Doesn't Look Like FEAR Unit

During the Bush years we had a lot of loud law enforcement officials making loud statements about breaking up "terror cells" that didn't seem to be very important and fell apart upon the slightest consideration. So far in the Obama Administration we have the opposite - very quiet officials making almost no statements about what appear to be extremely serious threats.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior government officials have announced dozens of terrorism cases that on closer examination seemed to diminish as legitimate threats. The accumulating evidence against a Denver airport shuttle driver suggests he may be different, with some investigators calling his case the most serious in years.

Documents filed in Brooklyn against the driver, Najibullah Zazi, contend he bought chemicals needed to build a bomb — hydrogen peroxide, acetone and hydrochloric acid — and in doing so, Mr. Zazi took a critical step made by few other terrorism suspects.

If government allegations are to be believed, Mr. Zazi, a legal immigrant from Afghanistan, had carefully prepared for a terrorist attack. He attended a Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, received training in explosives and stored in his laptop computer nine pages of instructions for making bombs from the same kind of chemicals he had bought.

While many important facts remain unknown, those allegations alone would distinguish Mr. Zazi from nearly all the other defendants in United States terrorism cases in recent years.

The FBI claims to have multiple instances of Zazi buying chemicals needed to build a bomb, with surveillance videos and receipts, and in pretty large quantities - this guy probably doesn't need 12 32-ounce bottles of "Ms. K Liquid 40 Volume" hair product. I don't know that hydrogen peroxide bombs equal weapons of mass destruction, but the guy seems to have had the intention of doing harm, and law enforcement figured it out and picked him up.

That's how the system should work. And they're not holding big hair-raising press conferences about it, either. People are doing their jobs.

...a very contrary view on the making of peroxide bombs, and their strength. The science of it doesn't exactly add up. Zazi may have WANTED to blow something up, but that doesn't mean buying a bunch of beauty supply products and mixing them would allow him to do so. More here.

And if there is any good news in this depressing tale it's that it is some evidence that despite the passage of years, al Qaeda has shown little if any talent for improving many of its methods. They're still reliant on idiots who comb drugstores and beauty salons for makeshift ingredients after a beggar's trip/trawl around the Internet.

Used To Be Big News

US Special Forces raided a house in Somalia and killed an Al Qaeda leader purportedly linked to the African Embassy bombings in 1998.

Helicopter-borne US special forces carried out a revenge raid in Somalia that killed a top al-Qaida commander high on the FBI's most wanted terrorist list, US officials in Washington said last night.

Saleh Ali Nabhan, 28, a leader of al-Shabab, a group closely linked to al-Qaida, was alleged to have been involved in the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 229 people. He is also accused of involvement in attacks in 2002 on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, popular with Israelis, in which 15 people died, and a botched missile attack on a plane carrying tourists from Mombasa to Israel.

A US official said two men travelling in a car in Somalia were killed when helicopters opened fire yesterday, and two others were wounded and captured. Another official said it was most likely that Nabhan, who had been on the FBI wanted list for several years, had been killed.

Also yesterday, the FBI rolled up a terror cell in New York City with swift action, obtaining an emergency warrant and briefing the relevant committees in Congress while arresting members of the cell.

I seem to remember a breathless day of news reports every time the Bush Administration captured or killed the #3 in Al Qaeda, which they claimed to do with regularity. Also, the media would get alerted about some major terrorist event thwarted, which would quickly fall apart upon scrutiny (they were trying to blow up the Sears Tower! I mean, talking about it. I mean, they couldn't afford to get from Miami to Chicago. I mean, never mind).

Doesn't seem that the Obama Administration uses these arrests or raids for political purposes, just to carry out orders. There may be issues with their methods, but they aren't being exploitative. I don't think the 9-12ers will be satisfied that the Administration is doing what pretty much everyone wanted to do on 9-12; that is, capture suspected terrorists and stop attacks before they happen.

The Al Qaeda Slump

It's going to be a real blow to neocon efforts to frighten their way to victory, once they recognize that they may have to find a new enemy.

Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan's remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organisation.

Speaking to the Guardian in advance of tomorrow's eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, western counter-terrorism officials and specialists in the Muslim world said the organisation faced a crisis that was severely affecting its ability to find, inspire and train willing fighters.

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to "affiliates" or "franchises" in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the centre are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

This has a host of implications on our foreign policy moving forward:

• The article credits CIA drone strikes in part, although I do think they increase the amount of extremist activity in general. But there have always been extremists; Al Qaeda provided a durable network. Once which is foundering. And if the demand for extremism dries up with the lack of a durable network, then ultimately the entire project will topple upon itself.

• Of greater benefit is monitoring and law enforcement techniques, which have been proven effective in disrupting "core Al Qaeda," which is down to 6 or 8 people and maybe another couple hundred on the margins. To the extent that these techniques work, they are not labor-intensive, involve global cooperation and do not have a role for the US military to any strong extent. You do not put 100,000 troops in the field to deny 8 men safe havens. Much of the intelligence, in fact, is coming from relatives and friends, suggesting that giant military apparatuses are not required to deal with a movement that has become broadly unpopular.

• The Pakistan campaign is really helping disrupt Al Qaeda, as the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban have turned on the unit, probably because it's giving them so much trouble.

This all adds up to yet another reason why we have no need continuing escalation in Afghanistan. The local Taliban hate Al Qaeda and would not be likely to offer them safe havens should they topple the central government, which is unlikely outside the areas where they have ethnic solidarity. In Pakistan they're simply on the run. There's a better chance of Al Qaeda consolidating in a place like Somalia than Afghanistan. They don't exist there right now, and no group fighting for control wants them in place. So why are we still fighting there?

Nancy Pelosi said today that there's no support in the country for a further escalation. If people truly understood the lack of a threat from Afghanistan, how our presence has inflamed the insurgency, and how we can through a variety of containment, law enforcement and intelligence techniques maintain national security without a military footprint, that support would drop even further from the perilous point it's at right now.

Cheney's Attack On The Criminal Justice System

Yesterday a British court followed the rules of their country's legal system and convicted people for illegal acts. It's a novel idea, to be sure, and certainly more expensive than simply locking up anyone you suspect of a crime - just think of the court costs! - but hey, they're such cute kids in England, let them have their little idealist system.

After two trials and the largest counterterrorism investigation in Britain’s history, three men were found guilty on Monday of plotting to bomb at least seven trans-Atlantic airliners on a single day with liquid explosives smuggled aboard in soft-drink bottles and detonated by devices powered with AA batteries.

The convictions came three years after the global airline industry was thrown into chaos by the plot. The bombers’ plan to drain plastic soft-drink bottles with syringes and refill them with concentrated hydrogen peroxide, a bleaching agent also used as a propellant for rockets, led to new measures prohibiting passengers from carrying all but small quantities of liquids and creams onto flights.

With those measures still in force and causing backups at airport security checkpoints around the world, the police and intelligence agencies in Britain and the United States had waited anxiously for verdicts in the six-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London, where eight men were accused of conspiracy to stage the airliner bombings [...]

In Washington, the Obama administration praised the verdict on Monday.

“British authorities have worked diligently to investigate and prosecute those involved in the 2006 aviation plot,” Mike Hammer, a National Security Council spokesman, said via e-mail. “We congratulate them on those efforts and extend our thanks to the British government for seeing these efforts through to today’s conclusion.”

I also want to thank Dick Cheney for almost ruining the successful effort to bring these convicted terrorists to justice, because his political party needed a high-profile capture to help them in the 2006 midterm elections.

Dick Cheney, the former US Vice President, nearly destroyed Britain’s efforts to bring the airline bomb plotters to justice, police and intelligence experts said today.

By ordering the early arrest of Rashid Rauf, the bombers’ link man in Pakistan, Washington forced British police to detain the suspects in the UK before all the evidence had been gathered, it was claimed [...]

Although Britain was running the investigation, including a massive round-the-clock surveillance of 200 suspects, the UK was not warned that Rauf - the al-Qaeda facilitator who kept the English plotters in touch with bomb experts and terrorism trainers in Pakistan - was going to be arrested.

What the early arrest did was force an early arrest and trial, where a more deliberate course could have netted more people and broken up the entire cell.

Never let it be said that Dick Cheney doesn't hate the current criminal justice system. He obviously hates it so much that he overtly acted to thwart its success back in 2006.

The Facts Of The Gates Case

The Henry Louis Gates situation is mainly a distraction. But there's also a serious policy component. Policemen should not be allowed to arrest someone for being an asshole in their own home. If that was the case, right-wing bloggers would all be doing 10-20. It appears clear, and I guess there may be audio tape to this effect, that the cop came to Gates' house, figured out that he was not a burglar, words were exchanged, and then the cop arrested him for disorderly conduct. That's really over the line of what cops should be allowed to do, regardless of the motivations, racial or otherwise.

The crime of disorderly conduct, beloved by cops who get into arguments with citizens, requires that the public be involved. Here's the relevant law from the Massachusetts Appeals Court, with citations and quotations omitted:

The statute authorizing prosecutions for disorderly conduct, G.L. c. 272, § 53, has been saved from constitutional infirmity by incorporating the definition of "disorderly" contained in § 250.2(1)(a) and (c) of the Model Penal Code. The resulting definition of "disorderly" includes only those individuals who, "with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof ... (a) engage in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or ... (c) create a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.' "Public" is defined as affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.

The lesson most cops understand (apart from the importance of using the word "tumultuous," which features prominently in Crowley's report) is that a person cannot violate 272/53 by yelling in his own home.

Read Crowley's report and stop on page two when he admits seeing Gates's Harvard photo ID. I don't care what Gates had said to him up until then, Crowley was obligated to leave. He had identified Gates. Any further investigation of Gates' right to be present in the house could have been done elsewhere. His decision to call HUPD seems disproportionate, but we could give him points for thoroughness if he had made that call from his car while keeping an eye on the house. Had a citizen refused to leave Gates' home after being told to, the cops could have made an arrest for trespass.

But for the sake of education, let's watch while Crowley makes it worse. Read on. He's staying put in Gates' home, having been asked to leave, and Gates is demanding his identification. What does Crowley do? He suggests that if Gates wants his name and badge number, he'll have to come outside to get it. What? Crowley may be forgiven for the initial approach and questioning, but surely he should understand that a citizen will be miffed at being questioned about his right to be in his own home. Perhaps Crowley could commit the following sentences to memory: "I'm sorry for disturbing you," and "I'm glad you're all right."

Spoiling for a fight, Crowley refuses to repeat his name and badge number. Most of us would hand over a business card or write the information on a scrap of paper. No, Crowley is upset and he's mad at Gates. He's been accused of racism. Nobody likes that, but if a cop can't take an insult without retaliating, he's in the wrong job. When a person is given a gun and a badge, we better make sure he's got a firm grasp on his temper. If Crowley had called Gates a name, I'd be disappointed in him, but Crowley did something much worse. He set Gates up for a criminal charge to punish Gates for his own embarrassment.

By telling Gates to come outside, Crowley establishes that he has lost all semblance of professionalism. It has now become personal and he wants to create a violation of 272/53. He gets Gates out onto the porch because a crowd has gathered providing onlookers who could experience alarm. Note his careful recitation (tumultuous behavior outside the residence in view of the public). And please do not overlook Crowley's final act of provocation. He tells an angry citizen to calm down while producing handcuffs. The only plausible question for the chief to ask about that little detail is: "Are you stupid, or do you think I'm stupid?" Crowley produced those handcuffs to provoke Gates and then arrested him. The decision to arrest is telling. If Crowley believed the charge was valid, he could have issued a summons. An arrest under these circumstances shows his true intent: to humiliate Gates.

The cop baited the guy into leaving the house so he could arrest him for making a cop feel bad.

I appreciate the work of law enforcement. But regardless of race, too many cops have the belief that if they get insulted, they have the right to turn that into an arresting offense. That's not the law whatsoever, nor should it be. It creates a chilling effect among the public not to call out bad behavior in law enforcement or raise your voice in any way. I know we're all supposed to believe that cops are saintly, but I live in LA. Police misconduct happens all the time, and we should be vigilant when it does.

Instead, the media takes the soccer ball and chases it into the corner, without any semblance of factual records or perspective. It becomes an emotional argument instead of a factual record of misconduct. We pay cops with tax money. We should not risk arrest when arguing with them.

Josh Marshall hit this from a different angle last night.

Here We Go With The Hissy

You could see this coming the moment Lynn Sweet asked the question. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the wingers put her up to it:

The right is now mobilizing heavily against President Obama's comments last night about the Henry Louis Gates case.

The NRCC has sent out a press release, challenging individual House Dems about whether they agree with Obama that the police "acted stupidly":

The president was slow to point out any wrongdoing in the wake of the Iranian election and his administration was quick to force through a failed stimulus plan even though they 'misread' the economy. This is certainly a questionable rush to judgment coming from a president who hasn't exactly been quick to call out unconscionable behavior by a merciless foreign dictator or gotten his facts straight before advocating a trillion-dollar mistake to address our ailing economy. Is it really presidential for him to cast harsh judgment of a law enforcement official without all the facts?

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh is being much more blunt in a racial appeal:

"Last week, we saw white firefighters under assault by agents of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor," said Limbaugh (emphasis his). He added: "Now, white policemen are under assault from the East Room of the White House, by the President of the United States, after admitting he had no -- he didn't know all the facts, what went on in there."

The facts of the case, just by virtue of the police dropping the charges after a day or so, are pretty clear.

I really don't think this will work. I get the idea - to push a white backlash by foregrounding some war on public safety personnel, who are seen as inviolable. Did you know that they've never made a false arrest? But common sense takes over at some point. This may appeal to those with a racial chip on their shoulder, but I don't think anyone without one would argue that cops arresting a guy in his own home is absurd. Libertarians should really reject this, I would think.

And by the way, can we get over the notion that we're in a post-racial society now?

UPDATE: The President:

"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement because I think it was a pretty straight forward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home," Obama said [...]

"I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do," the president told Moran. "And my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed. That's my suspicion."

Tweety is going off about a President venturing opinions about a criminal case, when all the charges were dropped. Oh Lord.

...Oh, and Kitty Seeyle is an idiot. "Americans got a rare glimpse Wednesday night of what it means to have a black president in the Oval Office." Yes, and get ready for the white enslavement camps, my bitches! Because first the President considers arresting a man in his own home a stupid act, and then you're all headed to the camps... Up against the wall, whitey!

CA-50: Sheriffs Raid Busby Fundraiser

An exceedingly strange story out of the San Diego area.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a fundraiser for Francine Busby, who previously ran for the deeply-Republican Fiftieth District (editor's note: it's not that deeply Republican, Obama won here 51-47) and came close to winning in the 2006 special election and subsequent regular election, was raided by sheriffs after an unnamed neighbor made a noise complaint. Busby now calls it a "phony" noise complaint, and the article says that multiple neighbors said there was no great noise at all.

Here's the twist: The fundraiser was hosted by a lesbian couple, and shortly before the sheriffs came a particular neighbor had shouted anti-gay slurs at the assembled crowd. "It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes," Busby says.

As one neighbor told the paper: "We didn't hear anything until the sheriff came, with eight patrol cars and a helicopter."

The sheriff's department claims that somebody kicked an officer. By the time it was over, multiple people were pepper-sprayed, one of the hostesses was arrested, and the whole neighborhood got to see quite a scene.

One of the officers defended the department's conduct -- turning the blame on the candidate: "The place got out of hand. If Francine Busby was there, why not take a leadership role, step up, and nip this thing in the bud?"

There's more detail at this Daily Kos diary from arodb, who was there. I like the part where the police department blames Francine Busby for their own failure to recognize that no noise violation was taking place inside the fundraiser.

I'm trying to get some more information from the campaign, will bring it when I have it.

UPDATE: TPMDC interviews Francine Busby about this incident, and basically, she singles out the homophobic heckler for creating the noise that brought the cops to the scene:

"You could hear his voice very clearly, it was loud. But as far as the actual words, I didn't hear them," Busby explained. "I heard my name, and obviously derogatory words. Other people heard profanity, and somebody heard something about gays, as well." It should be noted that the event was hosted by a lesbian couple.

"The deputies were telling people that they were taking statements from, that the call came in about noise from a Democratic rally, or Democratic demonstration," said Busby. In fact, she said, she had last spoken at about 8:30 p.m., and the police arrived an hour later when most of the attendees had left. "It was a nuisance-noise call, because there was no noise, and the fact that it was described as a Democratic rally or demonstration indicates to me that this person was calling for his own political motives."

The LA Times reports that the San Diego County Sheriff's Department will open an investigation into the incident, particularly the use of pepper spray.

The Sad Sack Four - Terrorist Masterminds, Or Losers?

There really is a fine line between terrorists and wayward stoners goaded by an informant into hashing out criminal plots. There's a disturbing level of what I would consider entrapment in a lot of these terrorist busts. These guys in NYC who were busted for plotting to blow up synagogues don't seem like model citizens, but they were amateurs, schizophrenics and stoners and at some point, you have to ask yourself why we are putting so much effort into getting low-lifes like this to put together plots they aren't equipped to carry out, for the expressed purpose of arresting them for those plots.

Obviously these four wanted to commit these acts, and by all accounts the informant's actions were legal. But I agree with Moe Tkacik at TPMM:

It's easy to laugh at this gang of goons -- and we've done our share of that. But, frankly, it's also hard not to feel some compassion for what looks like a group of struggling, credulous, under-educated men, existing on the fringes of society, who lacked the intelligence or willpower to avoid getting taken in by a government informant anxious to mitigate his own situation, and by their own vague understanding of radical Islam and the hole it might fill in their lives.

And as for what this might say about the threat of home-grown terror, it's almost reassuring that the biggest terror bust we've seen in a while has this sad-sack group at his center.

You cannot take this stuff for granted, but at what point to we draw the line on how much an informant can lead?

Algiers Point Update

Following up on a previous item about white vigilante killings of black residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Police Superintendent of New Orleans says he is "looking into" the allegations. Given the seriousness of that statement, I'm certain it'll be entirely thorough.

In a press release sent to the media and local government officials, Riley said, “he is currently looking into the allegations, and asked if anyone has substantial information relative to any incidents of this type call to the New Orleans Police Department Bureau of Investigations.” [...]

Riley said the NOPD was unaware of this violence prior to the story’s publication. The department, according to Riley’s statement, “did not receive any complaints or information to substantiate any of the allegations of racial conflicts or vigilante type crimes in the City of New Orleans including the Algiers Point on the west bank of the City.”

That's just simply not true. Not only did the authors of the recent report contact the NOPD during the 18-month investigation, but this is not a new story. It was featured in the Spike Lee documentary "When The Levees Broke," for example.

Needless to say, I'm unimpressed that Riley will be "looking into" the incidents, but public pressure will likely leave him no choice. If you haven't yet, sign the Color of Change petition.

...here's the companion video to the Nation/Pro Publica story.

Militia Watch

I think that the bit about an Obama assassination should be taken out of this neo-Nazi plot to target African-Americans. Clearly they had already plotted a significant portion of the effort to rob a gun store and shoot up a couple predominantly black high schools in Tennessee. But the Obama part of the deal was more like a "I know, and then we'll get in our cars and drive to Obama's house" kind of thing. Still serious, and I'm glad law enforcement worked in this case and they were caught, but the assassination part feels more aspirational than anything.

This is an example of the ever-present prospect of violence around race in America. I'm undecided on whether an Obama election would help or hurt.

This Is Not America

As we move away from the RNC Convention, I hope that the brutal treatment by law enforcement of peaceful protesters doesn't get completely ignored. The major media hasn't raised much of a peep about it, but there are so many outrages - really police state outrages - that occurred last week that at least somebody should mention it. They used tear gas, concussion grenades, physical barriers, and nightsticks; snatched people off the streets, arrested hundreds and raided homes.

This is really the kind of thing you'd see in the Soviet Union or its satellite states. And our silence equals complicity. I don't know what to do about this. The media views protesters with scorn and ridicule, making it acceptable to deprive them of their civil liberties and brutalize them. They have few advocates anywhere in society. And yet each outrageous assault makes the next one more likely, and expands the police state. We haven't reached a breaking point because there is a systemic barrier to allow anyone to reach it.

The Keep Us Safe Society

It's worth mentioning that this locked-down surveillance state in the Twin Cities is a function of basing the last couple of Presidential elections on which candidate can keep the American people safe. By focusing on that to the abstraction of all else, we start to value security over liberty, and we stop questioning the encroachment of those liberties. This is really unacceptable:

The only interesting events going on here are the raids of local hippies by an aggressive and corrupt county sheriff, and I'll be heading to the formal protest in a few minutes. What's dispiriting is just how complicit people are in this security state; outside the Democratic rapid response center, I spoke to a (probably liberal) woman who expressed comfort at all the security in that it will help prevent bombs from the anarchists.

This is the essence of 'security theater', intended to intimidate rather than protect. I took pictures of the riot police, and I have to say I was scared in doing so because there was literally no one around, two squads of riot police, and brick buildings on one side and barbed wire fences on the other.

This isn't a Republican problem, by the way. The Fleet Center in Boston in 2004 was just as bad, and there's ridiculous amounts of security theater all over the country, supplemented by higher security budgets since 9/11 and a blanket acceptance of our loss of freedoms by citizens and elites. Go to Capitol Hill or the White House and you'll see what I mean, though the conventions are far worse.

And it's even worse - rubber bullets are being fired at protesters, tear gas, water cannons and pepper spray is being used. It goes without saying that there's no opportunity for this to shock anyone's conscience because it simply isn't being played on TV. But even if it was, I'm not so sure that there would be a majority opposed to the actions. The fetish of "being kept safe" - the idea that abusing your fellow man is OK in the name of security, even without evidence that there's a security threat and when the goal is not security but intimidation - has really lowered our threshold of intolerance toward this.

Proud To Be An American

Despite attending the DNC convention, the presence of protesters wasn't all that prominent unless you knew where to look. The security presence was palpable, and there definitely were lots of anti-abortion activists in the streets, but overall you had to look for and find the more wide-scale protests that were expected. And the cops actually facilitated the Tent State march on the Pepsi Center on Wednesday by leading the parade.

The RNC is far different, at least so far. Before one activist has hit the streets, before the delegates have even assembled, there is a coordinated effort by law enforcement to raid suspected protesters and imprison them.

Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with sub-machine guns drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here.

Here's some streaming video of an ongoing raid as well. Lindsay Beyerstein has further info on another raid. There are reports of law enforcement snatching people off the streets as well. The National Lawyers Guild is dispatching attorneys to these sites and then THEY are being detained. This is a full-on police state in the Twin Cities so the authoritarians can hold their party without being burdened with dissent.

This is the 21st century reality of a growing surveillance state and how the feds handle big events - with brute force and ruthlessness. The STASI would be impressed.

Hey, Studying Terrorism, There's A Thought!

This RAND Corporation study is really kind of incredible. Actually the most incredible thing is that it's not ten years old. We have been aware of extremist groups like Al-Qaeda for at least a decade, it's been a major focal point for the government since 2001, and we're just getting around to studying how terrorist groups fail? Seriously?

Anyway, you might be interested to know that they fail due to the exact opposite policies that we've been undertaking.

All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? Answers to this question have enormous implications for counterterrorism efforts. The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because (1) they joined the political process or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members. Military force has rarely been
the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory. This has significant implications for dealing with al Qa’ida and suggests fundamentally rethinking post–September 11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy [...]

What does this mean for counterterrorism efforts against al Qa’ida? After September 11, 2001, the U.S. strategy against al Qa’ida centered on the use of military force. Indeed, U.S. policymakers and key national-security documents referred to operations against al Qa’ida as the war on terrorism. Other instruments were also used, such as cutting off terrorist financing, providing foreign assistance, engaging in diplomacy, and sharing information with foreign governments. But military force was the primary instrument.

The evidence by 2008 suggested that the U.S. strategy was not successful in undermining al Qa’ida’s capabilities. Our assessment concludes that al Qa’ida remained a strong and competent organization. Its goals were the same: uniting Muslims to fight the United States and its allies (the far enemy) and overthrowing western-friendly regimes in the Middle East (the near enemy) to establish a pan-Islamic caliphate. Al Qa’ida has been involved in more terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001, than it was during its prior history. These attacks spanned Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Al Qa’ida’s modus operandi also evolved and included a repertoire of more-sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and a growing use of suicide attacks. Its organizational structure evolved, making it a more dangerous enemy.

Al Qa’ida’s resurgence should trigger a fundamental rethinking of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. Based on our analysis of how terrorist groups end, a political solution is not possible. Since al Qa’ida’s goal remains the establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate, there is little reason to expect that a negotiated settlement with governments in the Middle East is possible. A more effective approach would be adopting a two-front strategy.

First, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts. In Europe, North America, North Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, al Qa’ida consists of a network of individuals who need to be tracked and arrested. This would require careful work abroad from such organizations as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as well as their cooperation with foreign police and intelligence agencies. Second, military force, though not necessarily U.S. soldiers, may be a necessary instrument when al Qa’ida is involved in an insurgency. Local military forces frequently have more legitimacy to operate than the United States has, and they have a better understanding of the operating environment, even if they need to develop the capacity to deal with insurgent groups over the long run. This means a light U.S. military footprint or none at all. The U.S. military can play a critical role in building indigenous capacity but should generally resist being drawn into combat operations in Muslim societies, since its presence is likely to increase terrorist recruitment.

A key part of this strategy should include ending the notion of a war on terrorism and replacing it with such concepts as counterterrorism, which most governments with significant terrorist threats use. The British government, among others, has already taken this step and abjured the phrase war on terror. The phrase raises public expectations—both in the United States and elsewhere—that there is a battlefield solution to the problem of terrorism. It also encourages others abroad to respond by conducting a jihad (or holy war) against the United States and elevates them to the status of holy warriors. Terrorists should be
perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors.

Our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism. Military force usually has the opposite effect from what is intended: It is often overused, alienates the local population by its heavy-handed nature, and provides a window of opportunity for terrorist-group recruitment. This strategy should also include rebalancing U.S. resources and attention on police and intelligence work. It also means increasing budgets at the CIA, U.S. Department of Justice, and U.S. Department of State and scaling back the U.S. Department of Defense’s focus and resources on counterterrorism. U.S. special operations forces will remain critical, as will U.S. military operations to counter terrorist groups involved in insurgencies.

Pretty goddamn simple, huh? It's not like these concepts of blowback, of inflaming local populations, and of treating heinous crimes as crimes are, you know, foreign. They have formed the backbone of counterterrorism strategy since the Visigoths. They're what John Kerry actually ran on in 2004 (which earned him ridicule - I'm sure everyone is very, very sorry now). The current strategy of planting more flags in the Middle East, bombing local populations from 30,000 feet, torturing, using belligerent rhetoric like "war or terror" and "clash of civilizations" has not worked. Period. And we're in an election where we know that one candidate would not only maintain these policies, but go further.

Militarism, colonialism and unilaterism are making us less safe. This study offers hope that a President Obama might draw back from the "if not x then y" military approach that suggests we dump forces in Afghanistan, and maybe rethink the overall strategy for using all of our instruments of power to reach the actual mission goal - to end this terrorist groups the way other terrorist groups ended. The fact that DNI McConnell is actually allowing intel analysts use expert opinion in making their assessments, that's a start. The fact that Obama is talking about transparent, deliberate processes to deal with capturing terrorists and bringing them to justice - and McCain is joining him on opposite days, another start. But we need to rethink and revamp the policy entirely.

Mayor Villaraigosa's Good Week

I consider Antonio Villaraigosa's term as mayor to be generally a disappointment. Brought into office with a lot of hope and even more hype, Villaraigosa has certainly made his way around the city, the nation and the world, appearing at every event from the biggest gala to random neighborhood picnics, but he hasn't gotten a whole lot done other than commandeering the school board. It's as hard to govern Los Angeles as it has California, but the energy and enthusiasm Villaraigosa has for the job seems to be an end in itself, and it certainly isn't channeled into an agenda that can be at all considered progressive.

However, this has been a pretty good week for him. He started by presiding over his first same-sex marriage, which may have been a political calculation but still reflects his abiding belief in equality, so I applaud it. Then, he announced his support of a half-cent sales tax hike to fund mass transit. Big-city mayors are obviously sensitive to transit issues, but Villaraigosa is making sure they are prioritized. This could be a reaction to a Metro Board study that showed on-time rates to be among the worst in the nation. The Metro Board has hired ten more supervisors in response to that, and yesterday they drafted the proposal for the sales tax increase for the November ballot as part of a 25-year plan. If Villaraigosa, who sits on the Metro Board and appoints three other members, can make himself the poster child for expanded transit, and transform LA from a car city to a more vibrant transit culture, he will have left a positive legacy.

Finally, Villaraigosa's LAPD successfully fought a court challenge over its policy banning officers from "initiating contact with people for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status." It's a resource question but also one about the kind of city we want to be, one that is humane and respects the dignity of our people or one like an Eastern Bloc nation constantly asking everyone for their papers and engages in ethnic profiling. The LAPD now has the legal right to continue their policy.

The Mayor certainly has higher aspirations, and with some more weeks like this, he may actually deserve them.

2004 Revisited

The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign made a big deal out of John Kerry saying that we have to get terrorism down to the level where it's a "nuisance." It was a deliberate misinterpretation, but their argument was that treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue was insufficient to the BIGGEST THREAT TO OUR WAY OF LIFE ZOMG EVAH!!!!1!

They're ramping up the same argument in the wake of this Barack Obama interview:

TAPPER: Speaking of the Supreme Court, you applauded the decision that the Supreme Court made last week. The Bush administration says, no matter what people think about other programs, other policies they've initiated, there has not been a terrorist attack within the U.S. since 9/11. And they say the reason that is, is because of the domestic programs, many of which you opposed, the NSA surveillance program, Guantanamo Bay, and other programs.

How do you know that they're wrong? It's not possible that they're right?

OBAMA: Well, keep in mind I haven't opposed, for example, the national security surveillance program, the NSA program. What I've said that we can do it within the constraints of our civil liberties and our Constitution.

TAPPER: They disagree, though.

OBAMA: Well, but the fact that they disagree does not mean that they're right on this. What it means is, is that they have been willing to skirt basic protections that are in our Constitution, that our founders put in place.

And it is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. And there has been no evidence on their part that we can't.

And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.

And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world, and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, "Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims."

So that, I think, is an example of something that was unnecessary. We could have done the exact same thing, but done it in a way that was consistent with our laws.

I tried to offer the full context. The detractors that the McCain campaign brought out yesterday certainly didn't. James Woolsey, who was last seen ginning up war in Iraq based on Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi, called Obama naive and delusional. Pot, kettle, etc. Rudy Giuliani was roused from a 9-11 Film Festival to accuse Obama of having a 9-10 mindset. Better than having 9-11 withdrawal syndrome. But here's the statement, which bears closer reading:

"Throughout this campaign, I have been very concerned that the Democrats want to take a step back to the failed policies that treated terrorism solely as a law enforcement matter rather than a clear and present danger. Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals -- a belief that underscores his fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security."

Now, nobody actually said that they want to treat terrorism "solely" as a law enforcement matter. Obama's call to bomb Al Qaeda outlets in Pakistan once got a stern rebuke from McCain. And the real point is that every Administration uses a mix of military action and law enforcement, including this one. The FBI is involved in counter-terrorism. Local law enforcement is involved. Rudy's beloved NYPD has a huge counter-terrorism threat center. The Bush-McCain strategy, however, backgrounds law enforcement in favor of imperial dominance. So I agree with Yglesias' provocative point:

But of course the GOP philosophy has for years now been that we need to hit the terrorists hard where they aren't, while letting problems in Central Asia fester because they're difficult. Meanwhile, the "old days" Goldfarb is talking about never existed. In retrospect, I think we all wish the Clinton administration had been somewhat more aggressive in its approach to al-Qaeda, but as I note in the book more Americans (and many, many more people overall) have died as a result of the idiotic response to 9/11 that Bush and McCain embraced than actually died on that day.

The shortcomings of previous policy are no reason to go implement a worse policy. Military force will play a role in U.S. counterterrorism strategy, but it simply has a limited utility in dealing with the problem. If you don't recognize that, you wind up blundering down the Bush/Rumsfeld/McCain/Feith road of sending troops to Iraq because Iraq contains good military targets rather than coming up with an actual strategy for fighting terrorism.

Obama hit back against this pretty hard yesterday, accusing McCain of playing politics with national security, and using "terrorism as a club to make people afraid." It's kind of a meta point, but it's far better than not addressing it at all. And I loved this point:

Reminded that the Republican playbook worked in the 2004 presidential race, Obama countered: "Well, it's 2008."

People know failure when they see it. No matter how much you tell them it's sunny, they feel the rain on their heads.

UPDATE: More on this flare-up in today's Washington Post. It's actually a pretty solid article.

Winning The Immigration Debate, Losing The Immigration Reality

I know that Markos is convinced that immigration as a wedge issue was a big loser for Republicans, and I agree. Clearly they have gotten little or no traction from it electorally, and their dash headlong into the arms of xenophobes increasingly cements their status as a permanent minority party, particularly as the Hispanic population grows and becomes a political force.

However, that's a reality of politics that's going to play out over the next decade or so. Right now, the anti-immigrant forces have shown sufficient perceived power to send Republicans (and more than a few Democrats) cowering. And the policies that have been implemented since the last attempt at comprehensive immigration reform are incredibly damaging and catastrophic. The consequences of waiting for the politics to become more favorable are grave.

Everybody chided Hillary Clinton for her not-entirely-coherent views on the policy of the then-governor from New York, Eliot Spitzer, to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. There was a lot of demagoguery in the press and the plan fizzled in New York and on the national stage. There were consequences to that failure.

Luz Gonzalez used to take spur-of-the-moment trips to the beach. Now, she's afraid to drive to the doctor for checkups on her new pregnancy. She and her husband, Ismael, can no longer have a savings account or a car registered in their names. Every time they drive to church, they watch for the flash of blue lights in the mirror.

The Gonzalezes, who identified themselves by only one of their two surnames, are among many illegal immigrants in North Carolina who are beginning a new life — one without driver's licenses. A 2006 state law made it impossible for illegal immigrants to renew their licenses. The change was talked about mostly as a tool to combat terrorism — several of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks had licenses.

But it's also created a crisis in the Hispanic community and a potential hazard on the roads. As licenses issued under the old rules expire, advocates and law enforcement authorities say many illegal immigrants, who number an estimated 300,000 in North Carolina, are now driving without licenses or insurance.

This is a public safety nightmare waiting to happen. Tens of thousands of unlicensed drivers on the roads, who may not know the traffic laws, who are sure to leave the scene of any accident lest they risk deportation - that has a deleterious effect on the nation's roadways.

Then we have the dramatic increase in immigration prosecutions with the effective end of the "catch-and-release" program. Border enforcement officials are using the broadest possible definitions of "crime" to arrest virtually everyone found crossing the border, which is unsustainable and a distraction from actual border crimes like drug smuggling and human trafficking. This is especially true because border resources are finite - the money being put into failed initiatives like the virtual fence isn't going into a law enforcement apparatus that is straining against having to arrest, house and prosecute all of these individuals. There's border security and there's "border security" which threatens actual security by tying up the tools of law enforcement. There's also the fact that it's a completely misplaced policy:

Others note that, historically, immigration violations have been processed by U.S. administrative courts. Criminalizing illegal immigration while turning a blind eye to employers who provide the jobs that lure migrants makes for good election-year politics but poor policy, said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

"This strategy pretty much has it backwards," he said. "It's going after desperate people who are crossing the border in search of a better way of life, instead of going after employers who are hiring people who have no right to work in this country."

And this hardline crackdown, thoroughly supported by a Democratic establishment that thinks a tough stance on enforcement is their way out of the immigration issue, means that things like this happen for no reason whatsoever:

In May 2007, Victoria Arellano, a 23-year-old transgender immigrant from Mexico, was sent to a detention center in San Pedro after being arrested on a traffic charge.

Arellano, who was born a male and had come to the United States illegally as a child, had AIDS at the time of her arrest but exhibited no symptoms of the disease because of the medication she took daily. But once detained, her health began to deteriorate.She lost weight and became sick. She repeatedly pleaded with staff members at the detention center to see a doctor to get the antibiotics she needed to stay alive, according to immigrant detainees with whom Arellano shared a dormitory-style cell. But her requests were routinely ignored.

The task of caring for Arellano fell to her fellow detainees. They dampened their own towels and used them to cool her fever; they turned cardboard boxes into makeshift trash cans to collect her vomit. As her condition worsened, the detainees, outraged that Arellano was not being treated, staged a strike: They refused to get in line for the nightly head count until she was taken to the detention center's infirmary.

Officials relented, and Arellano was sent to the infirmary, then to a hospital nearby. But after two days there -- and after having spent two months at the federally operated facility -- she died of an AIDS-related infection. Her family has taken steps to file a wrongful-death claim against the federal government.

These immigration detention centers are growing as the "prosecute everyone" philosophy pervades all levels of government. They have no minimum standards to provide healthcare and are mainly managed by private contractors. The immigrants inside these detention centers are not even under criminal charges, but civil violations as they await deportation. The next detainee may be this valedictorian who has lived in America since he was 2 years old:

Arthur Mkoyan's 4.0 grade-point average has made him a valedictorian at Bullard High School in Fresno and qualified him to enter one of the state's top universities.

But while his classmates look forward to dorm food and college courses this fall, Arthur Mkoyan may not make it.

He is being deported.

Arthur, 17, and his mother have been ordered out of the country. By late June, they may be headed to Armenia [...]

Mark Silverman, director of immigration policy at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco, said Arthur Mkoyan's case illustrates why Congress should have passed the Dream Act. The act would have allowed students who excelled in school and stayed out of trouble to become permanent residents and attend college or enlist in the military

"There's something very wrong with the immigration laws when our government is deporting our best students," Silverman said.

Absolutely right, but Democrats were confident that they would win this debate in the long run if they didn't rock the boat and offer a sensible alternative to a xenophobic hardline set of policies. As a result, bright students are being sent away, hundreds of thousands are driving without licenses, law enforcement can't focus on actual security measures, and immigrants are dying - needlessly.

It's not enough to just "win" politically on this issue. There has to be some actual conviction to stand up to pernicious policies that warehouse humans, deny them basic medical care, and hold children responsible for the actions of their parents. Republicans didn't care that their position has been discredited at the ballot box - they kept forging ahead. The Rahm Emanuel position is to encourage Democrats to take a right-wing stance to defuse the issue until such a time as it's politically convenient. Arthur Mkoyan and Victoria Arellano won't have the luxury of waiting around.

Phony Law Enforcement Badges

Considering the criminal enterprise being run out of the White House these days, maybe the Mitt Romney campaign is just undergoing some heavy preparation:

In an apparent violation of the law, a controverisal aide to ex-Gov. Mitt Romney created phony law enforcement badges that he and other staffers used on the campaign trail to strong-arm reporters, avoid paying tolls and trick security guards into giving them immediate access to campaign venues, sources told the Herald.

The bogus badges were part of the bizarre security tactics allegedly employed by Jay Garrity, the director of operations for Romney who is under investigation for impersonating a law enforcement officer in two states. Garrity is on a leave of absence from the campaign while the probe is ongoing.

A campaign source said Garrity directed underlings on Romney’s presidential staff to use the badges at events nationwide to create an image of security and to ensure that the governor’s events went smoothly.

So Team Romney has deployed its own police staff to enforce the law as they saw fit, literally making up the rules as they went along.

And that's different how?

I think Romney's going to be their guy. Just look, he's got the "rally the base through fear" part down:



Nice spellin' on moma. Unless Chelsea Clinton bought the Museum of Modern Art.