the Interrogation of High Value al Qaeda Detainees." 

A stunning new declassification? Hardly. It was part of the Obama Justice Department's 2009 torture disclosures.  The ACLU published the document long ago. Here's a version of it in the Washington Post. More comically, here's an analysis of it penned by my friend Daphne Eviatar, back when we were both working at the Washington Independent.

Savor this: it took two and a half years for the Obama DOJ to provide me with a document it declassified two years ago.

I would hazard a guess that maybe 20 percent of the FOIA requests I've filed in my nine (shudder) years in D.C. journalism have been fulfilled. None have ever been fulfilled promptly. Unless you have a legal team and an angel investor, FOIA ain't shit but prose and tricks.  

When There's Nothing On The Horizon, You've Got Nothing Left To Prove

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 442-11

May 25, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of four soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died May 23, in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

Killed were:

Staff Sgt. Kristofferson B. Lorenzo, 33, of Chula Vista, Calif.,

Pfc. William S. Blevins, 21, of Sardinia, Ohio,

Pvt. Andrew M. Krippner, 20, Garland, Texas; and

Pvt. Thomas C. Allers, 23, of Plainwell, Mich.

For more information the media may contact the 25th Infantry Division public affairs office at 808-655-6351.

All The Beating Drums, The Celebration Guns

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 438-11

May 24, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation New Dawn.

They died May 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the1st Battalion, 63rd Armor, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

Killed were:

Sgt. 1st Class Clifford E. Beattie, 37, of Medical Lake, Wash., and

Pfc. Ramon Mora Jr., 19, of Ontario, Calif.

For more information, the media may contact the 1st Infantry Division public affairs office at 785-240-6359.

Bullets, and Biting Them

From Bob Gates' speech at Notre Dame, on the defense budget and U.S. strategy. The all-important "To Be Sure" graf:

To be sure, a strong military cannot exist without a strong economy underpinning it. At some point fiscal insolvency at home translates into strategic insolvency abroad. As part of America getting its financial house in order, the size of our defense budget must be addressed. That means culling more bureaucratic excess and overhead, taking a hard look at personnel levels and costs, and reexamining missions and capabilities to separate the desirable or optional from the essential. But throughout this process we should keep in mind historian Donald Kagan’s observation that the preservation of peace depends upon those states seeking that goal having both the preponderant power and the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve it. And we must not forget what Winston Churchill once said, that “the price of greatness is responsibility…the people of the United States cannot escape world responsibility.”

"Culling more bureaucratic excess" is not a recipe for avoiding "strategic insolvency." The defense budget, including the wars, is $700 billion every year; without the wars, it's around $530-$550 billion. What really is a rigorous approach is to "reexamin[e] missions and capabilities." Simply put, the U.S. has to jettison some things it does abroad. If solvency is the indispensible aspect of U.S. power, then the military needs to look at whether it can afford the "full-spectrum" capabilities it's talked about developing during the latter years of the 2010s. One person's "full-spectrum" is another person's refusal to prioritize roles and missions. Gordon Adams, Chris Preble and the Sustainable Task Force folks are really, really right about this.

You can look at Libya as either a proof or a refutation of the Solvency imperative: it's a new, open-ended commitment for the military and the country; it also places the U.S. in a supporting role. From my perspective, it's more refutation than proof, but it's a reasonably ambiguous case.

Adams, Preble et. al and Gates are not very far apart on this. They'd agree on the outlines for strategy. Maybe they'd debate each marginal case. That's healthy. But typically this debate gets charactured into an annoyingly binary choice between isolation and hegemony, which is a roadmap to slouch toward insolvency. 

When There's Nothing On The Horizon, You've Got Nothing Left To Prove

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 412-11

May 16, 2011

DOD Identifies Marine Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two Marines who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Kevin B. Balduf, 27, of Nashville, Tenn., and Lt. Col. Benjamin J. Palmer, 43, of Modesto, Calif., died May 12 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

This incident is currently under investigation.

Sgt. Balduf was assigned to 8th Communications Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. For additional background information on this Marine, news media representatives may contact the II Marine Expeditionary Force public affairs office at 910-451-5260.

When There's Nothing On The Horizon, You've Got Nothing Left To Prove

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 410-11

May 15, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Amaru Aguilar, 26, of Miami, Fla. died May 13, at Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when his unit encountered small arms fire. He was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

For more information, the media may contact the 1st Infantry Division public affairs office at 785-240-6359.

It Hasn't Been My Day For A Couple Years; What's A Couple More

Man, sometimes you re-read your old pieces and think, I used to know how to write. What happened?

Common Sense: The New Reflection of White Anxiety

Curious what Common really said in his 'Letter to the Law' poem? Rap Genius has you covered. Telling how Fox missed the "no time for that, cause there's things to be done/ stay true to what I do so the youth dream come," line. Which isn't delivered in the patois that marks the poem's violent protagonist. Protagonist. As in character.  As in fictional device. 

When you turn Common into Huey Newton, you are revealing there aren't many blacks you don't fear. That fear is marking white America, as Matthew Yglesias and Adam Serwer document. It's time for whites to stop locating the sources of their misery in other peoples' advancement, take their own constantly-doled-out advice, reject the demagogues and rise above. 

 

When There's Nothing On The Horizon, You've Got Nothing Left To Prove

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 400-11

May 12, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

1st Lt. Demetrius M. Frison, 26, of Lancaster, Pa., died May 10 in Khost province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Knox, Ky.

For more information, media may contact the Fort Knox public affairs office at 502-613-3051.