Stephen Hadley, George Bush’s former National Security Advisor, has set forth some rather appalling revisionist history in this morning’s Washington Post.  Though he supports Obama’s surge, he effectively tries to wash his hands of any culpability of the entire Afghanistan mess.  Sorry Mr. Hadley, but that just won’t fly.

Hadley believes that everything was going just swimmingly until mid-2006, when those darned Pakistanis went and screwed the whole thing up:

As to security, the U.N. Security Council authorized an international military force in December 2001, put it under NATO command in August 2003 and expanded its writ to all of Afghanistan in October 2003. Afghan army and police forces were being recruited, trained and equipped. Most of the country was free of violence.

But in 2006, the situation deteriorated. Suicide bombings and attacks using improvised explosive devices spiked. Corruption and poppy production grew dramatically, and the central government failed to establish an effective presence in the provinces. The planned Afghan security force was simply too small to handle the escalating violence.

In September 2006, Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan embarked on a series of well-intentioned but ill-fated deals intended to entice local tribes to support the government in Kabul. The tribes were supposed to expel al-Qaeda and end Taliban attacks in exchange for economic assistance and the withdrawal of Pakistani troops. Instead, these badly executed agreements strengthened the terrorist havens.

Then, Hadley explains, Bush’s buddy Pervez Musharraf went and had himself a little constitutional crisis, which really put the well-meaning and allegedly competent Bush administration behind the 8-ball:

Then Pakistan plunged into an 18-month political crisis, beginning in March 2007 when President Pervez Musharraf fired the country’s chief justice and ending with Musharraf’s resignation in August 2008. Consumed by political chaos, Pakistan could only watch as al-Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban allies launched attacks not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan — including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Some argue that America could not respond to the deteriorating situation because its attention and its troops were all focused on Iraq. Yet despite troop demands for Iraq, President George W. Bush and our coalition allies launched a “quiet surge” in Afghanistan to meet the new challenge.

See?  Isn’t it amazing how well the Bush administration handled everything and we just never knew about it?

Spare me.  What Hadley chooses to selectively ignore is his administration’s failure to capitalize on Afghanistan’s relative calm in the 2001-2006 timeframe.  True, the initial Afghaninstan war plan was successfully executed, and violence was significantly down (compared to, say 2009 levels) across the country.

But instead of literally building on that initial military success by focusing on enduring security, infrastructure, and civil service capacities, Hadley shares direct responsibility for diverting America’s attention to a war of choice in Iraq launched under thin pretexts.  In the process, billions of dollars and countless man-hours at the Pentagon, State Department, and White House (inclinding Mr. Hadley’s NSC) that should have been spent stabilized Afghanistan in 2003, were shifted westward.

The 10,000 additional troops that Hadley crows about later in the article are an embarrassingly weak and tardy prescription for an aggressive viral problem that was getting out of hand.

Too little, too late, Mr. Hadley.  You should be ashamed.

Perhaps you’ve heard something about the case of Najibullah Zazi, the 24 year old Afghan immigrant arrested in Colorado under suspicion of nearing the “execution phase” of a terrorist plot, purportedly against a target in New York City.

Then again, maybe you haven’t.

And that, my friends, isn’t a terrible thing.  Zazi’s case illustrates the Obama administration’s shifting approach to protecting the country in the relatively discreet manner that doesn’t need to score political points at every arrest.

“The Zazi case was the first test of this administration being able to successfully uncover and deal with this type of threat in the United States,” a senior administration official said. “It demonstrated that we were able to successfully neutralize this threat, and to have insight into it, with existing statutory authorities, with the system as it currently operates.”…

It’s also an approach that stands a better chance securing convictions of the suspects it arrests.  Ever heard this old joke:  What does F.B.I. stand for?  Famous But Incompetent.

That’s starting to change.  It looks like the Bureau is a little less Famous And More Competent: Instead of preemptively arresting Zazi before getting the (court admissible) goods on him, the FBI has shown a more patient, discerning attitude in tracking him.  They didn’t just jump in and arrest him the first day he popped on the radar; they watched him for several weeks, and as a result, the Bureau has better evidence of his movements, contacts, and terrorist activities.

And best of all:

With Zazi’s arrest, administration officials said they had a renewed sense of confidence that they could approach security threats in a new way. “The system probably worked the way it did before, but we made a conscious decision not to have a big press conference” about Zazi’s arrest, a senior official said.

We’re all safer and less paranoid because of it.

And even better, this looks like a trend.  Back in May, the FBI arrested an unrelated cell of anti-Semities in Queens that looked to be on the verge of conducting attacks against Jewish targets in New York.  Here too, the Bureau patiently waited to collect mounds of evidence, and as a result had better information to build a real court case.

Why the shift?  Well, I’d like to take all the credit for this paper I wrote last year called “Getting Intelligence Reform Right”, but I’m not sure ALL the kudos go to lil’ ol’ me:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — the agency charged with collecting intelligence on al Qaeda (and similar groups) within U.S. borders — remains mired in an organizational culture focused mainly on throwing bad guys in jail rather than preventing terrorist attacks in the first place. To a layman, the difference may seem inconsequential, but it drastically impedes the FBI from completing its counterterrorism mission.

As an aside, I’d like to make a final note in the wake of the Guantanamo debate.  Congress just passed a non-binding resolution saying they didn’t want to dangerous inmates of Guantanamo to be transferred to detention facilities within the US.  But Najibullah Zazi is as dangerous - if not moreso - than just about anyone housed in GTMO.  Arrested in Colorado, Zazi will be tried and imprisoned on American soil.

So why can’t we do that with the GTMO detainees again?  Paging Dr. Backbone … Dr. Backbone… you’re wanted on the House floor.

In the last days of his presidency, George Bush clung to a grand notion of what the United States sought to achieve in Afghanistan, saying, “America set an ambitious goal — to help Afghanistan’s young democracy grow and thrive, and emerge as an alternative to the ideology of hate and extremism and terror. This is a difficult and long effort.”

Upon assuming office, President Obama narrowed that focus, telling Jim Lehrer of PBS back in February that,

I can articulate some very clear, minimal goals in Afghanistan, and that is that we make sure that it’s not a safe haven for al-Qaida, they are not able to launch attacks of the sort that happened on 9/11 against the American homeland or American interest.

It’s a striking dichotomy that Obama’s scaled-down goals bring increased commitments in the form of 21,000 extra troops, a civilian surge, and $2.2 billion in aid in 2009 alone.  This inversely proportional relationship appears to be too much for many Americans to support, with some 54 percent now disapproving of the Afghanistan war, according to an August 2009 CNN poll.

Watch CBS Videos Online

The administration’s double-down on Afghanistan is now being openly questioned by its presumed confidants, including former Congressman Lee Hamilton.  Hamilton has made a push in the last week to question the White House’s strategy.

Writing in an Indy Star op-ed and then on CBS’s Face the Nation (above), Hamilton asks:

Are there alternatives (to the current strategy in Afghanistan) other than a massive increase in troops and money? …  Can we protect American national interest protect Americans with something less than may be on the horizon?

In other words, the fundamental question is this: Why don’t narrow goals need fewer resources?

The short answer is unfortunately no.  Denying al Qaeda its safe haven essentially means preventing the Taliban - its patrons - from returning to power.  And denying the Taliban power essentially means building a government in its place.  Whether or not that’s a fully functioning democracy is debatable (and probably not necessary), but is, at a minimum, a stable government with control over the entire country.  And there’s still no quick way out.

It is convenient of course to blame Bush - had his administration not diverted valuable resources to Iraq, proper resources would have been in place years ago.  But passing blame along to Bush fails to grapple with the fact that the Obama administration has a signifcant public relations problem on its hands, and the clock is ticking.

Here’s a strategy:

1.  President Obama does an adequate job of repeating that American involvement in Afghanistan is vital to the United States’ national interest.  But 9/11 was a long time ago, and jugding by the poll numbers cited above, most Americans have forgotten that.  President Obama has rightly avoided embracing the politics of fear of the previous administration, but the White House can use the upcoming eighth anniversary of the attacks to link his new strategy to its underlying justification by appealing to Americans’ sense of patriotism and security.

2.  State that the recent increase in dedicated resources is absolutely critical to denying al Qaeda a safe haven.  The president would not be fulfilling his basic duty to protect Americans without this increase.

3. Emphasize the temporary nature of the increase.  The White House is working hard now so that American never has to go back to Afghanistan.  Consider a pledge of “no permanent US bases” in Afghanistan.

4.  Assuming President Karzai wins this month’s election, turn up the heat by placing contigencies on American aid and military involvement.  America will never be able to deny al Qa’ida and the Taliban a safehaven without a better partner in Kabul.  If Karzai won’t be a better partner willingly, put him on notice in public.

5.  Assuming General McChrystal’s interpretation of the counter-insurgency playbook brings down violence levels in Afghanistan, tout them.  As I’ve written before, the public interprets “success” mainly through the prism of violence levels.  A decrease in violence will buy time for the real objective - filling the vaccuum that denies AQ its safe haven.

Pop quiz - which newspaper wrote the following two sentences:

For cosmetic political reasons, the Obama Administration no longer wants to use the phrase “global war on terror.” Yet in Pakistan and Afghanistan it is fighting a more vigorous war on terrorists than did the previous Administration.

The Washington Post?  The New York Times? Some other bastion of liberal intellectualism?

Hardly.  Of all places, this endorsement of Obama’s counter-terrorism policy came from the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, not exactly a White House ally.  The subtext of the WSJ’s praise is the effective deployment of the drone strike that killed Baitullah Mehsud, one of the most senior Islamic extremist commanders in Pakistan and mastermind of Benazir Bhutto’s December 2007 assassination.  His death has reportedly caused disarray throughout his ranks.

Some smart scholars have called for the Predator strikes’ end, arguing that wayward attacks kill too many civilians and thereby turn the populations that counter-insurgency strategy is supposed to protect against its practitioners.

But on balance, the Mehsud take-down falls into that rare intersection of circumstances when an airstrike is optimally effective.  As I’ve written previously, strikes must be restricted for use only against the highest value of targets while relying on fresh, corroborative intelligence and avoiding civilian casualties at all costs.  Last week, the New York Times indicated that that’s the direction strikes were moving:

Pakistan’s Air Force is improving its ability to pinpoint and attack militant targets with precision weapons, adding a new dimension to the country’s fight against violent extremism, according to Pakistani military officials and independent analysts. …

The changes reflect an effort by the Pakistani military to conduct its operations in a way that will not further alienate the population by increasing civilian casualties and destroying property.

In this case, it looks like that’s what happened.

However, a note of caution:  Airstrikes will only continue to be effective if they are severely restricted.  Baitullah Mehsud’s death may prove to be a solid victory for American and Pakistani forces against the Taliban and al Qaeda, but one endorsement from the Wall Street Journal is hardly a blank check for a more extensive campaign.

Quick - does “orange” mean to put your head between your legs?  When we hit “red” are you then supposed to kiss your ass goodbye?  AHAHA, I can’t remember!  Are we all going to die?!?!?

Well, maybe not, because the ol’ alert scale may be going away.

The terror alert system was - on one level I suppose - well-intentioned.  Believe it or not, the different alert levels were designed with a purpose greater than to keep the bejeezus scared out of us.  On its best days, a change of color/alert level was supposed to instantaneously communicate to federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement, security, and emergency management agencies that the Department of Homeland Security was seeing certain threat information.  And based on that color/alert level, the individual agencies were obliged to ready and deploy certain resources to prevent the attack or begin post-incident response.  The levels had  incredibly important implications to agencies, especially to smaller (mostly state) ones - if we were stuck at orange for an extended period, it was a huge budget drain: employees were on overtime, emergency vehicles had to be readied, etc., etc..  The colors had expensive implications.

But all it ever really did was terrify people.  Ironic, huh?

The skeptics among us though the levels weren’t correlated to anything at all, and rather just used as a political device to keep us scared of al Qaeda and trusting in the Bush administration.  Based on my time in the intelligence community, I assure you that that the levels weren’t arbitrarily manipulated as the poster to the right - though funny - would suggest.  At least, not explicitly - I never could really tell what constituted a “red” threat.  And would DHS go to red, only to have nothing happen?  Furthermore, you’ll notice that the alert system was never, ever, ever set to “green” for “Relax kids, all’s cool today… Go have a Pepsi.”  Even when there hadn’t been any reliable threat reporting in months.

So whatever the benefits were supposed to be, the system was continually dogged by these insinuations, and its negatives outweighed the positives.  If it goes away, one important question remains - how will the government communicate the threat environment now?  I guess they’ll have to send an email…

It has taken me a few days to hone my thinking on the rumors and innuendo of the Obama administration’s crafting of Executive Order language to preventively detain terrorists.

I’m a staunch supporter that everyone - terrorists included - deserves a right to a prompt trial.  I reject the view that we’re in a “war” that should suspend our enemies’ due process and civil liberties, and prefer to view America’s struggle with terrorism as a hybrid of a world-wide police action and diplomatic effort with - in certain theaters - necessary military intervention.

That’s why we can’t issue a blanket suspension of America’s founding values — they matter more than the infinitesimally small chance that a released prisoner could attack U.S. interests again.

I think the president’s view is relatively close to mine actually.  And that’s why the Exectutive Order drama could be a big bluff.  Just read the language in this report and I’ll explain why:

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Recall the fight from a few weeks ago when Congress balked at the White House’s funding request to transfer prisoners out of GTMO?  Basically, Congress - save a few stalwarts like Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) - got irrationally and politically scared that they were about to allow  hundreds of hardened AQ members into their districts, who were bound to somehow escape from super-max prisons and harm their constituents.  So they held up $80mil that the White House needed to move them.

The White House probably just got fed up and figured that if Congress was going to be politically chicken-shit, then they’d effectively dare Congress to play ball.  The dare seems predicated on the fact that Obama is willing to issue Executive Orders on preventive detention without Congressional input - notice the bolded language above about a Congressional battle.  They want Congress to raise such a stink about not being consulted that the White House can back off and let cooler heads prevail.  Then, all sides can craft some sort of meaningful language with everyone’s contribution.

My guess is that the White House calculates that civil liberties groups are weighing down so hard on the Democratic caucus about preventive detention that Congress will seek a  compromise that allows the transfer and trial of detainees in some form.  What that form is, I’m just not sure yet.

Barack Obama came up shy yesterday of laying out a comprehensive plan to adjudicate the cases of each of GTMO’s 240 detainees.  He talked about four concrete steps — transferring prisoners to foreign countries, trying many in civilian courts, releasing those ordered, and reforming the flawed military tribunals — to process the majority detainees in a way that secures the country while conferring the best practices of American legal values and traditions.

However, he punted on the fourth category — what to do with the hard cases of detainees whom we suspect of being able to harm America, but who haven’t given us sufficient evidence legal evidence to justify their continued detention.  The president said:

[T]here remains the question of detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people. And I have to be honest here — this is the toughest single issue that we will face….

[W]e must recognize that these detention policies cannot be unbounded. They can’t be based simply on what I or the executive branch decide alone. That’s why my administration has begun to reshape the standards that apply to ensure that they are in line with the rule of law. We must have clear, defensible, and lawful standards for those who fall into this category. …

I want to be very clear that our goal is to construct a legitimate legal framework for the remaining Guantanamo detainees that cannot be transferred. … If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight.

At the risk of parroting myself, this murky category is exactly where a national security court system would plug that gap.

First, let me back up.

The successful execution of any terrorist plot demands a perfect marriage of the cell’s intent - the ideological and mental dedication to the cause - and capability - the technical expertise in weapons, logistics, and operational security.

The problem is how to justify continued detention of those whom the United States suspects of having a greater degree of intent and capability than its prosecutors can prove in a civilian or military court.

Here’s how jurisdiction of a national security court reconciles the issue:

The first step is the ensure even a minimum degree of proven intent or capability in support of a terrorist act carries stiff penalties.

Next, national security court justices would consider the totality of the circumstances - both in the legal and contextual sense - to determine the detainee’s level of intent and capability.  Judges would have access to all classified intelligence sources and methods regarding the detainees’ actions; they would hear open sources of information on the detainee’s personal history; they would listen to testimony from defense witnesses; and they would be privy to atmospheric information of the circumstances of the detainee’s capture - was the individual in the wrong place at the wrong time, was he a mere worker-bee without knowledge of ongoing plotting (see: Hamdan, Salim), or was he the ringleader of a cabal?

It’s this totality of circumstances - not redacted, partial evidence - that determines the detainee’s level of intent and/or capability, and allows the national security court system to confer a harsh punishment if so much as a minimum level of either is proven.

It’s a system that would justify continued the detention, uphold American legal values, and protect the country.