Debating Wrist Slaps

Rowan Scarborough at Fox News:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy’s elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral’s mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.

Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named “Objective Amber,” told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.

Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.

Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.

Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard:

Maybe there’s a whole lot more to this story than is currently being reported, but it’d have to be pretty terrible stuff to convince me that three Navy SEALs who successfully captured a high-value target now deserve to be court martialed for their service. A fat lip? That’s enough to get you rough military justice from the Obama administration, but blow up the World Trade Center and you get all the due process rights of the civilian criminal justice system. Sounds fair, right?

Allah Pundit:

Looks awful, but I’m suspicious that it’s as bad as it seems given Fox’s misleading headline: “Navy SEALs Face Assault Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist.” That makes it sound like the act of capturing him is the offense here, which would be insane even by the Army’s Nidal-Hasan standards of political correctness.

But that’s not what happened. They’re being charged for allegedly giving him a beating and covering it up.

[…]

I like Goldfarb’s take: “A fat lip? That’s enough to get you rough military justice from the Obama administration, but blow up the World Trade Center and you get all the due process rights of the civilian criminal justice system.” Even so, the fact that this turd got the Iraqi authorities involved may have left Central Command with little choice here. The last thing the military needs right now is another detainee-abuse headache, especially with some Iraqi pols already leaning on them about withdrawal. Giving the SEALs a zero-tolerance wrist slap reminds other troops not to do anything more seriously stupid that might be exploited politically. And it will be a wrist slap, I’m sure: The last thing The One needs after shipping KSM off to NYC for his close-up is the image of SEALs being hauled off to prison for busting some jihadi in the face. In fact, according to Fox, the SEALs requested a court-martial rather than nonjudicial punishment, presumably because they know full well how awful this looks for the military. Prediction: Wrist slap.

Blackfive on Allah Pundit’s post:

Let me explain something to you amigo. That wrist slap would be a career-ender in Spec Ops for these men. You understand? We take three guys who accomplish more in a lazy afternoon than you have in your entire anonymous, snarking-from-the-sideline, existence and we put them out of work making dead tangos. And that sounds like what should have happened to this ass clown. If he dies during the take down we have no problems.

I know you have no earthly clue just how god-awful complicated it is to actually perform a raid and scarf up a bad guy, let’s just say it rates up there with trying to conduct a Beethoven Symphony with your orchestra in free fall, screaming towards Earth like a phalanx of freaking lawn darts. That is why we like to send a f**king Hellfire down on them and last time I checked that leaves a little more than a god damn bloody lip. And yes I am saying I don’t care if he got it once he got to base. What if the guy who clocked his murderous ass knew Scott Helverson, who this bastard helped kill, burn and then defile his corpse? Do you really want to be on record saying he should be made an example of? Do you remember what Kos said about the four men this scumbag killed you dumbass? I’ll remind you “F**k them”. You are sure in illustrious company.

John Hinderaker at Powerline:

Our armed forces have become exquisitely sensitive–toward Nidal Malik Hasan and Ahmed Hashim Abed, and one wonders who else. Such sensitivity comes at a price, of course. But for now, at least, that price won’t be paid by those who set the policy.

Gateway Pundit

UPDATE: Sean Linnane at FrumForum

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

The CIA not-briefing-Congress-death-squad-Cheney-Panetta-Pelosi story.

New York Times

Since 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency has developed plans to dispatch small teams overseas to kill senior Qaeda terrorists, according to current and former government officials.

The plans remained vague and were never carried out, the officials said, and Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, canceled the program last month.

Officials at the spy agency over the years ran into myriad logistical, legal and diplomatic obstacles. How could the role of the United States be masked? Should allies be informed and might they block the access of the C.I.A. teams to their targets? What if American officers or their foreign surrogates were caught in the midst of an operation? Would such activities violate international law or American restrictions on assassinations overseas?

John Hinderaker

We know that the CIA and others did try, successfully, to capture some al Qaeda leaders, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This presumably was done pursuant to Presidential authority. That being the case, it’s unclear what the Journal’s sources mean when they say that Bush’s directive was never implemented. It would seem that some more specific “program” must have been contemplated. As for the Democrats, it’s hard to understand how they can complain that no one told them the Bush administration was trying to kill or capture al Qaeda leaders like KSM. After all, it was in all the newspapers. But maybe they weren’t paying attention.

David Kurtz at TPM:

So regardless of how you might feel about targeted assassinations, it’s not at all clear why this particular program would be so radioactive — compared to what the U.S. was, and still is, doing more or less openly — that (1) Cheney would demand the CIA not brief Congress about it for eight years; (2) Panetta would cancel it immediately upon learning of it; and (3) Democrats would howl quite so loudly when finally informed.

Or to think about it another way, put yourself in the seat of a Democrat on one of the intel committees after 9/11. If you had any doubt about whether the intel agencies were targeting al Qaeda leaders, wouldn’t you have demanded that they show you proof they were? And if you didn’t have any doubt that they were, why are you complaining now about not being briefed?

It doesn’t add up. There’s more to this story to be told.

Karl at Hot Air

Could it be that CIA Director Panetta does not have a good grip on the history of his agency’s post-9/11 efforts? Could it be that his Democratic colleagues have such a knee-jerk hostility to the CIA that they would jump on bad info to attack the CIA and Fmr. Vice-Pres. Cheney as a modified limited defense of Speaker Pelosi’s prior bogus attacks on the CIA regarding briefings on interrogation tactics? Could it be that the geniuses of the NYT forgot they already blew the program?

(Hint: Yes, Yes and Yes.)

Emptywheel:

First, there must be something more. Aside from the near ubiquitous drone strikes, which seem to be fully acknowledged and non-controversial, there have been enough personal strikes against al Qaeda figures that appear likely to have been assassinations, that for all intents and purposes, it appears we are assassinating al Qaeda figures.

It may be, for example, that the conflict reported by Sy Hersh is the problem–that Special Ops has the mandate to kill but CIA is being dragged into those assassinations.

[…] But even that can’t be it. While the conflict Hersh reported pertained to Iran, not al Qaeda, Congress clearly knows about this conflict–they’ve even drafted legislation to curb it. Nevertheless, you’d think that if Congress saw this going on with regards to Iran, it’d worry them more than the same practice going on with al Qaeda.

Second, just to pre-empt the inevitable discussion of “law” every time this comes up. Yes, EO 12333 still appears to ban assassinations.

[…] So for those who will, inevitably, immediately invoke EO 12333 in arguing that assassination is “illegal,” please do your homework. EO 12333 apparently prohibits assassinations, but there’s no way we can guarantee that Bush didn’t pixie dust the EO back in 2001 when he set up his little assassination squad. Furthermore, an EO is just that, an EO, one that a President can change at will without even publicly informing Congress or the American people. While it counts as law for the Executive Branch, it is not the same as a law passed by Congress, and treating it as if it is is simple foolishness at this point.

I assume we’ll learn more about this in coming days. But thus far, I’m not convinced this is the whole of the story yet.

Peter Brookes at Heritage:

We don’t need the CIA or others to become risk-adverse in these dangerous times, but instead be willing to take on the “hard targets,” like catching Osama bin Laden and collecting intelligence on the troubling Iranian and North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs. If we’re not careful, we could end up tying up senior intelligence officials and resources in inconclusive, politically-motivated investigations, rather having them expend their time and efforts in directing our first line of defense—the intelligence community.

Our national security is earned one tough day at a time by brave, well-intentioned Americans. We can’t allow some on the Left to kick around their efforts like a political football, keeping them from the important tasks at hand.

If we do, there’s sure to be a serious price to be paid.

Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent:

“Killing people during war is different from the U.S. government targeting specific persons, outside a battle zone, for killing,” said Vicki Divoll, a former lawyer for both the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “And even in the so-called war on terror, most lawyers who study this issue believe that targeted killing of a named terrorist falls within the ban in a presidential executive order that has been around since the Ford administration.”

The executive order Divoll referred to has come to be known as EO 12333, which President Reagan issued in 1981, building on the efforts of Presidents Ford and Carter. It states, “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”

Very little has been revealed about this new program, but the drone strikes appear to be entirely separate from it. On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the program Panetta shut down was an inchoate effort to hunt and assassinate terrorist leaders that did not progress far beyond the planning stages. The Guardian added on Monday that the effort was geared toward al-Qaeda members taking refuge in U.S.-allied countries, where the use of military force — and in some cases, the cooperation of domestic law enforcement or intelligence — could not be contemplated. Neither the CIA nor the White House would comment on the program.

UPDATE: From The Corner:

Jonah Goldberg

Andy McCarthy

Cliff May

Karen Tumulty in Swampland

UPDATE #3: Joseph Bottum at First Things

John Schwenkler on Bottum

Rod Dreher on Bottum

In Foreign Policy:

Stephen Walt

David Rothkopf

Dov Zakheim

At New Majority, Sean Linnane

But Robert Gates Will Quote Donald Trump

Genera David McKiernan replaced by Lt. General Stan McChrystal.

Two posts from Joe Klein at Swampland, here and here:

David McKiernan is one of our finest generals, especially when it comes to conventional warfare. If you need to get a force from the Kuwait border to Baghdad in three weeks, he’s the guy to do it–as he did at the beginning of the Iraq War. I’m not sure he was perfectly situated when it came to the war in Afghanistan. This is anything but a conventional war–and it may be that General Stan McChrystal, who was announced today as McKiernan’s replacement, will turn out to be a better fit. McChrystal last combat mission was to command the Special Operations Forces in Iraq–and Afghanistan is a war where the importance of special ops and counterinsurgency is paramount.

Andrew Exum in Foreign Policy:

Gen. McKiernan was fired — and fired in a very public manner. Secretary Gates’ exact words: “I have asked for the resignation of General David McKiernan.”

Damn.

This tells me that President Obama, Secretary Gates, and Gen. Petraeus are as serious as a heart attack about a shift in strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This was ruthless, and they were not about to do the George Casey thing whereby a commander is left in the theater long after he is considered to have grown ineffective.

The sad truth of the matter is that people have been calling for McKiernan’s head for some time now. Many of the people with whom I have spoken do not think that McKiernan “gets” the war in Afghanistan — or counterinsurgency warfare in general. There was very little confidence that — with McKiernan in charge in Afghanistan — we the United States had the varsity squad on the field.

That all changed today. I do not know if the war in Afghanistan is winnable. But I do know that Stan McChrystal is an automatic starter in anyone’s line-up.

Game on.

Max Boot in Commentary:

In this case, Gates (and his boss in the Oval Office) are showing some of the moxie of an Abraham Lincoln or a Franklin Roosevelt by not being afraid to cashier a commander who hasn’t necessarily done anything wrong but who also hasn’t impressed anyone as the right kind of leader to win a war. Rumsfeld, by contrast, stuck with the discredited leadership team of Generals George Abizaid and George Casey in Iraq long after it became apparent they were leading us toward defeat.

Anyone who is familiar with the military will tell you that McChrystal has a much more impressive reputation than McKiernan, who is widely viewed as a decent enough armored officer but as the wrong kind of leader for a complex counterinsurgency. As important as McChrystal’s appointment is the designation of Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez to be his deputy. In all likelihood Rodriguez will head a corps staff in Afghanistan just as Ray Odierno did in Iraq. McKiernan resisted the creation of a corps staff and that, among other issues, sealed his fate.

Spencer Ackerman has a quote from an anonymous senior military official on McChrystal.

Tom Donnelly in the Weekly Standard.

James Joyner.

More when I find it.

UPDATE #1: Marc Ambinder, with the Sy Hersh angle.

Chris Good

Fred Kaplan in Slate

UPDATE #2: Sean Linnane in New Majority.

UPDATE #3: Kelley Vlahos in TAC.

But what the blogs have been talking about at length and what the mainstreamers seem to be afraid to acknowledge, is that McChrystal can be placed at the very center of the controversy the Obama Administration is now wrestling with and Cheney seeks to defend:  the torture and abuse — sanctioned and delegated from the top — of battlefield detainees throughout the GWOT theater under President Bush. It doesn’t take long to click through and read in-depth accounts of the goings-on under McChrystal’s special operations command in The Atlantic (May 2007) and Esquire (August 2006).

Andrew Sullivan

UPDATE #4: A Sully round-up. Some of the posts:

George Packer in The New Yorker

Michael Yon

Judah Grunstein

Michael Cohen

Kori Schake in Foreign Policy

Other posts:

David Zirin in The Nation, with more on the Pat Tillman connection.

Benjamin H. Friedman at Cato

UPDATE #5: More Sullivan

UPDATE #6: Andrew Sullivan again.

Spencer Ackerman, here, here, here, here, here and here. And here.

UPDATE #7: Rajiv Chandrasekaran in WaPo

More Ackerman

UPDATE #8: Kevin Drum