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Investor’s Business Daily editors comment on the importance of the Iraq war. You know, the one called a “dumb war” by the president.
If President Bush had not invaded Iraq, President Obama likely would not have found Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaida operative who fingered bin Laden’s courier was caught in Iraq helping terrorists in 2004.
…In January 2004, Kurdish forces near the Iranian border apprehended Hassan Ghul, a top al-Qaida lieutenant once under the direct command of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. After quickly being handed over to U.S. forces, Ghul was sent to one of the CIA’s foreign “black site” prisons. It wasn’t long before this particular terrorist canary started singing.
…This early key puzzle piece, without which other pieces might not have been found, came from an al-Qaida operative whose sole purpose for being in Iraq was to organize armed opposition to the U.S. presence there.
…So we have another reason it was wise to go into Iraq. Not only did the Iraq invasion topple Saddam, who used chemical weapons to commit genocide against his own people, and sought nuclear weapons to slaughter others; not only did it give the Iraqi people their first opportunity for freedom and prosperity, providing a model of liberty for other Mideast Islamic nations. On top of all that, it led to the death of bin Laden. …
In the Corner, Shannen Coffin blogs on enhanced interrogation.
Some reports now claim that KSM gave up the information that led eventually — and with a lot more legwork — to the identification of bin Laden’s courier though more conventional means of interrogation, not as the direct result of enhanced interrogation techniques. … When KSM was captured, he was resistant to any form of interrogation, conventional or otherwise. As our colleague Marc Thiessen learned in writing Courting Disaster, KSM’s resistance was “superhuman.” It was only after being subjected to waterboarding and other enhanced measures that he became compliant, and from that point forward, cooperated with more conventional techniques. As one of the CIA interrogators told Marc, “If we had not had these techniques, we would have gotten zero from him.” So enhanced interrogation methods played an integral role in all of the intelligence collected from him.
As I’ve said before, I still think the debate over the legality and morality of these measures is the subject of fair debate. Marc makes a compelling case in his book, but I respect those who articulate principled opposition. But the question of effectiveness has been answered, if these reports are correct. …
You knew this was coming …. Toby Harnden lists the 10 ways the aftermath of the wonderful strike in Pakistan was botched.
The past few days have seemed like an extended amateur hour in the White House as unforced error after unforced error has been made in the handling of the US Government’s message about the killing of bin Laden.
We should not forget the bottom line in this: bin Laden was justifiably and legally killed by brave and skilled US Navy SEALs. The operation was audacious and meticulous in its planning and execution. President Barack Obama made the call to carry out the raid and his decision was vindicated in spades.
Having said that, the messiness since then has taken much of the sheen off this success, temporarily at least. Here’s a summary of what went wrong once the most difficult bit had been achieved: …
Andrew McCarthy, in the National Review, has an interesting summation of the war on terror.
…The slaying of this monster, the peerless capability of our armed forces it reaffirms, and the demonstration of national unity it has sparked, make this a great day for our country. They suggest, moreover, something else worth celebrating: the outlines of an effective, practical, and economic counterterrorism.
The criminal-justice system is not a deterrent to foreign terror networks that are bivouacked outside our country and thus outside the jurisdiction of its investigative agencies and courts. Nor are nation-building enterprises the answer: They are prohibitively costly in blood and treasure; they inspire sharia-based attacks against us; and they won’t make us safer — terrorists are expert at exploiting the freedoms available in democratic societies, and there is no reason to believe that country A’s becoming a democracy would make country B safer from jihadist terror. The future will not belong to the law-enforcement approach or the democracy project.
It will belong to small-scale special-forces operations that target top jihadists and their cells. It will entail diplomatic pressure and, when necessary, limited military engagements against terror-sponsoring regimes. It will feature less indulgence of faux allies like Pakistan, which do more to aid than confront the jihad. It will fashion a new legal system for the indefinite detention of al-Qaeda operatives who, for intelligence reasons, cannot or should not be tried in civilian courts. And it will require aggressive prosecution of al-Qaeda imitators inside our country, as well as those who materially support terrorists. …
Abe Greenwald discusses what we have learned from the Osama raid, in Contentions.
…Citizens of every political shape and size flooded the streets to rejoice over the terrorist’s death, but that death came as the end-result of many highly politicized Bush-era policy decisions. We now have to contend with truths that are intolerable but nevertheless have led to the country’s collective jubilation.
…Enhanced interrogation works. Crucial intelligence was extracted from detainees Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libi, both of whom were subjected to techniques whose very existence spawned self-righteous movements to bring the last administration up on charges. It would be entertaining—if it were possible—to measure the overlap between those who marched in favor of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and those who celebrated publicly the success engendered by their most loathed policies.
…Genuine national security means spending big money on defense. The Wall Street Journal reports, “In December, the Central Intelligence Agency called a secret meeting with lawmakers to line up tens of millions of dollars in funding, kicking off a five-month scramble that climaxed in Sunday’s events.” Tens of millions in five months to nab a single man. Because Sunday’s operation was successful we won’t have to endure that factoid being put in service of fallacious “we need to spend that money at home” arguments. And this is not counting the billions spent prior to December on all the programs and institutions brought to bear on the hunt for bin Laden and other al Qaeda members. …
Craig Pirrong criticizes the administration’s mishandling of the PR surrounding the Osama operation.
…In the aftermath of the Osama raid, the administration is busy shooting itself in its collective foot. First, Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan spins an elaborate tale of an armed Osama resisting while cowering behind his wife. Today, Press Secretary Carney reads a statement that says, uhm, it didn’t go down like that at all: yes, a woman was shot, but Osama wasn’t hiding behind her and he wasn’t armed. Brennan also released the incorrect name of the Osama spawn that was killed in the firefight.
Carney wrote this off as the result of the fog of war. Which is exactly why Brennan was a fool for shooting off his mouth before the fog cleared.
…Third, and most interesting, is the leaking at the expense of SecDef Robert Gates. The story is that Gates wanted to flatten the Osama compound and make the rubble bounce with a B-2 strike due to the riskiness of a commando operation, but Obama overruled him. There’s some merit to Gates’s position–if that was his position. A commando operation is incredibly risky: if the helicopter that went down had crashed outside the compound the whole thing could have gone very, very wrong. (I’m very skeptical, BTW, that the helo really suffered a mechanical problem. More likely a golden BB fired by a lookout in the compound or running into some obstacle designed specifically to thwart a helo landing–which had to have been considered a major risk by those in the compound.) That said, the counter arguments are strong too–namely, the risk of not being able to determine definitively that Osama was there and had snuffed it.
In other words, there was no compelling right choice; each alternative had its pros and cons. Gates was doing his job of advising the president according to his best judgment. So why shiv him on his way out the door? Is this payback for his mutinous behavior before? Is this the way to encourage future advisors to give their frank opinions? …
In Newsweek, Niall Ferguson talks inflation.
…Sensing a threat to his hopes of reelection, the president last week called on Congress to eliminate “unwarranted” tax breaks for oil companies and set up a Justice Department task force to investigate price gouging and fraud in the oil markets. Give me a break. The spike in gas prices is the result of Fed policy, which has increased the monetary base threefold in as many years, and a geopolitical crisis in the Middle East that the president and his advisers still haven’t gotten a handle on.
And the reason the CPI is losing credibility is that, as economist John Williams tirelessly points out, it’s a bogus index. The way inflation is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been “improved” 24 times since 1978. If the old methods were still used, the CPI would actually be 10 percent. Yes, folks, double-digit inflation is back. Pretty soon you’ll be able to figure out the real inflation rate just by moving the decimal point in the core CPI one place to the right.
It’s not only the BLS that speaks with a forked tongue. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations last week heard Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner say: “Our policy has been and will always be…that a strong dollar is in the interest of the country.” Fact: the dollar has depreciated relative to other currencies by 17 percent since 2009. …
Liam Halligan, in the Telegraph, UK, is concerned about quantitative easing.
…America’s currency weakness is based on fundamentals including its vast, and upward-spiralling, $14,000bn debt – and that’s just what’s “on the books”. Nothing material is being done to address this massive problem. The unspoken assumption among politicians on both sides of the aisle is that America can just “monetise” its liabilities by continuing to debase the currency.
…America’s currency depreciation trick could also backfire badly if “the rope slips” and, far from a steady decline, the world’s pivotal currency goes into free fall. That would plunge America back into recession, or worse – as inflation ballooned amid soaring import costs, forcing the Fed to raise rates in the teeth of shuddering slowdown.
A plummeting US currency would also spark broader chaos as central banks sought to protect the value of their reserves. And after the inevitable downward overshoot, the dollar would snap back, causing the carry trade to “unwind” as dollar borrowers suddenly owed more. The danger then would be that major losses at financial institutions posed renewed systemic threats. Financial markets might then go into a tailspin, reigniting concerns of a fully-blown global slump. …
David Harsanyi comments on the debt ceiling charade.
…Some economists — such as Jagadeesh Gokhale, former senior economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland — have argued that “a temporarily frozen debt limit could … signal U.S. lawmakers’ resolve to get our fiscal house in order. It may even reassure investors about long-term U.S. economic prospects.” Immeasurable debt, on the other hand…
This kind of thinking crashes against every sacred progressive ideal the president advocates. But no worries, Republicans have already telegraphed that opposing a hike in the debt limit is nothing more than leverage for a larger deal. It is doubtful, then, that they will have the stomach to hold the line when the moment of truth comes on the debt ceiling.
If it existed. Which, technically, it doesn’t. Not if we raise it every time we hit it.
We start the humor section with a post from Andrew Malcolm’s Top of the Ticket from the LA Times. This is his compilation of late night TV talk show one-liners.
Fallon: Did you see the royal newlyweds kissing on the balcony? I was like, hey, guys, get a castle.
Conan: Osama bin Laden’s death interrupted Sunday night’s “Celebrity Apprentice” with Donald Trump. Which begs the question: How do we kill Bin Laden again next Sunday?
Letterman: In the Osama bin Laden raid, the SEALs sent his image to a satellite facial-recognition system that said there was a 99.9% chance it was Bin Laden. Still, there’s that .01% chance it was a ZZ Top guy.
Leno: President Obama says he won’t release the Bin Laden death photos. So I guess we’ll just have to wait for Donald Trump to force him to do that too. …