Comments Posted By andy
Displaying 161 To 170 Of 258 Comments
AN UNSCHOLARLY, NON-LAWYERLY OPINION ON THE NSA DECISION
Rick,
I largely agree with what you have to say. I think that the President needs the tools to fight this war, but I'm concerned about the future for a couple of reasons.
First, this war will probably be multi-generational. If the executive claims wide powers derived from the force authorization for a decade or more, then it will become institutionalized and the executive will be reluctant to give that up. We can’t underestimate bureaucratic inertia in this regard. From my perspective, we will be fighting this war in-perpetuity. I'm very uncomfortable giving the executive broad wartime powers like the NSA program for the rest of my lifetime. If it’s not obvious from my previous comments, I don’t consider this a right-left argument and has nothing to do with W as President. Those on the right who strongly support the widest possible interpretation of Presidential powers seem to forget the time-scale of this problem and the fact that sooner or later there will be a moderate or liberal in the White House. Take a historical look at wartime Presidents. Typically, there were one or two different Presidents at most during wartime. This war will not follow that model.
Second is mission creep. Will these programs only be used to fight terrorists or can they be used in other ways? Who decides when one of these programs crosses the line into an unauthorized area? Who defines what a terrorist is for the purposes of Presidential powers and the authorization of force? (Can the NSA and other programs be used to monitor the domestic terrorists for example?) What mechanisms are in place to prevent abuse and who controls them? Mission creep is a real possibility that must be prevented.
Those are only some of the questions and problems with the current situation. In my opinion, Congress needs to do its job and rewrite the vague and blanket authorization it gave the President after 9/11. It should write a new authorization formally declaring war and define who we are at war with and under what conditions that war could be declared over. As it stands now, who decides when this war is over? It's not like we can invade the "terrorist" capital city and force surrender. The authorization seems to point at Al Qaeda. What happens if Al Qaeda is destroyed but other threats remain? Or what if, as seems to be happening, AQ is morphing into an even more decentralized organization with no central control?
Congress should also explicitly spell out what powers the President has and does not have with regard to the “war on terror.†They should give the President wide latitude to prosecute the war but ensure that the executive cannot expand those powers to other areas without further Congressional approval. Finally, they should stipulate that the authorization will be revisited every few years to make adjustments or changes as necessary. The need to develop an oversight plan that doesn't hinder the executive's ability to prosecute the war, but still ensures that abuse cannot take place. Congress needs to make these changes and definitions because this war is unlike wars in the past and, like I said above, will continue for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, I doubt any of my suggestions will be implemented because 90% of the people in Congress are political hack dirtbags, not to mention generally stupid. They need to step up to the plate and do their jobs but I just don't see it happening. If they did their job, the judiciary wouldn’t have to make judgments on their legality based on limited, leaked, and one-sided information.
Finally, if such a plan were implemented, I believe it would cut down on the politically motivated security leaks that exposed the NSA and other programs. If the limits of Presidential powers were defined, and Congress (or at least the full intelligence committee) had a defined oversight role, then it’s more likely that these programs would be seen as legitimate and legal. A false hope perhaps, but I think that the White House has itself to partially blame for these leaks because they didn’t definitively establish their legality and have consistently claimed the other branches of Government do not have a say in these so-called “wartime operations."
Comment Posted By Andy On 19.08.2006 @ 13:43
WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE ISRAELI-ISLAMIST WAR
DEagle,
While targeted attacks may not completely work, I can guarantee that a "total war" approach will fail. Lebanon is a complex, multi-ethnic country. It is not in our strategic interest to wipe Lebanon clean in order to get Hezbollah. Are we to punish the Christians and Druze because the Shiites elected a bunch of thugs? Even if it were possible, even if was a morally acceptable course of action, even if we could minimize the tremendous negative consequences of such an action, it still would not achieve the desired result. We are not Stalinist Russia where we purge not only our enemies, but any potential enemies as well, to ensure compliance. History has shown, with few exceptions, that such tactics do not work unless you're willing to use the power of the State as Stalin did.
But let's not assume that the solution to this problem only lies in the military realm. Ultimately, defeating an insurgency or an established terrorist organization requires more than force, and often force is a small part of the overall strategy. I won't go into specifics here, but if you google the Army Field Manual on Counterinsurgency and read it, it will give you a good overview of sucessful tactics to defeat these kinds of forces.
In the case of Hizbollah, they are directly supported by the local Shiite population as well as Syria and Iran. Until that support can be minimized or ended, Hezbollah will not be defeated, plain and simple. Drastic military measures will likely result in strengthening those ties and entrenching Hezbollah further. If Hezbollah suffers a significant military defeat, they will do what all guerilla groups do and disperse and hide in the local population that supports them. Just look at Iraq to see what a difficult nut to crack that would be. Israel has already been down that road in Lebanon and Hezbollah's creation was a direct result of Israel's invasion and some of the huge mistakes it made there. Similar to Hezbollah, the IRA also had a political wing. The IRA was never defeated militarily despite many decades of counter-insurgency operations - it finally made the conscious decision to end its terrorist methods for a variety of reasons - not because it was on the ropes militarily.
Ultimately, the Shiite population in Lebanon must make the conscious decision that supporting Hezbollah is not in their best interest, and the same is true with regard to Iran and Syria. This will be a "long war" and we should not delude ourselves by thinking that short-term military solutions will work. Again, as we can see in Iraq, they don't work. It took some time, but even our conventional military forces and leadership now realize what must be done to defeat the Iraqi insurgency. We can't afford to make the same mistakes in dealing with Hezbollah.
Comment Posted By Andy On 15.08.2006 @ 10:58
Sorry, but I don't see how this "Dresden" or nuclear option could work. Hezbollah is not just a terrorist group. It's also a political party and part of the Lebanese government. If you want to use the "Dresden" option, then you'll take out all of Lebanon in the process. At the very least, you'd have to kill all the Shiites in Lebanon - not exactly an easy or moral task.
Although those kinds of tactics have a certain allure, they typically fail. Take a look at Chechnya or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Nukes weren't used of course, but both were left in total ruin and the Russians/Soviets still lost. Even the Dresden bombings in WWII did not have any effect on the outcome of the war. The nukes on Japan only hastened the surrender of an already beaten enemy. Such a course of action against Hizbollah would only lead to disaster.
Comment Posted By Andy On 15.08.2006 @ 01:00
Rick,
Thanks for replying to my comment.
To take it further, a loss of 600 fighters or 20% of their force is only a tactical loss. A guerilla force such as Hizbollah can easily absorb that. I'm sure after all the Israeli bombing of Shiite areas that they will have many volunteer replacements.
Nasrallah can claim strategic victory simply because Hizbollah, at least for the time being, was able to deny Israel a strategic victory. Israel met none of its state war objectives. Nasrallah can claim that his forces fought the Israelis and did not lose. In the Arab mind, that is a victory.
The future is still uncertain, however, and depending on what happens with this UN fiasco, Hizbollah could still suffer a significant defeat, either politically, militarily, or both. Right now, though, Israeli mistakes have given Hizbollah the upper hand in my opinion.
Comment Posted By Andy On 14.08.2006 @ 21:49
Rick,
Please don't make the mistake that a high casualty ratio equals victory. That is one lesson we do not need to relearn. The number of casualties one inflicts on the enemy as compared to your own is only one factor in determining victory, and a minor factor when fighting guerillas/insurgents. In fact, very rarely does an insurgent force inflict more casualities than the government or convential force - whether or not they win or lose.
In the case of Hizbollah, they clearly won because Israel failed to achieve any of its strategic objectives. They lost a lot of fighters, but their leadership, both military and political, are intact and they still have support of the local populace, Syria and Iran. Hezbollah will now work to undermine the UN force (an easy thing to do) and use it as cover to rearm and reorganize.
B. Poster:
Our concern in Panama was to quickly neutralize the forces loyal to Noriega and quickly capture him and his senior leadership to prevent them from "taking to the hills." In that regard, what you heard on Fox was largely correct. However, Noriega was not popular, and without external support, Noriega's ability to mount much of an insurgency was probably minimal.
Comment Posted By Andy On 14.08.2006 @ 18:05
Also, I have to largely agree with the two latest posts from ThreatsWatch:
http://rapidrecon.threatswatch.org/2006/08/the-warm-up-war/
Comment Posted By Andy On 13.08.2006 @ 14:08
http://rapidrecon.threatswatch.org/2006/08/re-warm-up-war/
I read the Totten piece too and I don't completely agree with the Israeli Spokesman. As long as Hezbollah receives support (weapons, training, etc) from the Syrians and Iran, Israel won't be able to decisively beat them militarily. The bulk of the Hezbollah leadership remains intact, and it won't take much for them to train replacement fighters, though they'll admittedly be less experienced. I'm frankly surprised that Israel has said and done so little about Iranian and Syrian support. Fighting proxy wars against state-sponsored guerilla forces has historically been a losing proposition, and this case is no different. There are no easy answers, but Israel must break the bond between Hezbollah and its sponsors if it wants to ultimately win. This is one area that the U.S. could provide direct assistance through a combination of diplomacy, coercion and other methods. Syria and Iran are not natural allies and a all the instruments of influence and power the US and Israel posses must focus on dividing them and ending their support for Hezbollah. Ultimately, though, it may come down to Israel confronting Syria directly and making a similar judgment as we did after 9/11 - that they will no longer make a distinction between the Hezbollah terrorists and the government of Syria, and that Hezbollah targets inside Syria can be attacked. A dangerous course of action, to be sure, but there may be few alternatives.
As you alluded, the potential for a Hezbollah political victory is certainly there. We'll have to see if they are able to capitalize on the "victimization" mentality inherent in the Arab world and Lebanon (and enhanced by Israeli operations and civilian casualties) and the lack of a decisive Hezbollah military defeat.
There are also long-term problems that may play into Hezbollah's hand - the war has pretty much ended the economic rebirth Lebanon in general, but Beirut in particular, were experiencing. A major part of that now dead economic boom was tourism, which is unlikely to recover anytime soon. The costs associated with rebuilding infrastructure combined with severely decreased economic activity may bring more radical elements into the government, particularly if Hezbollah is seen as the victim along with the rest of Lebanon.
So if this latest UN agreement fails to work, which I believe is likely, then the entire scenario will probably be a net loss for Israel. They'll face a reconstituted and potentially more politically powerful Hezbollah, a weaker Lebanese government, and an emboldened Iran and Syria. Add those negatives on top of Israel's failure to achieve its strategic objectives in this conflict, and the situation looks bleak. I sure hope I'm wrong.
Comment Posted By Andy On 13.08.2006 @ 13:59
THE DEMONS ARE STIRRING...THE CANDLE IS GUTTERING
and yes, this is a cultural and religious war, comparable to the war islam is waging upon the west right now.
Call me when you see Richard Dawkins fly a plane into a church, will you? Even though he thinks you're a bunch of idiots, he's not going to kill you for it (after all, no virgins for us atheists!).
Darwinism serves as a basis for social values and morals, Hitler would not have slaughtered the jews, had he considered them created by the same God who created him, but darwinism gave him the justification to slaughter those he considered ‘sub-human’
Crusades... Inquisition... Salem... The "Troubles"...
....yes you supporters of darwinism have much to answer for.
On the bright side, our answers will be chock full of reason and evidence, whereas yours will be irrational nonsense.
I have a question: how is it you function in normal society as an (apparently) sane individual?
Comment Posted By andy On 17.08.2006 @ 19:58
don’t like freedom of speech, you piece of
Given that freedom of speech does not mean that a private property owner must allow you to speak on his private property in any manner that you may wish, this would make ignorant/stupid misrepresentation #472 for tom.
I think that's a blogospheric record.
Comment Posted By andy On 16.08.2006 @ 13:31
all your efforts toilet plunger, are for naught, polls show your lies aren’t working
Polls also show that, despite it being nothing more than basic rote memorization, Americans are quite geographically ignorant. Hardly shocking, then, that they don't put forth the effort to grasp the somewhat, just a slight, bit more complex topic of evolution.
Instead they struggle to find Iraq on a map and they ask dumb questions like "Why doesn't steel evolve?"
This is more a sad comment on the ignorance of Americans than on the science of evolution.
Comment Posted By andy On 14.08.2006 @ 18:39
