Bryan Strawser

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Washington Post: Guantanamo’s Background and Strategy

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Today’s Washington Post has an absolutely fascinating story about how Guantanamo’s holding area for enemy combatants and others came to be – including how the strategy was developed.. it’s a very interesting read:
There was little debate over how to classify those suspected of fighting for al Qaeda. The terrorist group was not a country and had never been a party to the Geneva conventions. Moreover, al Qaeda members intentionally killed civilians. Suspected terrorists captured by U.S. forces, the lawyers agreed, should be classified as enemy combatants and not given legal status as prisoners of war.

The status of Taliban fighters was less clear. Some lawyers reasoned that Afghanistan had signed the Geneva conventions and that the Taliban was recognized by some nations as a legitimate government, though not by the United States. These lawyers thought the Taliban fighters should be granted prisoner-of-war status, entitling them to certain rights and protections.

Other lawyers disagreed, arguing that the Taliban fighters should also be classified as enemy combatants.

“They were basically a criminal gang,” said a former Justice Department lawyer who participated in the strategy sessions and requested anonymity because of the confidential nature of the deliberations. “They massacred civilians. They summarily executed prisoners. If people violate the core notion of the law, they shouldn’t receive prisoner-of-war status. It’s reserved for honorable warriors.”

More later on my thoughts about this, I’m still digesting, and snorkeling awaits me….

Jordan Disrupts Major Al-Qaeda Plot

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CNN is reporting that a major al Qaeda plot has been disrupted in Jordan:

Jordanian authorities said Monday they have broken up an alleged al Qaeda plot that would have unleashed a deadly cloud of chemicals in the heart of Jordan’s capital, Amman.

The plot would have been more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, including the September 11 attacks, according to the Jordanian government.

Among the alleged targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister’s office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence.

The threat is real – and growing.

Hamas Appoints a New Leader

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The Associated Press reports in today’s Boston Globe that Hamas has secretly appointed a new leader.

Israel assassinated Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi in a missile strike on his car on Saturday, part of its declared campaign to wipe out the Islamic militant group’s leadership ahead of a planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Two of Rantisi’s bodyguards were also killed in the attack.

Chickens.

If you’re scared, say you’re scared.

Bob Woodward: Plan of Attack

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I Love Bob Wooward’s books, from today’s New York Times:

Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warned President Bush about the potential negative consequences of a war, citing what Mr. Powell privately called the “you break it, you own it” rule of military action, according to a new book.

“You’re sure?” Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go forward. “You understand the consequences,” he is said to have stated in a half-question. “You know you’re going to be owning this place?”

The book, “Plan of Attack,” by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, reconstructs that and other private conversations between senior Bush administration officials during the 16-month period of planning and preparation that ended with the attack on Iraq last March.

This will be great reading for the coming week.

Tony Blair on Iraq

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more people are free, the more tolerant they are of others; the more prosperous, the less inclined they are to squander that prosperity on pointless feuding and war.

But our greatest threat, apart from the immediate one of terrorism, is our complacency. When some ascribe, as they do, the upsurge in Islamic extremism to Iraq, do they really forget who killed whom on September 11, 2001? When they call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?

Or if we scorned our American allies and told them to go and fight on their own, that somehow we would be spared? If we withdraw from Iraq, they will tell us to withdraw from Afghanistan and, after that, to withdraw from the Middle East completely and, after that, who knows? But one thing is for sure: they have faith in our weakness just as they have faith in their own religious fanaticism. And the weaker we are, the more they will come after us.

It is not easy to persuade people of all this; to say that terrorism and unstable states with WMD are just two sides of the same coin; to tell people what they don’t want to hear; that, in a world in which we in the West enjoy all the pleasures, profound and trivial, of modern existence, we are in grave danger.

There is a battle we have to fight, a struggle we have to win and it is happening now in Iraq.

Questions from the Press

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First one was about comparing Iraq to Vietnam. “I think this analogy sends the wrong message to our troops and sends the wrong message to the enemy… Freedom is not easy to achieve…”

“I don’t make decisions based on polls.. I just don’t…”

“General Abazaid makes those decisions. Whatever he wants, he gets it. I talk to him quite frequently, I constantly ask him if he has what he needs. If he makes the recommendation, he’ll get it”

“We’ll be there as long as necessary and not one day more.”

“I think it’s important that when the UN Security Council says something that it means something.”

Bush got better during the press conference – he got fired up talking about the United Nations and showed some passion. Much better than his prepared remarks I commented on earlier today.

Bush’s Speaking Skills

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Bush is a horrendously boring speaker. The only time I’ve really seen him fired up was during the days after 9/11. The first seven minutes (as I am writing this) of this press conference is nothing short of boring. I’d probably turn it off except for the fact that I’m quite interested in what he has to say…