I would say it is a scoping trip. The U.S. is not sure of the nature of the change taking place in Burma.
Cold War where the US the Soviet are competing with each other in large part in arms race.
Post Cold War where the US and China are competing with each other for energy.
19 Thanksgiving Quotes By Comedians
19
Thanksgiving Quotes By Comedians
11/23/11
Jon
Stewart: "I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited
everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I
killed them and took their land."
Johnny
Carson: "Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of
miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a
year is way too often."
David
Letterman
Top
Ten Signs You Had A Bad Thanksgiving
10."You
ran out of booze by 11 a.m."
9."Most
frequently used word at dinner: Heimlich"
8."Meal
was leftovers from last Thanksgiving"
7."Thanks
to new electric knife, kids fought over wishbone and your severed thumb"
6."The
'turkey' was wearing a dog collar"
5."Spent
day in Times Square waiting for the giant turkey to drop"
4."Woke
up from tryptophan-induced sleep to find yourself naked in the driveway"
3."When
dinner came out, so did your son"
2."Laura
and the twins lock you out"
1."Your turkey dinner was the only breast
you've touched all year"
Obama's aversion to A.C.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/reggie-love-leaving-obama-personal-aide-abc-_n_1107455.html
Reggie Love Reveals Obama's Annoying Habit
11/22/11 09:40 AM
==
Do- I found
one thing in common b/w me and Obama
==
President
Obama's body man and basketball buddy Reggie Love announced earlier this month
that he is leaving his job to go to business school, and now he is talking
about his time inside the White House. In an interview with ABC News to air
Tuesday night at 6:30 ET, Love says he spent so much time by the president's
side that he witnessed many personal moments.
When pressed
to describe the president's annoying habits, Love tells ABC that Obama's
aversion to air conditioning made some of their long car rides together
uncomfortable.
"The
thing that used to kill me is that the guy loves to ride around with the AC off
in the summertime," Love says. "And I get hot. I start sweating. And
I'm like, it's 80 degrees in this car. I'm going to pass out."
Mark 8:22
8:22And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to
him a blind man, and beseech him to touch him. 8:23And he took hold of
the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when he had
spit on his eyes, and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, Seest thou aught? 8:24And he looked up,
and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking. 8:25Then again he laid
his hands upon his eyes; and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw
all things clearly. 8:26And he sent him
away to his home, saying, Do not even enter into the village. 8:27And Jesus went
forth, and his disciples, into the villages of Caesarea Philippi: and on the
way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Who do men say that I am? 8:28And they told him,
saying, John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but others, One of the prophets. 8:29And he asked them,
But who say ye that I am? Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the
Christ. 8:30And he charged them that they should tell no man
of him. 8:31And he began to teach them, that the Son of man
must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and the chief priests,
and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.8:32And he spake the
saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 8:33But he turning
about, and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter, and saith, Get thee behind me,
Satan; for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men. 8:34And he called unto
him the multitude with his disciples, and said unto them, If any man would come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 8:35For whosoever would
save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and
the gospel's shall save it. 8:36For what doth it
profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? 8:37For what should a
man give in exchange for his life? 8:38For whosoever shall
be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the
Son of man also shall be ashamed of him, when he cometh in the glory of his
Father with the holy angels.
It will take time to internalize truth. Do not preach until you go through the process, which is accompanied by suffering where you will see what will fall off of yourself and remain within--purify.
It was good to see the members of old community group.
"Congress should have cut off all food aid to North Korea," says Royce
COMMITTEE
NEWS
Thursday,
November 17, 2011
North Korea
Food Aid Restrictions on Path to Become Law; "Congress should have cut off
all food aid to North Korea," says Royce
WASHINGTON,
DC -- Later today, the Agriculture
Appropriations conference report is scheduled to be considered by the
House of Representatives. The conference report represents the text agreed upon
by the House and Senate, to be sent to the President for signature to become
law. The final text of the bill prohibits
food aid to countries that do not provide adequate monitoring and which divert
food for inappropriate purposes. In recent months, the Obama
Administration has actively considered a request to renew food aid to North
Korea. The U.S. has provided about $800 million in food aid to this nuclear
rogue since 1996, much misused.
Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, who successfully offered an amendment in the House that prohibits food aid to North Korea, released the following statement prior to the bill’s consideration:
"While far from the ideal of no food aid, this provision does send an important message to the Obama Administration that there is great skepticism about turning on the aid spigot to North Korea," said Royce. "It's too bad that Senate Democrats didn't understand the way food aid bolsters the North Korean regime. But this provision has the potential to end aid down the road."
"The North Korean people are suffering under this barbaric regime. But food aid that is siphoned off by the regime and the military doesn’t help them. I can’t think of any agreement North Korean hasn't cheated on. We're naive to think we can outfox them on aid distribution. North Korean defectors have said that providing food aid is the same as aiding its nuclear program.
"I think it is fair to say that my language, which has been pending for months, has prevented some bad decisions by the Obama Administration by forcing an examination of its food aid plans. If aid is given, despite all the problems, we'll be watching to point out monitoring shortcomings in accordance with the new law," concluded Royce.
Last year, in his final report to the U.N. General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea noted:
North Korea’s "national resources are distorted in favor of militarization and the ruling elite. This is most evident in regard to the expenditure of the nuclearization process, a development castigated by the international community… This mis-expenditure has not only depleted the national budget, which should have been spent on the welfare of the population, but it has also compromised international peace and security." The rapporteur also noted that North Korea has an entrenched "military first" policy.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that North Korea continues to make "rapid progress" on its nuclear program
the failure of Supercommittee is good? vs. privacy is the only hope of succeeding
Failure Is
Good By PAUL KRUGMAN
November 17,
2011
It’s a bird!
It’s a plane! It’s a complete turkey! It’s the supercommittee!
By next
Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is
supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits. Barring an
evil miracle — I’ll explain the evil part later — the committee will fail to
meet that deadline.
If this news
surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention. If it depresses you, cheer
up: In this case, failure is good.
Why was the
supercommittee doomed to fail? Mainly because the gulf between our two major
political parties is so wide. Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different
priorities; they live in different intellectual
and moral universes.
intellectual
universe
– tax break (for corporate jets – moral aspect) +
government spending
In
Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue, and
cutting spending while the economy is still depressed reduces employment. But
in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on
corporations and the wealthy, and slashing government spending is a
job-creation strategy. Try getting a leading Republican to admit that the
Bush tax cuts increased the deficit or that sharp cuts in government
spending (except on the military) would hurt the economic recovery.
moral
universe – social safety net
Moreover, the
parties have sharply different views of what
constitutes economic justice.
Democrats see
social insurance programs, from Social Security to food stamps, as serving
the moral imperative of providing basic security to our fellow citizens and
helping those in need.
Republicans
have a totally different view. They may soft-pedal that view in public — in
last year’s elections, they even managed to pose as defenders of Medicare —
but, in private, they view the welfare state as immoral, a matter of forcing
citizens at gunpoint to hand their money over to other people. By
creating Social Security, declared Rick Perry in his book “Fed Up!”, F.D.R. was
“violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles.” Does anyone
doubt that he was speaking for many in his party?
paraphrase
of
So the
supercommittee brought together legislators who disagree completely both about how the world works (intellectual) and about the proper role of government. (moral)
Why did anyone think this would work?
failure
of the news media to discern truth from fact give rise to externality in terms of political
price
Well, maybe
the idea was that the parties would compromise out of fear that
there would be a political price for seeming intransigent. But this
could only happen (only) if the news media were willing to point
out who is really refusing to compromise. And they aren’t. If and when the
supercommittee fails, virtually all news reports will be he-said, she-said,
quoting Democrats who blame Republicans and vice versa without ever explaining
the truth.
“centrist”
pundits in
addition to the news media
Oh, and let
me give a special shout-out to “centrist” pundits who won’t admit that President
Obama has already given them what they want. The dialogue seems to go like
this. Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and
tax hikes?” Mr. Obama: “I support a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes.”
Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax
hikes?”
“centrist” who are
confused b/w inability to be critical and impartiality
You see,
admitting that one side is willing to make concessions, while the other isn’t,
would tarnish one’s centrist credentials. And the result is that the
G.O.P. pays no price for refusing to give an inch.
So the
supercommittee will fail — and that’s good.
Deficit
resulted from tax cuts and unfunded wars
Any
deal reached now would improve neither deficit nor economic slump (unemployment)
For one
thing, history tells us that the Republican Party would renege on its side of
any deal as soon as it got the chance. Remember, the U.S. fiscal outlook was
pretty good in 2000, but, as soon as Republicans gained control of the White
House, they squandered the surplus on tax cuts and unfunded wars.
So any deal reached now would, in practice, be nothing more than a deal to
slash Social Security and Medicare, with no lasting improvement in
the deficit.
Also, any
deal reached now would almost surely end up worsening the economic slump.
Slashing spending while the economy is depressed destroys jobs, and it’s
probably even counterproductive in terms of deficit reduction, since it leads
to lower revenue both now and in the future. And current projections, like
those of the Federal Reserve, suggest that the economy will remain depressed at
least through 2014. Better to have no deal than a deal
that imposes spending cuts in the next few years.
But don’t we
eventually have to match spending and revenue? Yes, we do. But the decision
about how to do that isn’t about accounting. It’s
about fundamental values — and it’s a decision that should
be made by voters, not by some committee that allegedly transcends the partisan
divide.
Eventually,
one side or the other of that divide will get the kind of popular mandate it
needs to resolve our long-run budget issues. Until then, attempts to strike a
Grand Bargain are fundamentally destructive. If the supercommittee fails, as
expected, it will be time to celebrate.
====
====
=====
NPR, Talk Of
The Nation, November 1, 2011 Tuesday
Private
Meetings And Back-Room Deals Can Pay Off
ANCHORS: Neal
Conan, GUESTS: Jordan Tama
==
DO – summary
- back room deal (privacy) gives a leeway for those at the end of ideological spectrum
to move away from the orthodox
It does not necessarily
mean a lack of transparency, because whatever they come up with will be judged
on
==
In November -
it is November now, and the clock is ticking toward the deadline for the
congressional supercommittee, the bipartisan group trying to find ways to
reduce the budget deficit over the next 10 years by $1.5 trillion. The
supercommittee holds most of its meetings behind closed doors, prompting some
to denounce secret deliberations as undemocratic. In a recent op-ed in The New
York Times, Jordan Tama defended the back-room deal. Call us with your arguments for transparency
or for secrecy or privacy.
Give us an
example, too, if you would. 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org You can join
the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
You'll find a link to the op-ed there. Jordan Tama is an assistant professor of
international relations at the American University and joins us here in Studio
3A. Nice to have you with us.
And one
example you cite in your piece is the deal that led to the Social Security
compromise back in 1983.
That's right.
That was a compromise. That was engineered by the Greenspan Commission chaired
by Alan Greenspan. Before he was...
Then a mere
consultant...
Right. Not
quite as famous at that time but already famous for his economic expertise. And
this was created in 1981 by the Reagan administration, at a time when Social
Security is making - facing a major financing shortfall. And...
What was the advantage of
privacy, lack of transparency, if you will?
Well, the
advantage was that the key problem was for Republicans and Democrats to
actually agree on a solution, and the challenge was not that dissimilar to the
challenge we're facing now because the problem really came down to the balance
between tax increases and benefit cuts. And Democrats, as now, favored tax
increases more than benefit cuts and Republicans the opposite.
And the commission
was very valuable because it took a subgroup of members of Congress as well as
some prominent private citizens and enabled them to engage in very intensive
private deliberations. And they reached some very important breakthroughs.
First, they agreed on how much the shortfall actually was, which
was something that Republicans and Democrats couldn't even agree on at first. And
then they agreed, ultimately, on how to address the shortfall through a
combination of benefit cuts and tax increases.
It's
interesting. Since you wrote your piece, there has been another public session,
a rare public session of the congressional supercommittee. And Democrats came
out during the public session and said, wait a minute, here's our proposal.
Increase taxes by this amount and we'll cut that amount from Medicare.
Right. And
that's part of the bargaining process, I think. They're laying out a proposal
that would include large tax increases, and it's very unlikely Republicans will
agree to those. But the Democrats also want to show that they are making a
serious offer and taking this process very seriously. And one thing that is at
work here is that neither party wants
to be blamed for a failure to reach agreement. So the
Republicans, so far, have not made any public offers that would include
significant tax increases. But it may not be out of the question that privately
that's being discussed.
So it might
be, as it was during these so-called grand bargain discussions between the
speaker of the House, John Boehner, and President Obama at one point. But those discussions became public and
quickly evaporated.
Right.
Exactly. And that's really why privacy is so important, because the real issue
here is that elected officials face intense
political pressures. And when they speak publicly, whether it's at a public hearing or in any other
public setting, it's very hard
for them to move away from their
party orthodoxy. And so it's impossible for Republicans in public to
say that they're for tax increases and for Democrats to talk about cutting
entitlement programs, generally.
And you say,
in fact, those calling for transparency for public meetings on these issues
are, in fact, afraid of success?
I think
that's right. The people who are criticizing this congressional supercommittee
are generally people who are on the liberal or conservative end of the
spectrum who don't want to see a kind of centrist grand bargain. And if
this committee is to succeed, it would only succeed by coming out with
something that's somewhere in the middle.
I believe
every Republican member of the supercommittee is a signatory to the no tax pledge. And that's why I'm not optimistic
about this committee succeeding. Even if
it is in private.
Even if -
right. Basically, my view on this is that the
privacy of these negotiations are
the committee's only hope of
succeeding. But even so, it's a long shot that it will succeed because
the partisan pressures, the polarization of Congress is so intense now.
It's just
much harder now than it was in 1983 when the Greenspan Commission was operating
for Republicans and Democrats to reach agreement on these big issues of the
budget, taxes, spending.
Do you ever
watch C-SPAN?
Yeah, and
kind of a joke actually. I don't think most of what these politicians say for
the camera really means anything as far as them talking to each other. They
talked passed each other. They
posture for the camera. But, you know, what other choice do we have?
You know, deliberations can be as simple as two people drinking coffee
together. You know, you don't have to
have a TV camera there for it to be a transparent government. What they
come up with, what they decide, they can
be judged on. And come election time, hopefully, they will be. But as
far as making all this stuff public, I mean, you don't see like war treaty
resolution deliberations in public either because people have to make tough
decisions. They're not going to make those tough decisions with a TV camera
over their shoulder.
Well, it's
interesting you mentioned that. There was a famous debate before the first
Persian Gulf War in the House of Representatives, and, indeed, the United
States Senate, where people did vote on a war resolution. And the debate was
held entirely in public, and people then did cast their vote. It did pass but
not by a lot. And I wonder, Jordan Tama, those kinds of decisions are very,
very difficult, as you say. And do you think that the posturing that the
people, well, undoubtedly commit to - given the seriousness of a situation like
that, war and peace, sometimes they rise above that.
People do
rise above it. I think, in this case, it's important to keep in mind that,
ultimately, there would be still a very public debate if this committee's - if
this committee does reach agreement on proposals (unintelligible)...
Right. They
would get voted on in Congress publicly and that would be an extremely
public debate that would, you know, be the thing that everybody in the country
is talking about at that time. So that's important to keep in mind. Really, all
that's happening here is deliberations preceding a vote
are happening in private, and that's something that happens on all issues, all
the time. As the caller just mentioned, the government does deliberate over
everything privately regularly.
It's never
easy to defend secrecy in any context because transparency is
something that just seems to be inherently good, and people assume that
transparency is always to the good. And so I'm making, I think, a bit of a
counterintuitive argument there.
But the
reason why I made that argument is because I've done a lot of research on blue
ribbon commissions, special commissions that are set up to look at all kinds of
issues and...
Normally
described as a place where controversies go to die.
Exactly.
Right. The conventional wisdom is that these commissions are a waste
of time, that no one pays attention to them. And what I found in looking at
a lot of commissions, especially ones that have dealt with national security
and foreign policy issues like the 9/11 Commission, is that far more than
people realize, they often are the key institution that forges
bipartisan consensus because of the fact that on these commissions,
there's always a mix of Republicans and Democrats, and they spend a lot of time
together, talking privately, deliberating privately. They actually get to know
each other, sometimes become friends.
You said
you're not terribly optimistic, though, even given privacy.
Right. I'm
not terribly optimistic because of a couple of factors. One, the fact that, as
I mentioned, all the people on this committee are current members of
Congress. And what I found in my research, which I've written up in a book
called "Terrorism and National Security Reform," is that independent
commissions tend to be more capable of actually forging bipartisan consensus
because of the fact that once people are out of government,
people are much more likely to be able to compromise.
(Do- Obama to
Bill Clinton “I envy you, once you out of Washington, you deal with reasonable
person)
I interviewed
one person, James Baker, who had been the chair of a number of commissions,
former secretary of state, and he said it helps to have has-beens on
commissions because they have no political axe to grind, which I think captures
that well.
And no
political future, but for commissions, that can be good. But the other factor
is just the intense polarization of our political environment today. It makes
it very hard for the committee to succeed.
You could
find a link to Jordan Tama's New York Times piece, "In Defense of the
Back-Room Deal,"
spending habits of the leaders at the Summit of the G20 in Cannes
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-11/friday-news-roundup-hour-2/transcript
===
DO - though Chinese leader is not "elected" by people ...
====
===
DO - though Chinese leader is not "elected" by people ...
====
I think
there's an interesting anecdote that I would like to share with our
listeners about the spending habits in Europe and this idea or this
trend, as David points out, to spend more than you have.
If you look at the Summit of the G20 in Cannes last week when all the leaders of the G20 gathered, it's very interesting to look at how much they spent on their hotel suites. President Sarkozy of France, President Obama and Prime Minister Berlusconi spent around 35 to $29,000 on their hotel suite. The Chinese spent 11,000. The British spent 1900.
I
think it says a lot about the approach to spending. And it's true that
austerity measures aren't necessarily the answer to everything, but
spending beyond your means is certainly not the answer either.
Did that include room service or...
Cyberspace, and International Law
China, Russia and Other Countries Submit the Document of International
Code of Conduct for Information Security to the United Nations
2011/09/13
The White House
Office of the Vice President, November 01, 2011
VP's Remarks to London Cyberspace Conference
how to achieve both security and openness in cyberspace
Joe Biden,
Cyberspace, and International Law
by Duncan
Hollis , November 1st, 2011
The
Russian/Chinese proposal (co-authored with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) is widely
undestood as part of an effort to (1) move Internet governance away from the
existing US-dominated public-private partnership to the ITU and (2) develop a
global treaty on cybersecurity that will reinforce national sovereignty over
all behavior in cyberspace (including speech and communication deemed
de-stabilizing as much if not more than the cyberattacks or cyberespionage).
Inside Executive Branch Policy Discussions on Drone Strikes
U.S. Tightens
Drone Rules
NOVEMBER 4,
2011, By ADAM ENTOUS, SIOBHAN GORMAN and JULIAN E. BARNES
CIA
brass want a free hand
vs. DoD and State Dept. demands more-selective strikes
out of concern about the fragile US relationship with Pakistan ...
The Central
Intelligence Agency has made a series of secret concessions in its drone
campaign after military and diplomatic officials complained large strikes were
damaging the fragile U.S. relationship with Pakistan.
The covert
drones are credited with killing hundreds of suspected militants, and few U.S.
officials have publicly criticized the campaign, or its rapid expansion under
President Barack Obama. Behind the scenes, however, many key U.S. military and
State Department officials demanded more-selective strikes. That pitted them
against CIA brass who want a free hand to pursue suspected militants.
White
House intervenes and, in essence, affirmed its support for CIA with some of CIA’s
concession
The disputes
over drones became so protracted that the White House launched a review over
the summer, in which Mr. Obama intervened.
The review
ultimately affirmed support for the underlying CIA program. But a senior
official said: "The bar has been raised. Inside CIA, there is a
recognition you need to be damn sure it's worth it."
The
State Dept. greater sway
; Pakistani advance notice
Among the
changes: The State Department won greater sway in strike decisions; Pakistani
leaders got advance notice about more operations; and the CIA agreed to suspend
operations when Pakistani officials visit the U.S.
The Pakistan
drone debate already seems to be influencing thinking about the U.S. use of
drones elsewhere in the world. In Yemen, the CIA used the pilotless aircraft in
September to kill American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a suspected terrorist.
But the White House has for now barred the CIA from attacking large groups of
unidentified lower-level militants there.
The CIA
concessions were detailed by high-level officials in a series of interviews
with The Wall Street Journal. But in a measure of the discord, administration
officials have different interpretations about the outcome of the White
House review. While some cast the concessions as a "new phase" in
which the CIA would weigh diplomacy more heavily in its activities, (vs)
others said the impact was minimal and that the bar for vetting targets has
been consistently high.
"Even if
there are added considerations, the program—which still has strong support in
Washington—remains as aggressive as ever," said a U.S. official.
A glance
at drone operations
Last year,
Mr. Obama expanded the CIA program to 14 drone "orbits." Each orbit
usually includes three drones, sufficient to provide constant surveillance over
tribal areas of Pakistan. The CIA's fleet of drones includes Predators and
larger Reapers. The drones carry Hellfire missiles and sometimes bigger bombs,
can soar to an altitude of 50,000 feet and reach cruise speeds of up to 230
miles per hour.
The drone
program over the past decade has moved from a technological oddity to a key
element of U.S. national-security policy. The campaign has killed more
than 1,500 suspected militants on Pakistani soil since Mr.
Obama took office in 2009, according to government officials.
the
diplomatic costs of air strikes
To some
degree, the program has become a victim of its own success. Critics question
whether aggressive tactics are necessary following the eradication of senior al
Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, including Osama bin Laden, killed in a helicopter
raid by Navy Seals in May after drone and satellite surveillance of the
compound where he was living.
Many officials
at the Pentagon and State Department privately argued the CIA pays too little
attention to the diplomatic costs
of air strikes that kill large groups of low-level fighters. Such strikes inflame
Pakistani public opinion. Observers point to the rising power in Pakistan
of political figures like Imran Khan, who held large rallies to protest the
drones and could challenge the current government.
All this
comes at a time when the State Department is trying to enlist Pakistan's
help in advancing peace talks with
the Taliban, a key element of a White House drive to end the war
in neighboring Afghanistan. Top officials of the (i) CIA, (ii) Pentagon,
(iii) State Department and (iv) National Security Council have
been pulled into the debate. Among those voicing concerns was Gen. David
Petraeus, who commanded the war in Afghanistan before becoming CIA director in
September. A senior intelligence official said Gen. Petraeus voiced
"caution against strikes on large groups of fighters."
drone
operations still remains a key element despite internal dispute
Changing the
handling of the drone program doesn't mean the CIA is pulling back. The agency
in recent weeks has intensified strikes in Pakistan focusing on the militant
Haqqani network, a group believed to be behind a series of attacks in
Afghanistan. The Pentagon and State Department have backed those strikes as
serving U.S. interests.
why
Pakistani public outraged
The debate in
Washington was fueled by a particularly deadly drone strike on March 17. It
came at a low point in U.S.-Pakistani relations, just a day after Pakistan
agreed after weeks of U.S. pressure to release a CIA contractor who had killed
two Pakistanis.
Infuriated
Pakistani leaders put the death toll from the drone strike at more than 40,
including innocent civilians. American officials say about 20 were killed, all
militants.
"signature"
strike
vs. "personality" strike
The March 17
attack was a "signature" strike, one of two types used by the CIA,
and the most controversial within the administration. Signature strikes target
groups of men believed to be militants associated with terrorist groups, but whose
identities aren't always known. The bulk of CIA's drone strikes are
signature strikes.
The second
type of drone strike, known as a "personality" strike, targets known
terrorist leaders and has faced less internal scrutiny.
Signature
strike and Pakistani permission
Signature
strikes
were first used under former President George W. Bush. His administration began
arming unmanned aircraft to hunt al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan immediately
after the Sept. 11 attacks. As al Qaeda militants fled to Pakistan, the CIA
began a secret drone program there, with
quiet backing from Islamabad.
For the first
years, U.S. officials used drones only to target known, top terror suspects.
The drone strikes quickly became unpopular with the Pakistani public. In 2008,
when Pakistani leaders bowed to public pressure and began to block U.S.
requests for strikes, President Bush authorized a major expansion, allowing the
CIA to conduct strikes, including signature strikes, without Pakistani permission.
Initially,
the CIA was skeptical of the value of expending resources on lower-level
operatives through signature strikes, a former senior intelligence official
said. Military officials, however, favored the idea. The debate eventually
would lead to the CIA and the military reversing their initial positions.
Obama
gives CIA freehand
Mr. Obama was
an early convert to drones. The CIA has had freedom to decide who to
target and when to strike. The White House usually is notified immediately
after signature strikes take place, not beforehand, a senior U.S. official
said.
The program
had some early skeptics, but their concerns gained little traction. Dennis
Blair, Mr. Obama's first director of national intelligence, recommended that
the CIA measure the program's effectiveness beyond numbers of dead militants,
U.S. officials said. It didn't happen.
The
CIA and the State Department had been at odds for months over the use of drones. Tensions flared with the
arrival in Islamabad late last year of a new ambassador, Cameron Munter, who
advocated more judicious use of signature strikes, senior officials said.
On at least
two occasions, Leon Panetta, then the CIA director, ignored Mr. Munter's
objections to planned strikes, a senior official said. One came just hours
after Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, visited Islamabad.
Pentagon
began to question the CIA’s approach
State
Department diplomats weren't alone in their concerns. Adm. Mike Mullen, then
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders, who
initially favored more aggressive CIA methods, began to question that approach.
Watershed
event-- March 17 strike, spark dispute
The debate
erupted after the March 17 strike, when National Security Advisor Tom Donilon
and others at the White House, taken aback by the number of casualties and
Pakistan's sharp reaction, questioned whether the CIA should for large groups,
at times, hold its fire. Officials asked what precautions were being taken
to aim at highly valued targets, rather than foot soldiers.
"Donilon
and others said, 'O.K., I got it; it's war and it's confusing. Are we doing
everything we can to make sure we are focused on the target sets we
want?'" said a participant in the discussions. "You can kill these
foot soldiers all day, every day and you wouldn't change the course of the
war."
A senior
Obama administration official declined to comment on Mr. Donilon's closed-door
discussions but said that he wasn't second-guessing the CIA's targeting
methodology and pointed to his long-standing support for the program. The
official said the White House wanted to use the drone program smartly to pick
off al Qaeda leaders and the Haqqanis. "It's about keeping our eyes on the
ball," the official said.
In the
spring, military leaders increasingly found themselves on the phone with Mr.
Panetta and his deputy urging restraint in drone attacks, particularly
during periods when the U.S. was engaging in high-level diplomatic exchanges
with Pakistan. "Whenever they got a shot [for a drone attack], they
just took it, regardless of what else was happening in the world," a
senior official said.
The
first concession of the CIA
Mr. Panetta
made his first concession in an April meeting with his Pakistani counterpart.
He told Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha that the
U.S. would tell the Pakistanis ahead of time about strikes expected to kill more than
20 militants, officials said.
Internal
debate intensified after the killing of OBL (over signature strike)
The debate
over the future of the drone program intensified after the death of Osama bin
Laden the next month. Pakistani
leaders were embarrassed that
the U.S. carried out the operation in their country, undetected. They
demanded an end to the signature drone strikes.
Mr. Donilon,
the National Security Advisor, launched a broad review of Pakistan policy,
including the drone program. Officials said the internal debate that ensued was
the most serious since the signature strikes were expanded in 2008.
A lack
of verifiable information
Independent
information about who the CIA kills in signature strikes in Pakistan is scarce.
The agency tells U.S. and Pakistani officials that there have been very few
civilian deaths—only 60 over the years. But some senior officials in both
governments privately say they are skeptical that civilian deaths have been
that low.
Broader
question on wisdom of drone operation
Some top
officials in the White House meetings this summer argued for a broader
reassessment. "The question is, 'Is it even worth doing now? We've got the
key leadership in al Qaeda, what is it that we're there for now?" one of
the officials recalled some advisers asking.
The White
House review culminated in a Situation Room meeting with Mr. Obama in June in
which he reaffirmed support for the program.
current
state around drone operations
But changes
were made. Mr. Obama instituted an appeals procedure to give the State Department more of a voice
in deciding when and if to strike.
If the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan objected to a strike, for example, the CIA
director or his deputy would first try to talk through their differences with
the ambassador. If the conflict was unresolved, the secretary of state would
appeal directly to the CIA director. If they couldn't reach agreement, however,
the CIA director retained the final
say.
Since the
changes were made, officials say internal tensions over the strikes have eased
and agencies were acting more in concert with each other.
Though Mr. Petraeus
voiced a preference for smaller drone strikes, officials said the agency has
the leeway to carry out large-scale strikes and hasn't been formally directed
to go after only higher-value targets and avoid foot soldiers. Since Mr.
Petraeus's arrival at CIA, some strikes on larger groups have taken place, the
senior intelligence official said.
To reduce the
number of CIA strikes on Pakistani soil, the military moved more of
its own drones into position on the Afghan side of the border
with Pakistan, according to participants in the discussions. That makes it
easier for the CIA to "hand off" suspected militants to the U.S.
military once they cross into Afghanistan, rather than strike them on Pakistani
soil, U.S. officials said.
U.S.-Pakistani
relations remain troubled, but Islamabad recently expanded
intelligence cooperation and has toned down its opposition to the
drone strikes, both in public and private, officials said. Pakistani officials
had sought advance notice, and greater say, over CIA strikes so they could try
to mitigate the public backlash.
"It's
not like they took the car keys away from the CIA," a senior
official said. "There are just more people in the car."
—Jay Solomon
contributed to this article
Inside Executive Branch Policy Discussions on Drone Strikes
by Kenneth Anderson , November
4th, 2011
Among other things, the article follows arguments, raised in earlier
news stories .. over the weight to be given the Pakistan government’s anger
over the strikes — and, more exactly, not being told in advance
or being asked permission for attacking targets. This was primarily a concern raised by the
State Department, and the then-new US ambassador, Cameron Munter. One difficulty, noted in earlier articles,
was that advance warning to Pakistan
sometimes resulted in obvious
leaks to the targets. But to
judge by today’s piece, the permissions process has been altered to give more
weight to State’s concerns
It is noteworthy that there appears to be no sense anywhere in
the US government that there is a legal issue with the CIA conducting
the strikes, despite the on-going debate among academics and others outside
of the US government.
The personality strikes are at
the core of the US’s counterterrorism
program, whereas the signature strikes are much more part of the counterinsurgency campaign —
attacking safe havens, fighters who would otherwise wind up in Afghanistan,
etc.
(A distinct legal debate, as Charlie Savage has reported in the Times,
took place over the legal authority for engaging in signature strikes in places
outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border regions, such as Yemen, but it
appear to have been resolved at this point in favor of a legal view that such
strikes are permitted, but as a policy matter do not make sense for the United
States at this point.)
(DO- counter-terrorism, turning more toward preventing direct attack on
the US ; counter-insurgency, attacking safe haven)
Much of the policy debate within the administration seems to have
revolved around the extent of signature strikes which, by their nature, attack
a group of people who the US has identified as fighters, rather than individual
as in a targeted killing. Indeed, this
illustrates the important point that as drone uses ramify, targeted killing is
only one such use (and targeted killing, too, might be carried out with a human
team; targeted killing and drone warfare only partly overlap).
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