FBI Creates Terrorists to Catch Them

The sting that led a Somali-born youth to set off a fake bomb in Oregon underlines simmering questions about the FBI role in fighting domestic terrorism.

There are surely legal reasons for devoting months of manpower to leading a troubled teenager from jihad aspirations to what he did at a Christmas tree lighting and even some strategic advantage in deterring wannabes with doubts about the authenticity of other online plotters.

Yet there is something too pat and comfortable about what has become a pattern--previously in Dallas, Washington and Springfield, Ill.--of cultivating troubled loners and going through an elaborate charade to make a case against them.

Americans want their government to stop terrorism, but this approach puts law enforcement routine (and public relations) ahead of striking at root causes of possible attacks and raises questions about alternate ways of preventing them.

In announcing the criminal complaint against 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud, authorities trumpet their accomplishment. “This defendant’s chilling determination," says the local DA, "is a stark reminder that there are people—even here in Oregon—who are determined to kill Americans."

A national security official adds, “While the public was never in danger from the device, this case serves as yet another reminder of the need for continued vigilance both at home and abroad.”

Yes, but couldn't the months of manpower spent cultivating and abetting Mohamud been more usefully devoted to covert efforts to uproot the Internet sources in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere that recruit such dupes and make them dangerous? Doing so is not a matter of law enforcement but true national security.

Whatever happened to JFK's CIA that tried to assassinate Fidel Castro half a century ago and the 21st century Special Forces that Dick Cheney directed to hunt down and kill Al Qaeda leaders? In fighting terrorists, even Cheney couldn't be wrong all the time.

Today's headlines may be a PR triumph for law enforcement but, as reassurance in the War on Terror, they insult the intelligence of the American public. If the FBI can't legally do more than enable sickos to stage aborted attacks to alarm us, they should leave fighting terrorism to those who can.

Update: The Oregon dog-and-pony show continues as a patriot sets fire to the Islamic Center attended by the FBI's "bomber." Can a government agency be charged with abetting hate crimes?

Asymmetrical War on Terror

We attack al Qaeda and the Taliban with Predator drones. They send us a hapless Shoe Bomber, a Christmas plane passenger with underwear that doesn't explode and now the Times Square terrorist who parks a used car full of jerry-rigged junk and leaves a trail of bread crumbs that results in his capture 53 hour later.

Yet, lopsided as this War on and of Terror may be technologically, the score has to be reckoned not only by body counts, which we have mercifully been spared, but the anxiety created in a post-9/11 America.

As Attorney General Eric Holder and a panel of homeland protectors congratulate themselves on camera today for the capture of Faisal Shahzad, the unspoken question that can't be asked or answered is:

If it takes all these resources to deal with what one terrorism expert delicately calls a lack of "tradecraft," how safe are we if and when the enemy sends in an A-Team?

The politicizing of this unanswerable question has yet to start, although John McCain, former opponent of torture, now in full campaign mode, has jumped in to warn against Mirandizing the suspect. (Interrogators actually delayed reading him his rights with a "public safety" exception to the law, although Shahzad has apparently been blabbing before and after.)

Americans must know instinctively that no amount of posturing about toughness can alleviate the knowledge that they have to live with an exposure that can't be demagogued away.

"This incident," the President told them today, "is another sobering reminder of the times in which we live. Around the world and here at home, there are those who would attack our citizens and who would slaughter innocent men, women and children in pursuit of their murderous agenda. They will stop at nothing to kill and disrupt our way of life. But once again, an attempted attack has been failed.

"It has failed because ordinary citizens were vigilant and reported suspicious activity to the authorities. It failed because these authorities--local, state and federal--acted quickly and did what they’re trained to do."

True enough as far as it goes, but the American temperament, especially these days, does not take well to existential uncertainty. Yet, in the War of Terror, that's what we are going to have for a long time to come.

Taking Offense Against Terror

If there really is a "war," why are all the images of it defensive and reactive, from the White House's talking heads this week to yesterday's arraignment of a young man in a T-shirt looking in the artists' sketches like a teenager caught swiping fruit?

As two generations of Cheneys fault Barack Obama for not being Jack Bauer of 24, real questions persist about how to fight an aggressive war on terror but avoid one "that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans," as the President put it the other day.

The answers are somewhere beyond the usual liberal/conservative divide, scrambling all the philosophical arguments.

Start with yesterday's courtroom scene. While it may have satisfied an American desire for due process, was that the best choice for dealing with a heinous crime that could have left hundreds of innocent victims and thousands of grieving family members?

Certainly Abdulmutallab is of far less importance than the people who recruited, trained, equipped and sent him on his mission. If what they did was an attack on American society, wouldn't it have been more appropriate to put him in the context of that war and do everything necessary (pace the debate on torture) to identify and take action against the real enemies?

The answer opens the lid on a Pandora's box of issues that go beyond political posturing over questions about our "values" and the terrorists'. If we are fighting an enemy convinced that killing innocent people is God's work and willing to hide behind the sovereignty of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or wherever, our choices are much more complicated than those of Jack Bauer or his civil liberties counterparts.

If we go on offense in the war on terror, some of the necessary tactics may be offensive to our aversion to secrecy and subterfuge, but is the only alternative to let ourselves be slaughtered by inviolable enemies who keep sending waves of Adbdulmutallabs and Shoe Bombers at us?

Dissenters may argue that a vigorous response will only "breed" even more recruits for the terrorists, but there is no shortage now, and that possibility pales against the value of letting those who plot to kill us know that we will be coming after them with more than words.

The Unspeakable Cheney Speaks Up

The self-selected, unelected Vice President of 2000 is still intent on earning his title as worst ever. Only two weeks after being wheeled out of office, he has these gracious words about the new administration:

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.”

In an interview, Dick Cheney tells Politico that protecting the country is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” adding “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.

“If it hadn’t been for what we did--with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth--then we would have been attacked again. Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”

And Cheney knows this how? Apparently by consulting the same home-cooked intelligence that told him Saddam Hussein had links to the 9/11 terrorists and was working on nuclear weapons to use against us.

His advice to the new president: “The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the Obama administration believes.”

After leaving an economy in tatters, the former VP has no apologies, only a head-shaking comment: “It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The combination of the financial crisis that started last year, coupled now with, obviously, a major recession, I think we’re a long way from having solved these problems.”

We? The recession is apparently an act of nature that couldn't have been foreseen or prevented. By the logic of Cheneyworld, that's Obama's problem to solve. After winning the war on terror, you couldn't expect the Bush Administration to do everything.

The Demeanor Debate

John McCain spent 90 minutes tonight telling voters Barack Obama "doesn't understand" what America is facing, as Obama demonstrated a broad grasp of the 21st century issues besetting the economy and national security.

Body language was revealing in McCain's tight grin that occasionally morphed into a smirk under criticism, while Obama featured a relaxed smile and at least half a dozen times responded with a generous "John is right, but..."

Behind the difference in demeanor was the familiar clash of experience vs. change that is at the heart of the contest, with McCain distancing himself from Bush-Cheney and impressively name-dropping world leaders (but getting wrong the new president of Pakistan) to persuade voters that Obama is too naïve to deal with a dangerous world.

There was no defining "gotcha" moment but, in light of Obama's need to show persuadable voters that he has the intellect and disposition to occupy the Oval Office, he made progress as did McCain by appearing forceful and knowing to offset doubts about his age and hair-trigger temper.

Most of the time, the candidates talked past each other but after McCain had hammered away at the need to cut government spending, Obama confronted him with:

"John, it's been your president who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time who presided over this increase in spending. This orgy of spending and enormous deficits you voted for almost all of his budgets. So to stand here and after eight years and say that you're going to lead on controlling spending...is, you know, kind of hard to swallow."

What is unknowable is how the debate affected the unspoken subtext of this election--race.

The site itself was a third presence tonight, the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where 46 years ago Army troops surrounded James Meredith as he integrated "Ole Miss" amid riots and bloodshed.

Meredith himself, who later became a Republican on the staff of Sen. Jesse Helms, is a cranky reminder of the complexity of race in the South. He declined an invitation to the debate. "My wife and son will be there," he told the Washington Post. "I'm taking care of the grandbabies."

But those of my generation can't overlook the history that, when Meredith entered the university, the interracial marriage of Barack Obama's parents was illegal there, and that John McCain's great-great grandfather had owned a plantation nearby.

Almost half a century later, things have changed but race is still an issue there and in much of America and will affect the result of this election, no matter how well the candidates performed tonight.

The Way We Live Now

Beyond the headlines, we occasionally get "soft" news about how the post-9/11 world really is, as we do today in disturbing narratives about the unseen wars in Iran and Pakistan--patterns of secrets and lies that Americans and their representatives in Washington either don't know or want to talk about publicly.

In the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh details a new "major escalation of covert operations against Iran...designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership" as part of a literal tug of war in the White House and Congress on how to deal with the nuclear threat from Tehran.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports "a secret plan to make it easer for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda," a plan that exists only on paper as a result of Washington indecision and in-fighting.

Until the Bush Administration departs next January, it will be easy enough to blame all this dangerous confusion on their certified bunglers, but how well will successors of either party in a country that prides itself on government transparency be equipped to navigate this shadowy world of shifting alliances among violent splinter groups?

In Iran, the M.E.K., which has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for a decade, is receiving arms and intelligence, from the US, a Pentagon consultant tells Hersh, even though "its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years" and "it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

In Pakistan, after being swindled by Pervez Musharraf for years, the US wants to be more aggressive in going after terrorists there but, according to the Times, "With Qaeda operatives now described in intelligence reports as deeply entrenched in the tribal areas and immersed in the civilian population, there is also a view among some military and CIA officials that the opportunity for decisive American action against the militants may have been lost."

Meanwhile, Hersh tells CNN, Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign in Iran, which involves US special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

As the Bush Administration tries to throw "Hail Mary" passes before it leaves the field and the candidates confidently promise new approaches to dealing with terrorism, there is a sinking feeling that this is the way we are going to be living for a long, long time.

Tacky War on Terror

Munitions merchants are not what they used to be. A century ago, in "Major Barbara," George Bernard Shaw gave us Andrew Undershaft, an intellectual who philosophized about war and poverty. Today we have 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli, who peddles useless used weaponry and keeps getting arrested for domestic violence.

After "repeated inquiries" by the New York Times, the Army this week finally suspended his company, AEY inc., from future federal contracts, after learning Diveroli had sold them Chinese ammunition that he claimed to be Hungarian.

The company, which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach with a licensed masseur as Vice President, had supplied $300 million of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces, much of which turned out to be more than 40 years old from stockpiles of the former Communist bloc, including some that the State Department and NATO had determined to be obsolete and spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

Diveroli's convoluted business dealings include allegations of bribery in Albania (where some of munitions blew up this month, killing 22 people and destroying hundreds of homes), a dummy company in Cyprus and illegal arms trafficking in the Czech Republic, all of which led to arming US allies fighting the Taliban with useless and dangerous weapons.

It's comforting to know that the war on terror is being run by the people who certified Diveroli as a reliable arms contractor.

Our Wobbly War on Terror

With President Bush's would-be successors squabbling over Iraq, they are neglecting the main threat of terror that will face one of them taking office next January.

In Pakistan, Musharraf is on his way out as leaders of the two dominant parties agree to reinstate the judges he fired and try to strip him of crucial powers.

"Afghanistan is slipping toward failure," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden warns. "The Taliban is back, violence is up, drug production is booming and the Afghans are losing faith in their government. All the legs of our strategy--security, counter-narcotics efforts, reconstruction and governance--have gone wobbly."

The schedule of staying or going in Iraq is dominating the foreign policy debate in the presidential campaign, but Pakistan and Afghanistan are becoming more urgent.

"If we should have had a surge anywhere," Sen. Biden wrote last week in the New York Times, "it is Afghanistan...In six years, we have spent on Afghanistan’s reconstruction only what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq."

The border area between the two countries, according to Biden is "a freeway of fundamentalism: the Taliban and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in Pakistan, while Pakistani suicide bombers wreak havoc in Afghanistan."

The Bush-Cheney strategy of relying on Musharraf's unreliable assurances about rooting them out is collapsing, but this Administration is unlikely to face that fact.

Biden sums it up: "The next president will have to rally America and the world to 'fight them over there unless we want to fight them over here.' The 'over there' is not, as President Bush has claimed, Iraq, but rather the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Voters should be pressing Sens. McCain, Clinton and Obama to tell them what they are going to do about that.

Giuliani's Glass House

As he hears Fred Thompson’s footsteps in the Republican race, America’s Mayor has gone from polishing his 9/11 halo to photo-shopping it out of all recognition, the Washington Post reports today.

At the same time, Rudy Giuliani has reverted to his prosecutorial roots by impugning the judgment and motives of every Democrat in sight from MoveOn.org back to Bill Clinton.

On terrorism, he charges, Democrats have "the same bad judgment they had in the 1990s. They don't see the threat. They don't accept the threat."

But, the Post reports, the attacks are “undercut by Giuliani's record as mayor and by his public statements about terrorism since the 1990s, which document an evolution in thinking that began with a mind-set similar to the one he criticizes today.”

Before 9/11 and even in the aftermath, Giuliani treated terrorism more as crime, akin to his Mafia experience, rather than an ongoing political crisis, reflected in his decision to locate a command center for the Office of Emergency Management across from the twin towers, which had been attacked in 1993.

John McCain has politely questioned whether Giuliani’s performance after 9/11 "translates, necessarily, into foreign policy or national security expertise. I know of nothing in his background that indicates that he has any experience in it."

The Mayor’s level of interest in international affairs was reflected by his failure to attend meetings of the Iraq Study Group in 2006 that would have interfered with his schedule of collecting $1.4 million in speaking fees, which led to his ultimate resignation from the commission.

Now Giuliani is not only touting his toughness on terrorism and the world it has created but the softness of everybody else. John McCain may be wrong about Iraq and its context, but he knows what he’s talking about, talks straight and doesn’t demean those who disagree with him.

Giuliani is his polar opposite.

Distorting Obama's "Inaugural Address"

At the invitation of Lee Hamilton, one of the nation’s wisest elders, Barack Obama made the speech of his life today, one that presages what he might say as President in January 2009. Typically it was mined for a media headline and reduced to: “Obama Might Send Troops Into Pakistan.”

Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, whose director of Middle East Studies is in a Teheran prison, Obama laid out a foreign policy that projects the use of U.S. military strength and diplomacy in a way that would reverse the bluster and bungling of the Bush-Cheney Administration.

He began with an indictment: “After 9/11, our calling was to write a new chapter in the American story. To devise new strategies and build new alliances, to secure our homeland and safeguard our values, and to serve a just cause abroad. We were ready. Americans were united. Friends around the world stood shoulder to shoulder with us...

”We did not finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We did not develop new capabilities to defeat a new enemy, or launch a comprehensive strategy to dry up the terrorists' base of support. We did not reaffirm our basic values, or secure our homeland.

”Instead, we got a color-coded politics of fear. Patriotism as the possession of one political party. The diplomacy of refusing to talk to other countries. A rigid 20th century ideology that insisted that the 21st century's stateless terrorism could be defeated through the invasion and occupation of a state. A deliberate strategy to misrepresent 9/11 to sell a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.”

From there, Obama proposed in detail a new approach to “stop fighting the war the terrorists want us to fight” and “wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.”

As President, Obama promised to remove troops from Iraq and put them "on the right battlefield," sending at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increasing nonmilitary aid by $1 billion as well as initiate a three-year, $5 billion program to share intelligence with allies to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.

In Pakistan, he said, “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”

Obama’s speech is sure to generate criticism from other Presidential contenders and ridicule from commentators and bloggers as a ploy to one-up Hillary Clinton in their squabble about talking to enemies.

But, prepared with the best foreign-policy advice he could get, it is a serious statement by a serious man that should go far to ease voter qualms about his lack of experience or possible softness as Commander-in-Chief.

If the critics have substantive counter-arguments, let’s hear them. Invective won’t cut it.

Where Terrorists Could Go Nuclear

Our “vital ally in the War on Terror,” as President Bush describes Pakistan, is on the brink of a crisis that could make Iraq look like a Sunday picnic.

To stabilize his situation, President Pervez Musharraf is negotiating a power-sharing arrangement with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who is taking a hard line about her return from self-imposed exile, insisting that Musharraf give up control of the army that brought him to power.

"The Red Mosque was just a warm-up for what will happen if the religious schools are not disarmed," Bhutto said this week about the recent bloody occupation in Islamabad, adding that Islamist extremists plotting the overthrow of Musharraf's government had converted madrassases into military arsenals.

All this unrest and uncertainty comes amid the Bush Administration’s increasing doubts about Pakistan’s role in rooting out Al Qaeda and the imminent passage by Congress of an aid bill that would be tied to Pakistan’s progress in cracking down on terrorist safe havens.

Add to this volatile political mixture Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons, and it may soon make our worries about Iraq and Iran look simple by comparison.