Terrorism

Turkey Issues Strong Critique of Perry's Comments

Jorge Benitez — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:57:46 -0600

From the Foreign Ministry of Turkey: We strongly condemn the unfounded and inappropriate allegations expressed yesterday evening about our country during a debate held in South Carolina by Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is running for Republican Nomination for the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election.

Those individuals who are candidates for positions requiring responsibility such as the U.S. Presidency are expected to be more knowledgeable on global affairs and more careful in their statements.

Turkey became a member of NATO when the Governor was just two years old. It is a member which contributed significantly to the Transatlantic Alliance’s history of braving many challenges and it will continue to do so. Turkey has also been among the front line countries in the fight against terrorism. Turkey is co-chairing with the U.S. the Global Counterterrrorism Forum. Our leaders are respected political figures whose opinions are highly valued not only in the U.S. but also in our region and throughout the world.

In any case, the weak support that Mr. Perry received at the opinion polls and the primaries has revealed that his unfortunate views are not shared by the Republican Party grassroots.

This reflects the commonsense of the U.S. electorate. The U.S. has no time to lose with such candidates who do not even know America’s Allies.

Statement of the Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey in Response to a Question. (photo: Reuters)

Rick Perry Questions Turkey's membership in NATO

Jorge Benitez — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:36:10 -0600

From Joe Parkinson, the Wall Street Journal: For Turkey, busy riding an economic boom and preoccupied with soccer scandals and revolutionary shifts across its borders, the race for the U.S. Republican nomination hasn’t exactly been a box office draw. Until Tuesday, that is …

Late Monday, Texas governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry said that Turkey was governed by “what many perceive to be Islamic terrorists,” and suggested the country should be booted out of NATO.

The governor’s remarks, made during the Fox News Channel and Wall Street Journal GOP debate in South Carolina, came in response to a question from the moderator over whether Turkey still belonged in NATO amid international concern over media reports of declining press freedoms, deteriorating relations with Israel and a rising murder rate of women.

“Obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then … not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it,” Mr. Perry said.

In Turkey, a long-time ally of Washington and NATO’s only majority-Muslim member, the comments were too late to make the Turkish dailies, but early Tuesday, news websites and Twitter feeds here were abuzz with Turks’ angry and confused reaction. Turkish daily Milliyet ran a banner on its website calling the comments “scandalous.” Hurriyet said the governor’s words were “offensive. . . .”

Turkish and U.S. diplomats say they cannot remember a time when cooperation between Ankara and Washington was closer, citing that President Barack Obama called Turkey’s prime minister more than any other leader except Britain’s prime minister in 2011.

What analysts call an increasing symmetry of Washington and Ankara’s policies has formed after a period of significant strain in 2009-2010, when Turkey moved closer to Iran and tensions with Israel were at boiling point over the killing of seven Turkish nationals by Israeli commandos on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara flotilla.

In a crucial shift, Turkey agreed last fall to host a North Atlantic Treaty Organization missile-defense system, which was designed by the U.S. to contain Iran.

From Arlette Saenz, ABC News: Victoria Coates, foreign policy advisor to Perry, further explained the governor’s remarks, saying that some view the leaders of Turkey as Islamic terrorists due to their support of Hamas and the flotilla against Israel.

“The governor was responding to the questioners references to violence against women and to association with Hamas, I think both of which are things that many people do associate as he said with Islamic terrorists,” Coates told reporters in the spin room. “He was referring to those things, and while he would welcome the opportunity to work with Turkey on regional issues like Syria or Iraq, this kind of behavior on the part of that country is disturbing and I think we should concerned about it.” (photo: Getty)

The War on Terror is Over

Magnus Nordenman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:44:24 -0600

Historians may look back at 2011 as the year that the war on terror finally ended. Counterterrorism was not removed from America’s security policy tool box but it no longer serves as a strategic priority and no longer guides how the US structures its relations with nations around the world or thinks and plans for conflict.

Don’t hold your breath for a pronouncement of “mission accomplished” in the war on terror. Contrary to popular imagination, few real strategic policy shifts are announced by the President in the Rose Garden. Instead, subtle shifts in policy and priorities quietly accumulate over time to set America on a different course. These quiet shifts gathered steam quite rapidly during 2011 and point to an end to the war on terror.

The war on terror is largely over for four different reasons: the killing of Osama bin Laden, the apparent inefficacy of counterinsurgency, the stunning costs of the war on terror, and the Arab Spring. While it may never be stated in plain English by anyone in Washington, these factors have largely persuaded the Washington policy community that it is time to end the war on terror and to find a new priority list for America’s foreign policy.

The killing of bin Laden, and the audacious way it was done by US special operations forces, proved cathartic for the American people. Like it or not, Americans take their wars personally. Americans prefer to think not that they are going to war with Germany, Japan, Iraq, or Serbia, but with Hitler, Tojo, Saddam Hussein, or Slobodan Milosevic. So it is with Al-Qaeda as well. While some in Europe and elsewhere may think that the spontaneous celebrations that erupted outside the White House and elsewhere in America on the news of bin Laden’s killing was a bit bloodthirsty, it was a quintessentially American reaction. The dragon had been slain. Some counterterrorism experts may argue that the killing of bin Laden was a symbolic victory only, but for most Americans the war is now largely over. Indeed, shortly after the Abbotabad raid the CIA director himself mused publicly that Al-Qaeda is close to strategic defeat. The removal of bin Laden will make it much more difficult to politically sustain counterterrorism as a strategic priority for the US. Put simply, counterterrorism will not get you as many votes on the campaign trail as it once did.

At the same time, Washington has quietly come to understand that counterinsurgency never achieved what it promised to do in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere as part of the war on terror. True, the counterinsurgency campaign saved Iraq from the abyss it was heading into after the invasion of 2003, but it fell well short of the visions established for both Iraq and Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency has proven grinding and frustrating with only limited gains to show for years of fighting. Instead, the US government has largely turned to a kill/capture construct, where the hearts and minds of Iraqis, Afghans, and others are far less important than the removal of the leadership of the insurgencies. This approach may not make the US many friends, but it does seem to be more effective (and cheaper) in disrupting terror plots and destroying terror networks. After all, this is arguably how most insurgencies and uprisings have been put down by states throughout history – the king simply beheads the peasant(s) leading the rebellion.

Closely associated with the inefficacy of counterinsurgency is the fact that the war on terror has proven unaffordable for the US. The output so far does not seem to justify the input of not only blood and treasure, but also the time and effort that the war on terror as a strategic priority has taken up in Washington. Policy makers are realizing that the world has changed dramatically since 9/11, and it is time to start paying attention to it.

Indeed, the inefficacy of counterinsurgency and the staggering costs of the war on terror seem to have been incorporated in the Obama administration’s defense strategy unveiled on January 3. In it, the administration prioritizes drones, cyber capabilities, and special forces, while at the same time signaling that US ground forces will shrink, and that the US defense establishment will pay more attention to Asia. It is hard to come up with a stronger set of recommendations for an America that clearly believes that the war on terror is over and that the country needs to pay more attention to other challenges.

Finally, the Arab Spring that ignited across the larger Middle East in 2011 proved that few Muslims are excited about the vision of the future as promulgated by al-Qaeda and its leadership. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the uprisings is that while they may not be especially pro-American, they are certainly not Anti-American either. Furthermore, the Arab Spring seems to have caught al-Qaeda and its ilk by surprise as much as it did the west. The trajectory of the uprisings leaves al-Qaeda politically and socially irrelevant in their supposed main region of support. It leaves one thinking that the west misjudged 9/11 all along. Instead of being the opening shot in a generational struggle between al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers and the west, 9/11 may have been the last, but spectacular, grotesque hurrah by an increasingly marginalized group of extremists, who really saw their heyday in the late 1970s, with the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, the sacking of the US embassy in Pakistan, the occupation of the Mosque in Mecca, and the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan.

To be sure, US counterterrorism efforts will not end. US special forces are likely to continue to pay visits to nefarious characters living in the ungoverned spaces of the globe; Predator and Reaper drones will keep flying (and occasionally shoot at bad guys); and the FBI will seek to disrupt both home and foreign-grown terror plots against the US and its interests. However, these activities will no longer be seen as strategic, but relegated to the long list of efforts that the US carries out every day without anyone really noticing or paying attention. In fact, it is quite possible that America will experience another terrorist attack, but the US reaction will be much more measured, unless the attack rivals the one on 9/11 (a remote possibility considering how al-Qaeda has been disrupted by the US intelligence community and special forces). Moving forward, counterterrorism will, at the strategic level, be no different than the US training and exercising with allies, conducting freedom of navigation exercises, showing force, and carrying out non-combatant evacuations, along with a plethora of other activities that the US government carries out every day, around the clock, all over the world to deter aggression and reassure friends and partners.

The end of the war on terror is not a bad thing. It will allow America to take a hard look at its strategic priorities and the larger global security environment, a task that is further complicated by the current age of fiscal austerity. There are plenty of issues for the US to tackle in the coming decade and beyond, ranging from cyber conflict and emerging powers in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, to a nuclear Iran and the fallout from a collapsing and nuclear armed North Korea. And let’s not forget about revitalizing the US economy and making America competitive in the 21st century. With bin Laden dead, al-Qaeda close to strategic defeat, the failure of counterinsurgency and its forbidding costs apparent, and the political marginalization of jihadist movements by the Arab Spring, now is the time for the US to consider those futures. America can’t afford to be distracted by counterterrorism as a strategic priority any longer.

Magnus Nordenman is a deputy director of the Atlantic Council's International Security Program.

NATO's Secretary General responds to "tragic unintended incident" in Pakistan

Jorge Benitez — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 07:02:17 -0600

From Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO: I offer my deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the Pakistani officers and soldiers who lost their lives or were injured, and to the government and people of Pakistan, following the regrettable incident along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

I have written to the Prime Minister of Pakistan to make it clear that the deaths of Pakistani personnel are as unacceptable and deplorable as the deaths of Afghan and international personnel.

This was a tragic unintended incident. I fully support the ISAF investigation which is currently underway. We will determine what happened, and draw the right lessons.

NATO remains strongly committed to work with Pakistan to improve cooperation to avoid such tragedies in the future.

We have a joint interest in the fight against cross-border terrorism and in ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a safe haven for terrorists. NATO and Pakistan share a common goal: a stable Afghanistan in a peaceful region. 

Statement by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the incident along the Afghan-Pakistani border. (photo: Getty)

Police raid Bosnian village linked to Friday's attack against US embassy

Jorge Benitez — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 05:36:40 -0500

From Almir Alic and Aida Cerkez, the AP: Special police units raided homes Saturday in a Bosnian village linked to the gunman who fired an automatic weapon at the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo in what authorities called a terrorist attack. The raids came as 17 suspected associates of the shooter, all said to be members of the ultraconservative Wahhabi Muslim sect, were briefly detained in Serbia.

A convoy of police vehicles entered the isolated northern village of Gornja Maoca, known to be inhabited by many Wahhabis, and officers wearing black masks and camouflage uniforms surrounded several houses, according to an Associated Press video. The reporter saw the security forces enter some homes before officers asked him to leave.

The gunman, identified by police as 23-year-old Mevlid Jasarevic, is accused of shooting at the embassy building in Sarajevo for at least 30 minutes Friday, wounding a policeman guarding the facility, before a police sniper immobilized him with a shot in his leg. . . .

Jasarevic is believed to be a follower of the Wahhabi sect, and police said he visited Gornja Maoca several times this and last year. Both the gunman and the police officer were hospitalized and their wounds weren't considered to be life-threatening, authorities said.

Bosnian and Serbian police have coordinated the response to the embassy attack, and the raids in Bosnia on Saturday were part of a joint operation. . . .

U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia Patrick Moon told reporters "this is a regrettable incident," and that his country has full confidence in Bosnian police and judicial authorities. He pledged "full cooperation" in the investigation, adding that an FBI team will arrive in Bosnia to assess the damage to the embassy. (photo: AP)

NATO Secretary General condemns terrorist attacks in Turkey

Jorge Benitez — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:21:13 -0500

From Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO: On behalf of NATO, I condemn in the strongest possible terms the recent attacks in South-Eastern Turkey, which killed and injured several Turkish soldiers, policemen and civilians, including a child.

There is no justification for such acts of violence, and I express my condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims. NATO Allies stand in solidarity in the fight against terrorism.

Statement by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. (photo: Getty)

Alleged Iranian Assassination Plot Suspicious

Barbara Slavin — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:22:09 -0500

US Justice Department charges that elements of Iran's government were behind a foiled plot on the life of Saudi Arabia's U.S. ambassador have boggled the minds of many Americans knowledgeable about both Iran and terrorism.

The alleged target and modus operandi – employing a Mexican drug cartel to blow up Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir at a Washington restaurant – are unusual, to say the least, for a government that has focused on political dissidents and theatres of war closer to home.

"Fishy, fishy, fishy,'' Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran who was formerly in charge of the Near East and South Asia on the White House National Security Council, told IPS. "That Iran engages in assassinations is old news. That it would use a Mexican drug cartel would be new."

Iran has not been behind a political assassination in the United States since a year after the 1979 revolution, when an African-American convert to Islam, Daoud Salahuddin, killed the former press attaché at the Iranian Embassy, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, in a Washington suburb.

Iran was also responsible for assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe in the 1980s and early 1990s but used its own agents or members of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite organization that Iran helped create following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Hezbollah is believed responsible for the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and a spate of other bombings and abductions in Lebanon.

More recently, Iran has allegedly backed local proxies responsible for the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. experts on Iranian spy agencies and tradecraft say the hare-brained scheme described in the Justice Department complaint does not resemble the operations of the Quds Force, the external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Al-Quds means Jerusalem in Arabic.

"Nothing about this adds up," said Kenneth Katzman, author of a book on the IRGC and expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service.

"Iran does not use non-Muslim groups or people who are not trusted members or associates of the Quds force," Katzman said. "Iran does not blow up buildings in Washington that invites retaliation against the Iranian homeland."

Indeed, the timing would be extremely awkward for Iran, which is already facing growing isolation because of its nuclear program and domestic abuses of human rights.

This weekend, Ahmed Shaheed, the new U.N. special rapporteur on human rights to Iran, will release his first report, which is expected to excoriate the Iranian government for its treatment of its own citizens, especially in the aftermath of disputed 2009 presidential elections.

Early next month, the International Atomic Energy Agency is scheduled to share with its board members new information about alleged Iranian research into making a nuclear warhead. A new finding against Iran by the board of the nuclear watchdog group would increase pressure on Russia, China and members of the Nonaligned Movement to approve more sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Iran has vehemently denied the U.S. allegations that Quds Force officers recruited an Iranian-American from Texas, Manssor Arbabsiar, as part of a plot to kill al-Jubeir by employing members of a Mexican drug cartel.

Katzman speculated that Arbabsiar, a former used car salesman who was apparently in financial difficulties, may have come up with the idea on his own. According to the official complaint, he contacted a member of the Los Zetas cartel who turned out to be an informant of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), as well as a cousin in Iran who has connections to the Quds Force.

Mr. Arbabsiar was said to have wired nearly 100,000 dollars to the informant's bank account from Iran in September and to have promised 1.5 million dollars to do the deed. He was arrested earlier this month when he was refused entry to Mexico and put on a plane to New York.

It is possible that the Iranian cousin "agreed to support him in some way but was doubtful he could pull it off", Katzman said. "This was not a thoroughly vetted and approved terrorist plot."

Several U.S. intelligence experts expressed scepticism about the expertise of the DEA in evaluating such a sensitive case.

Riedel noted that the complaint refers to "elements" of the Iranian government, "which suggests that the administration doesn't think that all elements of the Iranian government were involved".

An Iranian source, speaking with IPS on condition he not be named, said that the Quds force would investigate the Iranian alleged to have participated in the plot "to find out if there is any personal interest" involved, suggesting an element of freelancing.

"It seems the Americans and Saudis need this propaganda to promote their policy against Iran at this time, given that they have occupied three Muslim countries in the world – Iraq, Afghanistan and Bahrain," the source added.

While Iranian-Saudi tensions are clearly on the rise, Riedel questioned why Iran would want to target the Saudi ambassador. Al-Jubeir, while close to Saudi King Abdullah, is not a member of the royal family and has functioned mostly as the King's translator and "favoured messenger boy", Riedel said.

Both Katzman and Riedel said they were troubled by the way in which the Obama administration has jumped on the case, with a news conference by the attorney general and high-profile statements by the president and secretary of state.

Given the current tensions in the region, "I hope they know where they want to take it," Riedel said.

Vali Nasr, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, told CNN that the United States should "make public all the details of this plot" to avoid feeding Middle Eastern conspiracy theories.

"It is only with clarity of facts that the United States can make a convincing case for why Iran's anti- American posture and violent tactics is not heroic bravado deserving of accolade, but a cynical gamble that endangers the whole region," Nasr wrote.

Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at The Atlantic Council and member of its Iran Task Force, former senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today and former Mideast correspondent for The Economist. This article originally appeared on ipsnews.net.

License to Kill?

Harlan Ullman — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:42:05 -0500

Last Friday, at the retirement ceremony of U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, U.S. President Barack Obama began his valedictory remarks expanding on the news flash that U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had been killed by a U.S. airstrike.

In what would be a well-deserved tribute to the admiral, the president also reminded the audience of the successful mission four months earlier that brought Osama bin Laden to justice in Abbottabad. Of course, the al-Qaida leader wasn't an American citizen and in any event one would have thought that nearly 100 percent of all Americans approved of both outcomes.

That said, executing a U.S. citizen through extra-legal procedures that call into question due process as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution isn't trivial however justified the reasons for action.

The government's case to kill Awlaki, and this applied to George W. Bush's administration as well, rested on established international and domestic law permitting self-defense and Congress's authorization to use military force passed in September 2001 following the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11. Section 2, subparagraph (a) of that measure authorizes the president to act against states or individuals "to prevent future acts" of terrorism.

Still, the precedent of targeting a U.S. citizen is an important one with potentially profound consequences. As is well known, successive presidents, going back to Gerald Ford, have signed executive orders forbidding assassination of foreign leaders. And since September 11th, the United States has organized hunter-killer teams -- first in Iraq and Afghanistan and now possibly in Yemen -- to track down and eliminate insurgents and terrorists. The use of drones has intensified particularly in Afghanistan and northwestern territories of Pakistan.

But past instances of this type of assassination by the United States have been rare. The most famous was during World War II when Adm. Chester Nimitz authorized the interception and shoot down of Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto's aircraft on April 18, 1943, killing Japan's most formidable sailor. During Vietnam, Operation Phoenix killed thousands of suspected Viet Cong and North Vietnamese agents during that war in a campaign of targeted assassination. Fortunately, none were U.S. citizens and these situations indeed occurred during war.

Today, while surely moral and operational justification for dispatching al Awlaki was powerful and, in a legal sense, permissible, further debate and discussion are important if this precedent isn't unique and thus possibly repeatable.

Suppose for example that future Maj. Nidal Malik Hasans (who is allegedly responsible for the mass killings at Fort Hood, Texas) were identified abroad. Rather than wait for such people to return to the United States covertly and elude arrest, the argument could be made to take them out as imminent threats. This would be even more urgent if such suspects were linked to using weapons of mass destruction. Or if a Pakistani-American was preparing another Times Square or Mumbai-type of bombing that could have precipitated military retaliatory action by the United States or a war between Pakistan and India, would pre-emption be justified?

Extend the logic even further: Would Mexican or Latin American drug lords who were using proceeds from illicit narcotics trafficking to finance terrorist attacks against the United States somehow fall into a category where assassination might be considered? This has been the stuff of many works of fiction and movies. Now, could this become part of real life?

That tough cases make bad law has been a legal aphorism for millennia. So too, no matter the strength of the rationale, killing U.S. citizens raises very real warning flags. No doubt this and any administration will carefully consider each case beginning with the Justice Department and working the findings through the national security process. Appropriate members of Congress likewise almost certainly are part of this process. Yet, both the letter and the spirit and due process should be followed.

Fortunately, preserving both due process and the national security imperative to "prevent future acts" of terrorism can be accommodated. The United States maintains the secret Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act court that is empowered to authorize surveillance on issues of national security that fall outside normal channels. This or another court could be created for actions involving U.S. citizens clearly guilty of conspiring or committing terrorist activities who are beyond the reach of law enforcement.

Congress could also authorize a process to challenge and remove the citizenship of those falling into this category who cannot be arrested or detained by relevant law enforcement agencies here or abroad. And other ways to protect due process in these unique circumstances could be found.

We need to protect due process. We need to defend the nation. Putting in place a better process to do both is crucial.

Harlan Ullman is senior advisor at the Atlantic Council, and chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business. This article was syndicated by UPI. Photo credit: Getty Images.