Attackerman

Caproni Youth

Valerie Caproni is the most important national-security official you've never heard of. As the general council of the FBI, she's had a hand in practically every significant domestic surveillance, evidence-collection and counterterrorism measure of the 9/11 Era. And today she's decamping from the FBI for the verdant, lucrative pastures of Northrop Grumman.

So who wants to join me in an ironic pop group themed around terrorism called Caproni Youth? I will drum, and I nominate Julian Sanchez as our frontman.

 

On The Bucking-Down of Anwar al-Awlaki

Confession time: I'm not so great at lawfare observances. That's why I, like, read Lawfare and the more expert journalists Adam Serwer and Charlie Savage. But that would feel like a cop-out on a day when the U.S. (probably) killed an American citizen accused of being an operational member of al-Qaida.

So I rustled together this piece for Danger Room, based on the contrasting perspectives of two leading experts in lawfare: retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Charlie Dunlap and University of Notre Dame professor Mary Ellen O'Connell. If the piece succeeds, it'll have explored the complexities of the question, itemized the specific legal issues at stake, and distinguished between moral, political and strictly legal dimensions of the Awlaki dilemma. If it fails, it'll be a he-said-she-said. 

Will you let me know what you think? I want to make sure I do these kinds of pieces better in the future.

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

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 840-11

September 30, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died Sep 28, in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 5th Engineer Battalion, 4th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.

Killed were:

1st Lt. Ivan D. Lechowich, 27, of Valrico, Fla.,

Spc. Steven E. Gutowski, 24, of Plymouth, Mass., and

Pfc. David A. Drake, 21, of Lumberton, Texas

For more information the media may contact the Fort Leonard Wood public affairs office at 573-563-4145.

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

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 839-11

September 30, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty

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

1st. Lt. Andres Zermeno, 26, of San Antonio, Texas, died Sep. 25 in Wardak province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort. Polk, La.

For more information the media may contact the 10th Mountain Division public affairs office at 315-772-8286 or Julie Cupernall at [email protected].

The Night That Anwar Awlaki Was Killed

Piece for Danger Room. Break you off with a little taste of the remix:

It would also mean that the Obama administration assassinated an American citizen without due process of law. Ever since evidence emerged in late 2009 that Awlaki communicated with both Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the U.S. has launched numerous air strikes in the hope of killing him. A bevy of U.S. counterterrorism officials have testified that Awlaki plays an “operational” role in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. None have offered any evidence for that conclusion.

Whether or not Awlaki in fact had any operational role in al-Qaida, his influence over its propaganda operations is undisputed. For years, Awlaki has preached al-Qaida’s message in English on YouTube. It was a clear propaganda coup for the terrorist network: an American citizen, speaking English, constructed religious arguments for killing his fellow Americans. The administration prevailed on YouTube to take many of Awlaki’s videos down, out of the fear that YouTube trollers would heed the call, but keeping them down has been difficult. A YouTube search on Friday yields several of Awlaki’s conspiracy-soaked sermons.

So let's say you're the Obama administration. You don't want to deal with the nettlesome question of why it's legal to kill an American citizen without due process of law. You also don't want to release evidence of Awlaki's active operational membership in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Would the smart play be to not claim responsibility for Awlaki's death? The Yemeni government statement announcing it left the circumstances of the killing nebulous. 

On the other hand, since it's prooooooobably gonna come out that Awlaki was iced in an air strike, maybe that's not tenable. And it denies Obama a political victory, since the public would much rather care about Dead Al Qaeda Guy than Assassinated American Citizen. (Although probably no more than a few thousand people in the Northeast Corridor know who Awlaki is.)

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

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 837-11

September 29, 2011

DOD Identifies Marine Casualty

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

Lance Cpl. John R. Wimpey Cagle, 19, of Tucker, Ga., died Sept. 28 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

This incident is under investigation.

For additional background information on this Marine, news media representatives may contact the 2nd Marine Division public affairs office at 910-378-6193.

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

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 832-11

September 29, 2011

DOD Identifies Army Casualty

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

Spc. Garrett A. Fant, 21, of American Canyon, Calif., died Sept. 26 in Helmand province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Heavy 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.

Kill Yr Idols

Having dealt with this FBI Islamophobia shit for weeks now, it was pretty dispiriting to read Frank Miller's long-awaited Holy Terror comic. The backstory: Miller has, for years, been working on a superhero comic about avenging 9/11 -- originally it was to star Batman -- that devolved into a screed against Islam. And this wasn't from some marginal creator, it's from one of the greatest geniuses in comic-book history. (Ronin, Sin City, The Dark Knight Returns, 300, Daredevil "Born Again," etc.)

So I did what I had to do, over at WIRED's Underwire blog. A sample:

It’s no accident that [Holy Terror is] being released ten years after 9/11. This comic would be unthinkable during the unity that the U.S. felt after the attack.

Instead, it’s a perfect cultural artifact of this dark period in American life, when the FBI teaches its agents that “mainstream” Islam is indistinguishable from terrorism and a community center near Ground Zero gets labeled a “victory mosque.” Call it the artwork of 9/11 decadence, when all that remains of a horror is a carefully nurtured grievance.

And with that, I'm taking off for Rosh Hashanah. L'Shana Tova to all my tribespeople. 

How To Win In Afghanistan: More Gibberish

Maj. Fernando Lujan saw a bunch of tactical advancements during his tour in Afghanistan, and so he's sick of the rest of us fretting that after 10 years of war, it's not adding up to strategic success. Luckily, he's got a plan:

“Winning” is a meaningless word in this type of war, but something is happening in the Afghan south that gives me hope. Rather than resignation, America should show resolve — not to maintain a large troop presence or extend timelines, but to be smarter about the way we use our tapering resources to empower those Afghans willing to lead and serve.

Sorry. That's just gibberish. All we have to do is get better at backing the good Afghans? Well, why didn't anyone say something over the past ten years! Chances are, anyone who writes a recommendation of the form "We have to keep doing this thing that's failed, only get smarter at it so it doesn't fail" probably hasn't thought that recommendation through.

There's nothing in Lujan's op-ed about a peace process. Nothing about the very different and arguably more important fight in eastern Afghanistan. Nothing about the costs of war, the relative interests at stake, or the opportunity costs of ignoring other security issues during our Afghanistan preoccupation. There's not even any discussion of the words "terrorism" or "al-Qaeda" here.

He's right about one thing, though. We certainly do have to get smarter about the way we use our tapering resources. 

Judis Wins

I'm proud to have worked with John Judis when I was coming up. Articles like this are why: rigorous, humane, and intolerant of intellectual laziness. It's not just that Judis argues that Obama should have backed a Palestinian state at the United Nations. It's the methodical, incontestable case he constructs, aimed at the heart of Zionist consistency:

I have heard some arguments for why the United States should not favor UN membership for Palestine, but they sound very much like arguments for why the United States should not favor a Palestinian state at all. Moreover, they are the sorts of arguments that easily could have been used in 1947 against UN support for a Jewish majority state.

The United States, it is said, should not assist Palestinians in gaining membership at the UN because some Palestinians still don’t recognize the right of Israel to exist. But guess what? In 1947, there were Zionists identified with the Revisionist movement (parts of which later came together to create Likud) who denied the right of Palestinians to a state. They wanted all of Palestine and even Jordan for a Jewish state; and some of them were willing to use terror and assassination to achieve their ends. And there are still many Israelis who deny the right of Palestinians to a state. That didn’t preclude our helping Palestine’s Jews achieve statehood through the UN, and it shouldn’t impede our helping the Palestinians.

Brave and bold, that's John. 

I should say something else. Good for TNR and its new editor, Richard Just, for publishing this. I'm not going to open old wounds or relitigate an ugly incident that's long past. It's just a credit to the magazine that it lent its digital pages to Judis' argument, knowing full well what it means. That's in line with TNR's best traditions of intellectual honesty, the history that made me fall in love with the magazine way back when.