Warrior President takes down another al Qaeda leader

A few points of retort:

I'm not aware of anyone- and here I'm including even the most ardent critics of the war on terror- who has vocalized issues with killing someone on a battlefield. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of those killed by drone strikes are far from any battlefield, in al-Quso's case it was reported he was exiting a vehicle.

That is the first problem, and one that has never meaningfully been addressed with regards to current drone operations taking place around the world.

The second issue which has been noted in this thread is the absence of auditability and accountability. Of the hundreds killed by drones, even the official reports suggest that a substantial portion are nothing more than innocent civilians, and considering the frequency of the attacks, there's no question that there's been full out attacks that were done entirely by mistake. There are many skeptics when it comes to reading these official reports, and its one reason why, as has been noted in another thread, "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism."

Because the government doesnt even acknowledge the existence of this program, and because the information flow concerning the operations are so heavily filtered, we're not in a position to appraise the efficacy of the program, whether or not alternate options can be selected, or the collateral damage we're inflicting on the very towns and cities we're supposed to be nation building in...

So in sum, the problem is that we're not only assassinating suspected militants as opposed to trying to capture them and try them in a court of law, but that we do so with virtual impunity while at the same time undermining our strategic objectives in those regions going forward.

 

To substantiate my second point:

U.S. Confirms Afghan Airstrike Mistake

 

Technically a battlefield in this situation is considered anywhere outside of US jurisdiction. When in US jurisdiction then that is considered a matter of law enforcement. Now I am not saying that to be flippant or to say that is a good thing just that that is how the war on terror has been defined. To be more specific though Yemen actually is a battlefield and the US is allied with the Yemeni government fighting a civil war against Al Qaeda.

Agreed that is a huge problem and there is no such thing as a clean precise war. That said though in regard to Al-Quso there is a fair amount publicly known about him from his indictments and conviction in Yemen. It is known that he planned the USS Cole attack and not someone who was targetted based solely on classified material or hit by accident. This wasn't just from secret government memos but from evidence heard by a Grand Jury in District court in NY.

Just to point out we are not very much engaged in nation building in Yemen. Perhaps we should but I doubt that the US has the will or resources to commit to doing that.

Ideally yes I would like to see these people brought to justice. I even said this about OBL in the OBL thread. Whether that is practical I really don't know but I have the feeling it's not. I am not going to say I blanket support this strategy but I have a hard time arguing against it when it comes to people like Al-Quso and Al-Awlaki.

 

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Sure, nothing about Yemen resembles a battlefield...other than, you know, the battles that islamists and al qaeda and the gov't and other militas have been fighting for years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/yemen-al-qaeda-attack_n_1494211.html

Can't a guy just drive around with a bunch of militants and get shelled by governmetn forces in war zones in peace without worrying about a drone killing you...? Jeez loueez

 

This "double standard" simply is the fact that the American government and the American media values American lives more than they value say, African or Middle Eastern lives. Shocker. Perhaps it's offensive to someone who so badly values the moral high ground.

 

Wow, Fareed Zakaria's article/blog depressed the hell out of me. Another article I saw yesterday:

 

This has to be one of the most egregious statements I've ever heard. Who concocted this definition? How has the entire earth (save the US) become a de facto battlefield within which everybody and anybody can be subject to violent death at the whim of an aggressive military apparatus?

Also, when in US jurisdiction, it is not necessarily a matter of law enforcement. As a result of the numerous terrorism-related laws, anyone suspected of terrorism can be held indefinitely in a military detention facility without so much as being told the reason for detention, let alone being afforded due process.

This is how the war on terror has been interpreted by many. In no way has the 'war on terror' been reasonably defined- as many posters have pointed out, this is an unending, increasingly pointless endeavor within which both sides interminably perpetuate violence against one another in the hopes of establishing peace.

Yemen is not a battlefield- it is a country that experiences violent activity as a result of localized terror groups. Regardless of the symantics, it is a hard sell to honestly state someone leaving their vehicle is in a battlefield. This is the predominant way in which drones get utilized- missiles dropped on people in their homes, public streets, and towns. The casualty count is regularly higher than ten, and the operations usually get conducted at night. One can only imagine the reality of people living in those towns and the terror they must feel on a daily basis.

I've never claimed al-Quso was an innocent actor by any stretch of the imagination. My only claim was that he was leaving a vehicle and far from a battlefield, and that an alternative of sending forces locally to arrest him was possible. Since he's already been convicted for crimes, whatever punishment was determined can then be carried out (on a side note, I'm not against the death penalty....).

True, that note applies more to Afghanistan and is part of a broader criticism of drone attacks.

I'm curious as to why it is so impractical to bring these people to justice? I think one of the biggest issues with this discussion is the way in which we simply assume this has to be the only way.

On a somewhat tangential/related note, I think it's interesting to simply reflect on how much has changed since 9/11. We are almost 11 years removed from that day, and the thing that I find interesting when comparing 'the age of terrorism' to the red scare is the social/political dynamic.

Objectively, the Red Scare was a far greater threat militarily, and as the threat declined, so too did regulatory measures, social castigation, and other measures related to the threat. Conversely, even though the threat of terrorism has declined over the past 10 and a half years, the actual regulatory policies, legislation, and social/political dynamics have done nothing but increase.

The further removed we get from that day, the more entrenched this reality becomes. The average high school student was a child when 9/11 occurred, and their entire lives have been shaped by a very different world than the one in which many of us lived and were raised within. I for one hope we can return to a more reasonable lifestyle akin to what it was like pre-9/11, but more and more I feel this is a minority position and that most people actually prefer the restrictive nature of our movement, surveillance of our activities, and global militarism.

 

The threat of terrorism has not declined. It is as real as it was 10 years ago, and the terrorists are becoming more sophisticated. Also, I would say that the risk of being a victim of terrorism nowadays is a greater/more realistic threat than the hypothetical threat of nuclear weapons in the cold war.

Thank the Muslim extremists and their underlying ideology for that.

Again, thank the Islamic extremists for making this a necessity.

 

Right, and the western front of first world war was largely confined to localized periodic episodes of digging, shelling, and crawling in northern regions of france and belgium...but not really a battlefield per se, since there wasn't really a lot of shooting or fighting going on most of the time.

 

This goes back to the debate over the question of jurisdiction and was one of the reasons why the detention center at Gitmo was created. The argument put forward and upheld in cases like Hamdi, was that US law enforcement jurisdiction is in areas that are US territory and the authorization of force against Al Qaeda allowing military action applies to areas not. I totally agree this is a very muddy standard and one that is a huge problem. That said though that is the standard. Anyway as noted there is an authorization of force against Al Qaeda that is the equivalent of a declaration of war. You don't extend due process to declared enemies.

Do you believe that if the US just left Al Qaeda alone they would cease to attempt to attack the US?

That would be like saying that Iraq in 2004 wasn't a battlefield since the fighting was localized to the Sunni Triangle.

Honestly that is a completely irrelevant argument. Consider if a US sniper during WWII saw an SS commander getting out of his Mercedes would he not be able to shoot him since getting out of the vehicle removed him from the battlefield? Getting out of a vehicle doesn't matter as him and the vehicle is still on the field of battle.

As I said I agree the drone program has big problems and there is no such thing as a clean precise war.

Tis thread though is specifically about Al-Quso so it matters very much. As noted the leaving the vehicle argument is irrelevant. He is a declared enemy and it doesn't matter if he is leaving a vehicle, entering a vehicle or sitting on the toilet.

As far as an alternative of sending forces to arrest him I don't know if that is practical. I watched a history channel special last night on the mission to get OBL and given how much planning it took and all that could go wrong with it I am very inclined to think that such missions relying on special forces are so difficult as to be reserved for only the most special targets. Consider that in a situation where special forces may have to fight their way out those operations might very well lead to far more civilian casualties than a drone strike.

Except we are talking about Al-Quso in Yemen and not Afghanistan.

See above.

Keep in mind though while the Soviet threat was truly an existential threat there never was a Soviet attack on the US. That is a key difference. In general I agree with you that we should return to a more reasonable lifestyle at the same time though I think we still need to be cognizant of the threat. Consider that the intelligence that led to Al-Quso was provided by the same Saudi agent that revealed the latest underwear bomb which shows that Al Qaeda is still trying to attack Americans. Ideally we wouldn't have to do things like drone strikes or special forces missions but I think it is naive to think that those things are unnecessary and that there are no threats out there.

 

Lot to say here...I'll do my best to make it brief.

Hamdi vs. Rumsfield established that a US citizen detained as an ‘enemy combatant’ has the right to challenge the ‘enemy combatant’ status in front of an impartial judge. This same right was extended to all detainees, both citizens and noncitizens in future cases.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) permits indefinite detention, and undermines the aforementioned precedents. Regardless, this case is irrelevent to our discussion, as it nowhere establishes the definition of what is considered a combat zone, and certainly doesn’t state that the entire world outside of the US is by default a combat zone within which military activities and operations are immediately authorized.

As for not extending due process to declared enemies- you absolutely do. The entire point of having such guarantees is to ensure people get an opportunity to contest such charges, particularly when the charges appear to be a "slam dunk" (on a side note, intelligence has been wrong on "slam dunks" before). I find such sentiment shocking, not only because it is in complete and total opposition to the laws of the US, but that it is presumed to be the laws of the US as a matter of fact. Consider Obama's words in 2009:

What makes your statement even more galling is how frequently such categorizations have been shown wrong when scrutinized. Take enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay- of the 779 men once held there, 600 have been released after having their cases reviewed by a judge. These were not civilian courts, and the threshold for proving guilt is incredbily low. Yet still, 77% had charges dismissed and were released.

This is one of the most common tactics employed when discussing this topic with hardline foreign policy advocates. Let me turn the tables around: Do you believe the US remaining there and conducting military activities reduces terrorism? It is an extremely narrow perspective- yes, we prevented (person x) and now he's dead. But how many people have we militarized for a lifetime?

Let us both agree that simply leaving al-Qaeda alone leaves us vulnerable to attacks, and that continual military activities only breeds terrorism- now what? This is where any thoughtful conversation on US foreign policy needs to begin. The strategy employed will not be an either/or, it will require nuance, understanding of regions, and clear objectives.

I'm sorry, but I dont see how one can possibly try to make such an analogy. War was declared against Iraq by the state, no such war has been declared against Yemen.

If nothing else, this statement clearly demonstrates the massive discrepancy in our perspectives. If I understand you correctly, it is completely justifiable to assassinate any person through drone attacks based on military intelligence alone, collateral damage be damned, regardless of whether or not they are actually fighting. In fact, the most innocuous activities- stepping out of your home, going to a BBQ, driving on a street, eating dinner, sitting on a toilet, etc. in a town or city are irrelevant, because said person has already been identified as an enemy (the process of which is completely unknown). In fact, the last sentence could more appropriately be read:

"Getting out of a vehicle doesn't matter as him and the vehicle are still on the planet Earth somewhere outside of the US."

I dont have time to respond to the rest right now, will try to do so later today but it might be tomorrow.

 

Point me to the Iraq "declaration of war", thanks in advance dude.

WEre you planning on taking a vacation in the militant-controlled mountain regions of Yemen this year? Do you own a time-share there or somethign? There has to be some reason why you are pushing this silly angle so hard.
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You are correct. I quoted the wrong case. I will have to double check the case but my understanding is that jurisdiction is dependent on territoriality. This was the argument put forward that Gitmo wasn't technically US territory or really anyone's territory. The Hamdi case said that US law still applied since it was the US running things .

Not under the standards as established by things like the Geneva Conventions. If that were then case then North Korean POW's captured during the Korean war should've all gotten trials. You are mixing up criminal law versus military and rights of combatants and POW's.

You are conflating a lot of different issues that while related are not the same. Intelligence analysis isn't a criminal trial, nor is the decision to go to war.

Once again you are mixing up criminal law with military action. Your view would essentially make it impossible to carry out military actions since soldiers would have to follow the same procedures as police. IE OBL would've needed to be given his Miranda rights, granted a lawyer and etc... Further the SEAL team would've had to have a warrant to go into his Abbotabad home.

Second though in the case of Al-Quso he has been indicted already by US Courts and been convicted by Yemeni courts. So he has been subject to criminal law.

I will agree that in the long run a solely military solution isn't helping us but I think it would be very naive to not maintain that option. According to OBL himself the drone strikes and other military attacks on Al Qaeda have taken a toll on the organization so it is working to an extent.

I largely agree that we need more than just military options but as I said above we cannot take the military option off the table especially when like in the case of Al-Quso he appears to have been in the process of planning attacks.

I fully agree the US needs to rethink its foreign and military policy. I strongly believe the US needs to stop its blanket support of Israel, support for authoritarian regimes and pull out of Afghanistan. Those are strategic goals though while going after Al-Quso is a tactical decision.

Yemen isn't the enemy Al Qaeda is. Yemen is a battlefield where the government of Yemen is fighting a war against Al Qaeda and as such the US government is allied with Yemen. There is an authorization of force against Al Qaeda that was passed in the wake of 9/11 that specifically authorizes military force against those responsible for 9/11 (Al Qeada). This authorization has the same legal standing of a declaration of war.

Frankly this is just bizarre that you are hung up on this point about him getting out of the vehicle. The point you seem to be missing is that it is legal to kill a declared enemy during wartime it doesn't matter what they are doing. That is the nature of fighting a war. Did you think it was wrong for SEAL Team Six to attack OBL while he was sleeping, or watching TV at home? Did you think it was wrong for the US to drop bombs on Dresden while there were probably a lot of Germans getting out of their cars?

Take you time.

 

I appreciate the tone of the discussion and thoughtful replies. I think this is an important discussion to have, particularly given its relevance.

To start, there is an important distinction that needs to be drawn- we need to identify the discussion items that are specific to al-Quso, as opposed to those that are part of a larger critique of drone operations. By default, the bulk of our back and forth applies to the larger critique, though there are specifics related to al-Quso's case. I think part of the confusion is that perhaps we (or maybe just me) havent done as good a job of distinguishing between those two.

In any case, let me get to your responses:

Please do double check. I'm not aware of anything in the Hamdi case that even remotely references the topic of jurisdictions, and I've yet to see or read the argument that you are attempting to advance advocated by even the most hawkish neocons, which is what makes it so strange that its being phrased in such matter of fact terms.

I think your confusion lies in a lack of knowledge about the specifics related to the war on terror and prisoners apprehended therein.

The US has staunchly refused to classify any of personnel captured as Prisoners of War. The official classification is either "detainees" or "unlawful combatants" for the express purpose of circumventing Geneva Convention stipulations that regulate POW treatment- this is the argument that was used to legalize 'enhanced interrogation' conducted within Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere- since these people are not POWs, the military can have their way with them. For the record, the Geneva Convention says nothing about trying people in courts of law (although the international declaration of human rights does have some language that speaks to guaranteeing fair trials for those prosecuted).

This is where cases like Hamdi's come into play, in that so long as the US is going to hold detainees in Guantanamo under the classification of enemy combatants, the actual charge of whether or not they are enemy combatants need be challengable which is what sparked the recent debate as to whether or not this challenge should be done in civilian or military courts. The Obama administration was strongly for civilian trials which would be required for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. See the Ghailani case for more details.

The point I made was a part of the broader critique of drone operations. These are not typically conducted in the midst of battle, and seeing as how frequently prisoners apprehended in these same territories are later let free, there is certainly ample reason to be skeptical and concerned about the sheer number of innocent civilians, presumed to be terrorist based on intelligence analysis, that get targeted and killed along with anyone else unlucky enough to be in the vicinity.

Absolutely not, and I dont know who ever made this claim. Again, the problem we're having is of false alternatives- either you drone attack somebody based on potentially faulty intelligence and (frequently) kill many in the persons surroundings or apply every last protocol that exists in the constitution for US citizens. The inability to think beyond these two is what frustrates many who oppose drone strikes, and this tactic is commonly employed to dismiss criticisms as being the product of polyanna.

Your entire point is somewhat paradoxical- on the one hand, you acknowledge that it is possible to organize a seal team mission to go in and apprehend suspected militants, as was done in the case of Bin Laden. You then state that Bin Laden and Al-Quso are essentially at the same level in terms of the crimes they've conducted. Then you state that the only practical option to go after al-Quso is a drone attack, and that a seal team mission or any other mission for that matter would be too risky.

Leaving al-Quso aside, the default protocol for going after suspected militants should not be drone operations, which is the point I am making. The civilian casualties in the surrounding areas should be considered, and alternative forms of apprehending these people need to be evaluated.

And who said not to maintain that option? Does military option have to equate to drone attacks? Can we at the very least consider an approach that reduces the frequency of such attacks?

Your quoting of OBL again misses the point. No one has said that the drone attacks are not, at some level, killing al Qaeda or Taliban militants. What I'm trying to say is that this is not a long term solution. It has been almost 11 years, and it's time to think beyond day to day executions and a condition of interminable killing on both sides. It was widely mocked in the past, but the 'battle of hearts and minds' truly does mean something in the grand scheme of things, and unless and until that gets evaluated at some level, we're doomed to a war without an end.

See statement above. I agree with you on many of these points, but even the points you made have within them broader contexts that need to be evaluated- authoritarian regimes typically have purposes behind which they get supported, pulling out of Afghanistan will almost assuredly re-energize and pave the way for the Taliban and like-minded groups, etc.

The above considerations only further substantiates my point. In almost 11 years, we have not seriously considered solutions beyond the military option- in fact, we've been condition to think of it as the solution for almost every problem, which is why we've appropriated immense amounts of money into Defense funds and minimize things like civilian casualties and collateral damage.

Sorry, ran out of time again and have to get to a work meeting. Will respond to the two other statements later today.

 

You guys are quoting the wrong case. Rasul v. Bush was the case that was about jurisdiction. Specifically the court ruled that in order for habeas corpus to apply to a person, they must either be a US citizen or be in an area that falls under the jurisdiction of the US court system. And consequently the court ruled that Guantanamo fell under US legal jurisdiction.

 

You are correct, both Rasul v. Bush and Habib v. Bush ruled that under the habeas corpus statute, detainees has the right to challenge the validity of their detention. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld supplements those cases as the courts ruled that detainees have the right to challenge their 'enemy combatant' status.

Nonetheless, I dont see how any of these cases support the specious assertion that the entire world outside of the US is legally considered a battlefield, which is the point rocketsjudoka was positing.

Greenwald has an exceptional commentary on the topic of Yemeni terrorism and the causes of them.

In any case, the point you were responding to was part of a broader critique, which is that this war, 11 years later, rather than reducing the scope of militarism, is only expanding it. It began with Afghanistan, and the narrative was that we destroy Al Qaeda's hotbed, rebuild the country, then we're done. Then it expanded to Iraq, which is now roundly accepted as a tremendous blunder. At some point, it expanded into Pakistan, and now we have military activities actively taking place in Yemen and Somalia. And the story is always the same- we just need to kill these specific people, and then we'll be safer and done. To actually believe the continuation of a policy that has only expanded militarism over the course of the past ten years will somehow reduce terrorism without any modification is not only naive, but outright insanity.

Which brings me to your last comment:

With all due respect, your consistent analogizing with World War II shows how weak your argument is. The fact that this war has no declared state enemy is significant, as it requires one to demonstrate prudence and operate tactfully, which means the context of the action absolutely matters. It may make no difference to you whether he's at a family barbecue or stepping out of his car, but to the many, many people directly affected by these policies it makes a world of a difference, and when you summarily bomb anyone suspected of terrorism when they could have easily been apprehended far from any battlefield, people call into question the moral legitimacy of such action.

 

The blunder of Iraq was dismantling the entire civil system, and framing the removal of a despot under a false premise instead of at face value. The idea could have been noble and the military execution was superb.

The idea of a war against a stateless enemy doesn't fit any conventional definitions. You can't declare war on anyone specific, you can't take their capital. Yet I don't think anyone would deny that a state of war exists. But there really can't be any negotiations, you can't sue for peace, no one is going to surrender.

I assume at some point in the future we will declare a truce and allow the sovereign nations to repatriate their people. It seems like the only way it would ever end. In the mean time, taking measures to reduce the oppositions strength and organization seems prudent.
If the effected nations want to claim an affront to their sovereignty, then they need to take measures to ensure the peace. Afghanistan may (if everyone gets paid), Yemen can't and Pakistan won't

 

Reuters Poll: Obama Leading Mitt Romney Among Veterans by 7 points.

Disaffection with the politics of shock and awe runs deep among men and women who have served in the military during the past decade of conflict. Only 32 percent think the war in Iraq ended successfully, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. And far more of them would pull out of Afghanistan than continue military operations there.