Iraq and Terrorism

(this is the first of what’s likely to be many posts on my “Terrorism in the 21st Century” class, which I’m taking for three hours a day for most of the month of January.)

The quotation in the headline is:
1) A popular cliche, whose original author or speaker is hard to pin down.

2) An example, for many people, of everything that is wrong with The Left.

3) A gross oversimplification. There are many terrorists who are manifestly not freedom fighters (obvious example: Osama bin Laden). There are also many freedom fighters who are manifestly not terrorists. (obvious examples: Vaclav Havel, Martin Luther King, George Washington.) Ignoring that, and implying that it’s all relative, is a great way to make people you think terrorism is okay and obscure a worthwile point.

Read more

The Guardian reports that the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, anticipates having British troops in Basra until “2006/2007.”

The Coalition’s occupation of Basra has thus far been a relative success. The British, who have 10,000 troops in Basra, suffered their last KIA in late August; the region is relatively untouched by the insurgency; and there are hopes among Iraqis that Basra will soon return to being Iraq’s Riviera. There are difficulties, certainly, and criticisms by the Shia majority, but, all in all, Basra is doing about as well as one could expect.

What does this mean? Well, if the British anticipate being in relatively-peaceful Basra for the next 2-3 years, it’s logical to assume that the Americans should* be in Iraq for at least that long — if not longer. Beware of Presidential candidates who won’t expressly concede as much, or who claim otherwise.

Read more

The raid on the Baghdad mosque that netted “AK-47s, hand grenades and an anti-aircraft missile” (noted by Tim Blair) was the Ibn Taymiyah mosque. I note this because I’m pretty sure that Sasha Castel’s site is using pictures from the raid on the Umm al Tabul mosque instead (which was the one that netted “three packages of TNT, one case of blasting caps, three bags of gunpowder, eight improvised grenades, a roll of detonation cord, improvised explosive device materials such as 9-volt batteries and unidentified propellants, 11 AK-47 assault rifles and 20 AK-47 magazines”. Then again, the Reuters article that Major Sean Bannion links to in his post calls it the al-Tabool mosque and says that the items recovered were “several sticks of high explosives, hand grenades, AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and thousands of rounds of ammunition”.

Read more

From the Washington Post, troubling news about our attempts to rebuild Iraq’s police force.

As the U.S.-led governing authority in Iraq attempts to build a security force of 220,000 in the next few months, the competing priorities of speed and thoroughness have prompted shortcuts in the recruiting and training process. The consequences are starting to become apparent. . . . more than 200 Iraqi policemen in Baghdad have been dismissed and dozens of others have had their pay slashed for crimes ranging from pawning government equipment to extortion and kidnapping. . . . . In addition, roughly 2,500 people on the payroll of the Facilities Protection Service, which guards government buildings, either do not exist or have not been showing up to work . . . . [A] number of Border Patrol officers have been disciplined for accepting bribes in exchange for allowing people without proper identification to enter Iraq.

The importance of building a capable Iraqi police force cannot be overstated. Iraq needs substantial foreign investment to rebuild its infrastructure, institutions, and public services. The principle barrier to that investment is security.*

Many (including I) have chanted the mantra of “more troops, more money, more international involvement” as a solution to Iraq’s security issues. Our chanting has gone unheeded. The US lacks the will to commit the troops necessary to do the job, and the period during which a massive show of US force might have been effective has slipped us by. The time for chanting is past. The Iraqis must pick up the slack.

Indeed, the US military could have provided, at most, only tempory relief. And resort to the rebuilt Iraqi army — tempting though it may be — is also no substitute. It is the role of the Iraqi police to protect Iraqis. Having the police actually police is what is meant by “the rule of law.”

“[W]hen have you ever seen the police lead a coup?” Casteel explained. “If you build a strong police force, you have a republic. If you build a strong military, you have a banana republic.”

What are we building in Iraq? What shape do we wish Iraqification to take? And, if anything is an improvement over Saddam, does that make everything acceptable?

It’s time to stop celebrating the capture of Saddam. There’s work to do.

von

Read more

From the blog Just One Minute we see this USA Today article about Hussein’s capture, which notes in passing that Tim Russert happened to have a dream about said capture the night before it happened (something shrugged off as a coincidence).

The author, who alas does not put his or her name on the site, asks a question:

OK, we all know enough not to take this seriously. But my question is, does Osama bin Laden know enough not to take this seriously?

Read more

BREAKING NEWS UPDATE: The Ninth Circuit just ruled “that prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (search) in Cuba should have access to lawyers and the American court system.” The opinion does not appear to be (yet) available online, but the The New York Times reports that the panel held that noncitizen enemy combatants have a Constitutional right to an attorney.

This would be an extremely significant ruling, and will almost certainly go to the Supreme Court. It also fits into the category of a von good thing (# 18 on the list). Also worth noting is that Senior Northern District of Illinois Judge Milton I. Shadur sat on the Ninth Circuit panel and voted in the 2-1 majority. Judge Shadur is a well-respected trial judge, and is not known for his judicial activism.*

Addendum: Via Glenn Renyolds, a link to the opinion. I haven’t read it yet, but Professor Bainbridge thinks the opinion, well, not good. He may be right on the legal merits — I called it a good thing solely on policy grounds. But Prof. Bainbridge’s reference to Justice Jackson’s remark that the Constitution is not a suicide pact is silly hyperbole — particularly coming from someone who hasn’t even read the Ninth Circuit’s opinion yet. C’mon kids: try to refrain from speaking before thinking.

Second Addendum: I’ve now skimmed the opinion, and I’m ready to (tentatively) say that I approve of it. A brief analysis is in the comments, in response to a point made by Clay Ranck. Understand, however, that (a) this is out of my area of practice and (b) I’m reserving the right to change my mind as I let the opinion sink further in.

In other news: Charles Johnson has one of his quote-and-disapprove posts up. He doesn’t explain why he disapproves, except to suggest that the Ninth Circuit is always, categorically wrong. Way to go, Charles! That took some deep thinking.

Professor Bainbridge has kindly responded to my note (above), and acknowledges that his original take on the opinion may have been too hasty. Professor, if you’re still reading, I’d be very interested in your (now) more considered opinion.

von

Read more

(Snapping fingers) Right! That memo thingy. Jeebus, if I were Con Coughlin I’d be incredibly pissed off right now: any other day this article would’ve been a scoop. I don’t even want to think about what was on his kharma.

Read more

A lot has been written about the Republican ads in Iowa in New Hampshire, which begin, “some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.” I don’t really have much to add about that line; I think you all can guess what my reaction was. But this line, via Maureen Dowd’s column today, was new to me:

” ‘It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known,” Mr. Bush says, in a State of the Union clip.”

I don’t usually have much patience for Dowd, but she has it right. This is fear-mongering for no good purpose. Experts generally agree that biological and chemical weapons kill people in horrible ways but are not any better than conventional weapons at killing large numbers of people (if it’s not done right, they’re probably worse). So one vial or one canister would not be very likely to bring a worse day of horror than 9/11. Nuclear weapons are a different story, but there was no serious nuclear threat from Iraq in the short or medium term, and we knew it.

And of course, it seems increasingly clear that Iraq had no biological or chemical weapons either.

They have a history of this sort of thing.

Read more