TSA, Outrage, and War

So in case you didn't hear, the TSA is under fire for enhancing search procedures. Specifically, people are up in arms about the body scanner that leaves little to the imagination or (if you elect to not go through the scanner) enhanced pat downs. Neither of these options are enjoyable, but how much of this is a real uproar and how much is media grabbing?

According to a CBS poll out last week, 81% of Americans support full-body X-ray scanner with only 15% not supporting the measure. This hasn't stopped calls for a boycott of TSA on Wednesday (the busiest travel day of the year) by some. TSA Administrator John S. Pistole has a statement out which correctly reminds people "we cannot forget less then a year ago a suicide bomber...tried to bring down a plane over Detroit." He has also urged people just this morning to not cause slowdowns at security checkpoints so people can get home to see loved ones.

As someone who will be flying Wednesday, I'm really hoping people heed his request. Of course, bigger happenings are afoot in the halls of Congress. Ron Paul has introduced legislation that would open up TSA employees to prosecution if they engage in enhanced pat downs. Rep. John Mica of Florida has said TSA should be ditched for private contractors. Of course the TSA, when asked for comment simply stated private contractors wouldn't be a cure all since "TSA sets the security standards that must be followed." Perhaps Rep. Mica will be more comfortable having a private contractor copping a feel as opposed to a federal employee?

I spend a fair bit of time in airports. I have been patted down just so I could board a plane in Columbia. I have been interrogated by a Federale in Mexico. I have suffered long lines, forgotten belts, and I tend to look for men in suits when figuring out which security line I'm going to go through, but I take this as all part of the process. The security procedures could be overblown, but clearly (based on the CBS poll) most American are fine with whats being done.

My issue is this: How can you be up in arms about security procedures at airports designed to protect American lives when you voted to send American troops to Iraq? As someone who voted to send troops to Iraq, Rep. Mica should have to answer that question. How is it tolerable to put U.S. troops in harms way but not to go through a full body scanner? (Ron Paul doesn't have to answer the same question. He is consistent in his convictions.)

As for me, I hope people go with the flow through airport security on Wednesday. It won't be enjoyable and special preparations may be needed (fluffer?), but we're in it together. This is the world we live in and while we debate that balance between civil liberty and security I just want to make it to the airplane on time. Overhead space will be at a premium.

Stay Engaged

Like Jason, I’m impressed by the Pillar-Nagl debate in the National Interest. Like Jason, I think both gentlemen make excellent points; I find myself agreeing with both to some extent. But, where Jason engages with Pillar in his questioning of the purpose of US involvement in Afghanistan, I diverge. Instead, I, like Nagl, recognize that not all conflict zones are created equally.

It seems that Pillar implicitly argues that the United States is only able to engage in one conflict zone at a time, that if it is involved in Afghanistan then it cannot deal with security threats in Yemen. Or, conversely, that the Underwear Bomber having operated from Yemen indicates that Afghanistan is no longer relevant to US national security concerns.

While US resources are finite—and its freedom of action has been severely curtailed since the 2003 invasion of Iraq—it is objectively not the case that United States is so tied up in Afghanistan that it cannot address other, smaller security threats. Various responses, including both military special forces and civilian covert attacks, have been used over the last year to address al-Qaeda branded security threats in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

It is also not the case that the Underwear Bomber’s non-Afghan point of origin is indicative of Afghanistan no longer being a threat to US national security. Abandoning Afghanistan presents at least two distinct threats. First, eight years of war in Afghanistan should have taught us above all that conflict separation based on such thing so arbitrary as the Durand line is nonsensical. The notion that abandoning Afghanistan will not have regional consequences is insane. There is no reason that, should Afghanistan collapse, the Pakistani Taliban will not begin to use Afghanistan as a safe haven as the Afghan Taliban have used Pakistan since 2002. It should be remembered that the Pakistani Taliban have a real beef with the state of Pakistan—they, unlike the Afghan Taliban, would actually like to see Pakistan collapse. Of course, the collapse of Pakistan is a nightmare scenario.

Second, while the hijackers that actually carried out the attacks were not Afghans, the freedom of action al-Qaeda enjoyed there certainly facilitated those and other attacks. Though al-Qaeda is a diffuse operation (diffuser now than it was in 2001), having a base of operations is useful to the organization. Were that not the case, bin Laden would not have relocated from Sudan to Afghanistan. Were that not the case, then it would be mere coincidence that so many of the terrorists that launched or attempted to launch attacks in Europe since 9/11 spent time in either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Though the Underwear Bomber’s plot was hatched in Yemen, it simply does not follow that Yemen is the sole threat to the United States currently. Yemen is merely the most recent example of a phenomenon that we might take to be a natural law at this point: weak or failed states afford non-state actors space in which to incubate, train, and launch attacks. The degree of intervention required to ensure (so far as that is possible) US national security is a fact-specific question. In Afghanistan, there is not yet a state to which the territory can be left, the US ought remain engaged until such a state exists—hopefully the Marja operation and the rounding up of Afghan Taliban leadership is a step in the right direct (there are many people that think it is not, however). Yemen, however, presents different facts and different requirements. There, the state, though weak, exists. Working within the state’s apparatus to disrupt al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the best course of action. Additionally, as Nagl notes, the ease of access US military assets have to Yemen via the Arabian Sea also affords the US an ability to strike from a stand-off position which it does not enjoy in Afghanistan.

So, to answer Jason's question, we are trying to save ourselves. Long-term policy making is hard. It is harder still to execute. But it is absolutely necessary.

Who are we trying to save in Afghanistan?

In a fantastic debate published online by the National Interest, Paul Pillar and John Nagl debate whether Afghanistan is the right war. Pillar believes not. Nagl believes it is.

Pillar believes that we have done what needed to be done in Afghanistan. We have driven out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but that now we are surging to build up a government in Kabul. He questions the continuing need to fight against the Taliban. He also questions the argument that leaving will allow the Taliban to return, and that a resurgent Taliban will bring with it Al Qaeda.

Pillar points to the underpants bomber as a reason why we shouldn’t focus so much attention on Afghanistan. The underpants bomber wasn’t part of the central Qaeda network, he was an operative for a Qaeda franchise based in Yemen. Pillar also protests to the constant supposition in our vernacular that this is a “war” on terror, drawing attention to the word “war” as a misnomer and hindrance to our ability to successful confront and defeat a diffuse, non-state actor with numerous franchises around the world and operatives often organizing in Western cities.

Nagl believes that this is the right war and the right strategy because allowing the Taliban to return to power (a likely outcome if we were to withdraw in the near term) would lead to a renewed safe haven from which Al Qaeda could plot attacks and coordinate actions, presumably with greater ease than they currently have in tribal areas of Pakistan. Nagl is very much preoccupied with force projections problems the US military would have after with withdraw from Afghanistan, repeatedly noting the distance from any accessible coastline for the US Navy. Nagl is also a full-throated supporter of building up the current Afghan government and Afghan military to address the threat caused by the Taliban. This support clearly comes from an assumption that if the Taliban were to return to power, Al Qaeda would return to its prior safe haven. Nagl notes that in other theaters, such as Yemen, force projection is not nearly as difficult as in Afghanistan. Nagl also emphasizes that these other theaters do not featured failed states in contrast to Afghanistan.

When I read the two pieces I found myself agreeing with points made by both Pillar and Nagl. Though I’m predisposed to agree with Nagl, I came out with one big question:

What or Who are we trying to save?

What is the intent of the surge? Is it to protect America? Will it do that beyond disrupting central Qaeda HQ? McDonald’s HQ is in Des Plaines, Illinois. If we quarantined Des Plaines would that have a huge affect on the ability of McDonald’s franchisers to find customer and suppliers?

Will Afghanistan return to Taliban rule in the wake of an American withdrawal at this time? What is the human cost should the Taliban return to power? Will a Taliban reemergence necessarily mean an Al Qaeda safe haven, thus increased freedom to operate and, presumably, launch more sophisticated attacks?

What or Who are we trying to save?


I don’t believe that the surge in Afghanistan is directly tied to the current state of national security in the United States. I believe our mission is really to build up a state so we could have a presence in the country not unlike our presence in Yemen, which is to say minimal. So we aren’t trying to save America.


Maybe we’re there to protect Afghanis. Maybe the retribution and persecution of a reemerged Taliban would be so violent, so vindictive that policymakers get queasy in the stomach thinking about it. But then you must consider how many Afghan civilians have died at the hands of NATO forces. Despite the assumed benevolence of our mission, we’ve caused thousands of deaths. Also, while trying to prop up a chronically corrupt, ineffectual central government that the Taliban doesn’t recognize we encourage violent attacks simply by being present in the country. Would the Taliban really need to engage in much military activity if we weren’t there? I would think the Afghan army would provide little resistance to a Taliban advance. So we aren’t really saving Afghanis.

Perhaps we’re trying to save face in a region we only so recently misread and cast aside when we no longer had use for her. The US sponsorship of the muhajedeen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent abandonment of these fighters and what the evolved into is still fresh in the minds of US policymakers. Maybe we’re trying to not repeat our mistakes and restore or save some of the legitimacy of the US as a valuable ally in the region, but then is the Afghan government really looking to ally with the US? Does that serve a purpose for their political leadership other then patronage? Pakistan doesn’t seem to be interested in having the US as an ally. Maybe we’re trying to save some face, but if we are it would appear we are doing it the wrong way.

The Facts and Gen. Hayden

The Washington Post published a report this evening that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber, is cooperating with investigators and providing intelligence about his training and his contacts. It seems clear that the unnamed Administration sources released this information to rebut "Soft on Terrorism" attacks on President Obama and Gen. Hayden's Op-Ed in the Washington Post that, just two days ago, argued that Mirandizing the underwear bomber placed US national security in jeopardy.

Enemy Combatants

Michael Hayden, former Director of Central Intelligence, pens an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post arguing that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—the underwear bomber—should have been treated as a “Enemy Combatant” rather than a criminal suspect after his capture on Christmas Day. Gen. Hayden’s piece highlights one of the most difficult and contentious issues raised by the on-going conflict between the United States and various militant Islamists organizations.

Strictly speaking, the law that governs international armed conflicts—International Humanitarian Law—admits only two categories of individual: combatants and non-combatants. Combatants can both kill lawfully and be lawfully killed. Additionally, they are immune from prosecution for lawful acts committed while engaging in hostilities. A non-combatant is anyone who isn’t a combatant; non-combatants are not legitimate targets except when they forfeit their immunity by engaging in a hostile act.

So, what is the underwear bomber? He is clearly not a combatant as the term is used in the Law of Armed Conflict: he was not a member of the armed forces of a State or de facto State, he was not openly bearing arms, nor had he distinguished himself from non-combatants with distinctive markings. Indeed, even were he a member of a State’s armed forces, he was engaged in an act of perfidy, forfeiting his combatant status. Yet, if he was a non-combatant he was one engaged in a hostile act. Engaging in a hostile act renders a non-combatant a legitimate target while he’s engaged in that act but not otherwise. If he is a non-combatant, then he is a non-combatant who was taken into custody on U.S. soil, no longer engaged in a hostile act, and should be subject to the civilian criminal justice system, as he has been.

Yet, this answer is unfulfilling. If, as Gen. Hayden describes, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is “the tip of the spear of a complex al-Qaeda plot to kill Americans in our homeland,” then it seems woefully insufficient to treat him as a civilian who has temporarily taken up arms and engaged in a hostile act. Perhaps the answer here lies in not slavishly adhering to the criterion that a combatant be a member of the armed forces of a State (or de facto State). But then, as a combatant, wouldn’t the underwear bomber be subject to the protections afforded Prisoners of War? And isn’t this answer just as unfulfilling—somehow extending too much honor to a fundamentally dishonorable bunch?