Feeds:
Posts
Comments

The CIA’s gray world

January 19, 2010 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

There is an essential philosophical disconnect in the existence of a secret intelligence organization in a liberal democracy. For those who don’t remember, that was one of the arguments presented when the creation of the CIA was being discussed in Congress after World War II.

Nevertheless, after due deliberation, the decision was made to go ahead with the creation of the CIA, based primarily on the nature of the world in which the discussion was being held. That was not a happy world. In the aftermath of the war and the Holocaust, and in the face of the upsurge in Soviet involvement around the world, the decision was made that, given a proper set of rules and sufficient oversight, it was in our national interest to have just such a secret intelligence service.

Now, more than 60 years later, recent articles in the press have called this decision into question. The issue revolves around the CIA’s movement of German Nazis to the United States in contravention of our own laws and practices covering the arrest and detention of Nazi war criminals. This concern has widened to question the propriety of the continued existence of the CIA.

The CIA was faced immediately after the war with the fact that certain of its “assets” could not safely remain in their countries of origin, mostly in Europe. As Nazis, they were being hunted by numerous organizations. As American agents or defectors, some Soviet citizens were being hunted by the KGB. In most cases, these were assets who had served the United States well or who had the strong potential to do so.

The CIA Act of 1949, also known as Public Law 110, created a structure that permitted the CIA to operate secretly without the normal fiscal and administrative controls that exist in the U.S. government. PL110, Section 8, also enabled the CIA to bring into the United States 100 foreign citizens per year outside normal immigration procedures if their entry was determined to be in “the interest of national security or essential to the furtherance of the national security mission.” These individuals were to be “given entry into the United States … without regard to their inadmissibility under immigration or any other laws or regulations.”

That is the law that permitted the CIA to bring German Nazis into the U.S., for past services rendered to the U.S., or for their potential contribution to our intelligence and defense needs, as in the creation of our missile capability. It also permitted the immigration of considerable numbers of Soviet citizens and their allies who had served or would serve American interests.

In this respect, it is difficult to see much difference between former Nazis and, for example, former KGB officers. Many Nazis had been involved in unspeakable crimes against humanity, but then, so had many KGB officers. Keep in mind that the KGB killed millions more Soviet citizens than the Nazis killed Jews, Gypsies, handicapped people and homosexuals.

We live in a rather gray world. Let’s assume for the argument (and because we hope it is true!) that the CIA is a wildly successful intelligence organization that, in pursuing its clandestine targets around the world, has produced critical information that has saved thousands of American lives in a dangerous world of international terrorism.

Is such a CIA worth having around even though its very existence is philosophically problematical for our liberal democracy? That is the sort of question that was resolved in favor of the CIA’s creation in 1949. Where the world is very different today, it is hardly less dangerous.

Is the CIA up to the tasks it now faces? That is impossible for outsiders to know. If it is not, then it needs examination with a view to reorganization or redirection. In any event, the United States needs a clandestine intelligence service to protect itself in a very dangerous world. Without such an organization, America is more vulnerable than it should be.

And while we’re at it, perhaps we should take another look at the entire intelligence community and the USA Patriot Act. Certainly that poorly and hastily conceived legislation did little more than give us an additional layer of bureaucracy and cover the posteriors of our elected and appointed officials.

As was the case 65 years ago, America needs to decide whether today’s realities warrant an uncomfortable coexistence with a clandestine intelligence structure and how that structure should be configured and managed for optimal results.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in eastern and western Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in CIA |

Muslims don’t down airplanes, bombs down airplanes

January 17, 2010 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

All it takes to get America ginned up about terrorism and air travel security is to have another attempt to down a jetliner hit the press. Detroit has done just that.

Suggestions for solutions to this problem cover the range from idiotic to inspired. One genius on CNN suggested we ban anyone with an Arabic name from flying at all. One rather thoughtful expert suggested that there are a number of devices available that are capable of sniffing out explosive compounds.

Americans cannot be both safe and free. Until the time when and if technology takes over, if you really want to be safe in the air, you will have to accept some diminution of your personal freedoms, like virtual screening and body searches. If you want to be free, you will have to reject such measures and perhaps not fly.

Let’s face it, Americans have already accepted major intrusions into their personal freedoms with warrantless wiretapping and most of the other measures instituted by the Bush administration under the Patriot Act after 9/11. So, you see, your horse has already left the barn.

One CNN “expert” has suggested that what is wrong is that we are focused too much on weaponry in our anti-terrorism measures. What we should be doing, he suggested, is focusing on the people. Terrorists, he and many others have said, have many common and identifiable factors. They are all Muslims and have strange names, for example. Forget the legal issues, we need to profile them.

If you look at Muslims around the world, they are black, white, tan, Asian, European and Middle Eastern. Consider Nigeria, the Arab world, Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, China, Russia, Bosnia and Albania. That covers the human color range. There are no common denominators in those groups other than their religion, and that only if they are Muslim and choose to say so.

In addition, they now include numbers of converts who are entirely atypical. Some are white Americans and Europeans.

Quite apart from those absolutes, any good terrorist organization has its document specialists. Any such specialist can create or alter just about any passport by giving the bearer a new name, date and place of birth, or any of the other identifying characteristics contained in such a document. That really puts the torch to any foolproof system that would focus on the individual rather than the chosen weapon. In fact, the best known, most competent and highly blacklisted terrorist can foil the entire watch list system by assuming a new identity. So much for watch lists and no-fly lists.

The only potentially effective system available is based on common sense and technology. Common sense dictates that we have a system that will tell us unequivocally that any given person: bought a one-way ticket; bought a ticket with cash; had only a carry-on for a three-week stay. Or that that same person had been reported to U.S. authorities as an increasingly radicalized Muslim. We have computers. What we need is more reliable input and analysis.

Technological solutions now include machines designed to detect explosives at airports as part of security screening. Although performance specs on such technology are understandably closely held, they are said to work very well and to have low failure rates. The only impediments to the use of such technology are the availability of the machines and the decision to install them.

If the terrorist is able to get his bomb past airport controls, today’s carry-on bomb materials clearly require privacy to be assembled and armed. That can best be done in the toilet. There needs to be a way to learn that such a process is under way; given our high level of technical sophistication, that is certainly possible.

Of course, it would be useful if there actually were someone in charge at the Transportation Security Administration. The nominee, Erroll Southers, has been held up by Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina since early September, because the senator fears that Southers will unionize airport screeners. Now, there’s a good way to keep us safe in the air!

We are at the point where technology and common sense, instead of prejudice, stereotyping and hysteria, represent the possibility of saving us from our baser selves, while measurably increasing our security without further diminishing our personal freedoms. That certainly is worth a try.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.

Posted in terrorism |

Is Obama sending mixed messages on war?

January 3, 2010 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

he Obama administration, in the face of strong, highly professional, reality-based advice and commentary warning against any Afghan build-up, has decided to go ahead with such a troop build-up coupled with a withdrawal deadline. It would seem on the face of it to be a strange mix. Why raise the ante and simultaneously set a date for a withdrawal that can easily be waited out? What is the military rationale for that?

For political observers and junkies, it is fascinating to look at the “whys” of this policy decision. Certainly it was not based on a rational assessment that the facts on the ground in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) gave any hope for its success. Quite the opposite, history and current realities argue strongly against his policy. So, the decision must have been political.

Perhaps it was based on the old George W. Bush premise that you make foreign policy, not on the basis of the way the world is, but on the basis of the way you would like it to be. There’s nothing new here, as the Bush administration’s neoconservatives always opted for principle-based, rather than reality-based foreign policy.

Or perhaps it was because the president felt hemmed in by the positions he took on Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2008 presidential campaign. He did say, after all, that Iraq was a mistake, but that Afghanistan was a just war that had to be pursued because it was the main theater in our struggle with al Qaida. Of course, the facts do not support him on that, but he may have felt constrained from other considerations by his own campaign position when it came to an expedient policy for Afghanistan.

Or perhaps it was made because, with absolutely no military experience and precious little foreign policy experience, he was reluctant to argue against the Pentagon and the remaining American citizens, politicians and business that share the now discredited neoconservative conviction that military power is the correct, the only decision for all such foreign policy dilemmas. One might think that after Bush, Afghanistan, Iraq and Afghanistan a second time, we could have learned. However, it may have seemed far too politically dangerous to this inexperienced administration to go up against its detractors. Particularly as the vice president is the only one with any claim whatsoever to any valid experience.

Or, perhaps it was made because of the administration calculus that to have gone in any other direction, whatever its possible promise, would have materially weakened the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term elections and ultimately in the next presidential election. The thought of returning to power a Republican Party that seems to have no policy of its own, other than to be against everything the Democrats want to do, must be terrifying to the White House and the Democratic caucus.

Or, perhaps it was made in the hope of neutralizing the Republicans’ military trump card by playing it. Of course, that wouldn’t work if you told your own generals, who are good at war, but not necessarily good at politics, that they are very likely wrong when they say they can “succeed.”

Or perhaps he really believes that he will not lose his core supporters when they digest all the “perhapses” and realize that absent the choice he made, the Democrats might be consigned to the political dust heap in 2010 and 2012, thus losing the opportunity to implement their more significant domestic agenda.

Or perhaps, worst of all, the president has settled on the same cynical exit strategy that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger employed in Viet Nam, where, understanding they could not win, they sought a “decent interval” between the decision to withdraw and the actual withdrawal. That might be fine for them, but what about the troops and treasure we will lose while watching our Afghan demise.

Perhaps it was all of the above combined. Whatever the truth, it would appear that this Obama Afghan policy will shake out as one of the most crassly political decisions made by a recent president.

However, he says he has done his due diligence. He has chosen his policy and begun its implementation. All we can do is wish him well and pray that in the face of inevitable, historical and contemporary realities, something positive will come of his decision.

Barring major developments in Afghanistan/Pakistan, or the opportunity to eat his words, this is the last this writer intends to offer on that subject until there is some resolution of the problem that now faces us. Everything that could have been said has been said and there is no reason to keep on beating this dead horse.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in Afghanistan |

America Must Grasp Climate Change Opportunity

December 24, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in The Herald of Randolph.]

Most of the world has just met in Copenhagen, intent on arguing about climate change. On the one hand, it seems that a majority of the worldwide scientific community believes that climate change is caused by human behavior. On the other, the nay-sayers say that is simply untrue. Emotions are high. Demonstrators on both sides are über-passionate.

Either way, it means that opportunity knocks for America and that we can use this situation to our advantage. It presents an opportunity for us to solve our own pressing economic problems, while at the same time allowing us to look uncharacteristically benevolent in the eyes of the rest of the world.

America is in the midst of a major recession. We are extraordinarily deep in personal and national debt, have largely lost our manufacturing base and are mired in two ongoing overseas conflicts that exacerbate our debt problems. We have little reason to anticipate a rosy future.

In addition, the world is running out of its traditional sources of energy. Fossil fuels are finite and quite frankly, it’s irrelevant precisely when we run out.  It will happen.

And while we are running out of energy, mankind continues at breakneck speed to produce the only commodity that is capable of exacerbating our problems – an endless supply of additional people to feed, clothe and energize.

Overall, a glorious opportunity for America.

What America seriously needs are jobs that produce products that will be sought after here and in the rest of the world. Someone in the world is going to do just that.  In fact, since the 1990s, Japan, through a conscious, targeted, investment policy, has concentrated strongly on “green” industry and Japanese citizens now own 40% of world patents in that sector.

It is not sufficient that we simply go back to the old ways that didn’t work for us.  While some foreign cars are getting over 50 miles per gallon, American producers, smarting from their pursuit of the perfect Hummer, now brag that their cars get 30.

Although it may seem creative, typical of those old ways is General Motors’ approach to its Volt electric car.  GM scotched the Volt decades ago as economically unadvantageous to the company.  Now, in the face of criticism of their decades-long disinclination to change with market demands and reality, they have reinvented the Volt.  The problem is that it is going to go on the market at near  $50,000.

Most american cars travel under 100 miles a day.  Driving takes place within a chip shot of owners’ residences.  What is needed for that kind of driving is an electric car that sells for one quarter of the Volt, without the typical Detroit bells and whistles designed to jack up the price, and with a battery-powered driving range of around 100 miles.  That should be within our technological reach, but America does not appear to be pursuing that at this time.

Cars aside, the real opportunity for us lies in renewable energy.  In America’s short history, we have distinguished ourselves as a people by our creativity and inventiveness.  We have invented half the things that have made life better for mankind over the past two hundred years and there is absolutely no reason why we can’t do that again.

Whether fossil fuels warm the planet or not, they are getting daily more expensive and will run out.  At this moment, electricity generated by renewable sources is the logical replacement for fossil fuels.  We know that wind, rain, tides, water, geothermal, sunlight, biomass and probably many other things are viable sources for the production of electricity.  If Americans were not so guilt-ridden over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear power would be a natural for us, as it is in much of Europe.

Worldwide production of wind power is growing at 30% per year.  In 2007, Africa bought 30,000 small solar power systems.  America has the world’s largest geothermal and photovoltaic power installations.  Renewable power generation is growing at an amazing rate around the world and there is absolutely no reason why American industry should not be in the vanguard of that industry.

So, who cares who is right about global warming?  The world and most importantly the US clearly will benefit from a galvanized American-led effort to exploit viable renewable energy sources.  If we don’t do it, someone else will and there will be little economic benefit to the US.

There are countries and companies abroad that are active in this renewable arena.  They plug along while we argue endlessly and pointlessly about climate change.  It seems absolutely incredible that American capital is not pouring into this field, whether to save mankind from climate change or to create new jobs and line our pockets.

It does seem like a no-brainer.

Posted in United States |

Obama’s War – With him or against him?

December 20, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

The good news for President Barack Obama on his Afghan decision is that, along with those predictable Americans who routinely favor military solutions to foreign policy problems, a solid number of Americans are prepared to wait and see if his plan will work.

The bad news is that there is a vocal group of Americans who are terribly disappointed, even angry, that the president has decided to up the ante in Afghanistan, committing tens of thousands of additional troops and treasure to what they think is a conflict that cannot be “won.”

So, you’re either with him or against him. The problem is that there is hardly any discussion going on about the plan and its viability, or of any alternate plans. One would think that for an administration that prides itself on its deliberative processes, both of those issues are worth public examination.

The best we can hope for is that we can get out of Afghanistan at minimum cost, without making the situation worse than it now is. In order to do that, we will have to do two things. We will have to weaken the Taliban to the point where they are amenable to the table and we will have to negotiate the conditions of our departure with them.

The Obama administration has decided that intensifying the struggle with the Taliban by raising troop levels is the answer. Unfortunately, that may be the worst approach to the problem. Raising troop levels, irrespective of whether we use them in combat against the Taliban or to build infrastructure, will simply turn more and more Afghans against us. And you can bet that there will be more combat between us and the Taliban, because the Taliban knows that such combat will primarily benefit them, not us.

Additionally and unfortunately and despite our constant protestations, the Afghans people know a invader/conqueror when they see one and we fit the bill.

So, how do we weaken the Taliban without ramping up counterproductive military operations against them? One way is to do the exact same thing that we did when we went into Afghanistan after 9/11. We buy them off.

The Taliban, after 5 years in power and another 8 in their current comeback, is not beloved by the Afghan people. Their brand of radical, repressive Islam is not benign and in the process of denying girls education, blowing up historic Buddhist statues and generally behaving like tyrants, they have alienated masses of their countrymen. We are not talking here about an insurgency that is beloved by its people. Feared perhaps, but not beloved.

That gives us wiggle room. We need to create something for Taliban fighters that is more attractive than the Taliban. The simple act of raising Afghan National Army salaries to the point where they are competitive or even superior to Taliban salaries is a good starting point.

The Taliban is really only a problem in the south of the country. The northern tribes, ethnically different from the Taliban Pashtuns, are not arrayed with the Taliban against us. That allows us to concentrate on the Pashtuns and the south, where broad support of the Taliban, even without our involvement, is already problematical at best.

Afghanistan will not evolve without the Taliban. It will be part of the coming management of any unified country. Thinking they can be eliminated is simply absurd. They want power and they do not seek a further relationship with Al Qaida. To portray the Taliban as waiting eagerly to welcome back Al Qaida is delusional and self-serving for those who want to step up our military involvement there.

Many Taliban fighters are reluctant at best. By actively working to wean them away from their organization, as we have done successfully elsewhere in the region and know how to do, we should be able to weaken their organization and encourage them to negotiate.

By attacking the problem this way, we avoid an augmented military presence and the concomitant combat, which will only exacerbate our problems and help Taliban recruitment and indigenous support. Actively seeking to weaken the Taliban buy buying them off is the only approach that accomplishes our goal of bringing a weakened Taliban to the table.

As it is now, having made this war his own by taking the military option, President Obama has set himself up for total blame for the virtually inevitable ultimate failure of his policy. And you can bet that the party that created the situation that got him into that mess will be the first and most vociferous in laying that blame on him.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in Afghanistan |

The flaws in Obama’s Afghan plan are right there in the open

December 10, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published on Nieman Watchdog.]

Journalists don’t need to dig far to find the self-deception at the heart of Obama’s Afghan surge: A little Googling is all it takes to see that his hopes for the Afghan forces are absurdly high.

The success of President Obama’s surge in Afghanistan depends on raising the effectiveness of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) to the point where they will be able to secure and hold their own country.

But it seems the Obama administration is mired in the same bog of self deception in which the Bush administration foundered, that is, they see the world as they wish it were, not as it really is. As long as that is the case, and as long as these kinds of important decisions are made on the basis of the domestic political needs of the Administration (the coming congressional and presidential elections), rather than the objective facts in Afghanistan, they will lead to the adoption of policies that try to please as many people as possible, rather than solve policies and probably will not find success.

At the most elemental level, and putting aside all the legitimate concerns about the nature of Afghanistan, its people, culture and present leadership, our press might properly and profitably zero in on the most important element in this just-announced Afghan policy – the Afghan security forces.

There are few if any secrets involved in this matter. The Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) have been the focus of every conceivable examination and inquiry the United States has to offer and there is a plethora of results of such examinations on the internet.

All an enterprising reporter has to do is Google “Afghan Army Readiness” or some permutation thereof and a world of estimates of the combat readiness of the ANA and ANP will appear authored by foreign news services, the GAO, the Armed Forces Journal, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Research Institute and legions of others. The first 200 hits out of almost one million produced by the aforementioned search raise enough questions about Afghan readiness to keep the press occupied for decades.

Afghanistan cannot be considered to be a modern state with a modern population. It is a family-based agglomeration of towns, villages, valleys and mountain tops where residents identify themselves as where they are from, rather than what they are. On the “what they are“ scale, they are dead last “Afghan”.

Therefore, the root question is whether or not such a state can rationally be expected to produce effective and appropriately ethnically diverse national organizations like Police and Army, when the primary allegiance of their people is to the family. What will a Tajik soldier do when asked to participate a military operation in Pashtun country? A Pashtun the north? Will they fight, run abstain, defect or mutiny? Those will be the questions every time a multi-ethnic force gets committed in Afghanistan.

In that context, it might be illuminating to examine the effects that some or all of the following issues are likely to have on unit cohesion, morale and effectiveness:

  • The stipulated ethnic balance of the forces; ethnic tensions are said to be high.
  • The effect of ethnicity on future military engagements.
  • An ANA turnover rate or 25% and rising, according to US army figures.
  • The ANA’s unwillingness to fight on certain occasions.
  • Painfully slow training and uneven troop effectiveness.
  • Inadequate ANA and ANP leadership as identified by U.S. military advisors.
  • The effect of endemic national illiteracy on the training process.
  • Very high narcotics use in the security forces.

Journalists should also note that it took eight years to grow the Afghan army to 100,000 soldiers. How long will it reasonably take to get to the desired 350,000, if that’s even possible?

The results of these inquiries will not lead to optimism. The limitations of the human raw material central to our new policies will very likely make our goals difficult if not impossible to achieve.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East, as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff, and as Executive Assistant in the Director’s office.

Posted in Afghanistan |

Good luck, President Obama

December 3, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]

President Obama has just informed us that we are going to remain in Afghanistan long enough to train security forces capable of keeping the Taliban at bay. Given Afghan realities, that is, at very best, problematical.

Afghanistan is not even a pure tribal society. It is a family- and geographically based society. Afghan Tajiks do not think of themselves by tribe. They refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village from which they come. That means that even though two Afghans may be from the same Tajik tribe and speak the same Afghan Farsi, they may have absolutely nothing further in common. They could well have been raised in inaccessible mountain valleys hundreds of miles apart in families that shared virtually no common experience.

In that kind of society, individuals, in the main, owe their loyalties to their family, village, mountaintop or valley, for it is on such entities that they rely for their security and well-being. The concept of a greater loyalty to a national entity is largely unknown, particularly in rural Afghanistan where, given its fragmented geographic realities, there is little prospect for integrating the various groups.

Ethnically, Afghanistan breaks down into eight groupings — Pashtun, 42 percent; Tajik, 27 percent; Hazara, 9 percent; Uzbek, 9 percent; Aimak, 4 percent; Turkmen, 3 percent; Baluch, 2 percent; and others 4 percent.

These realities make the concept of national security forces — the Afghan National Army (ANA) or the Afghan National Police (ANP) — virtually alien. Guidelines set up in 2003 by General Karl Eikenberry, then our commander in Afghanistan, stipulate that the ANA must have proportional ethnic representation from its diverse population.

His guidelines called for 38 percent of the troops to be Pashtun, 25 percent Tajiks, 19 percent Hazaras and 8 percent Uzbek. In reality, Tajiks now account for 41 percent of all ANA troops who have been trained, and only 30 percent of the ANA trainees are now Pashtuns.

First, this is a difficult mix in a society that is narrowly family-based. Second, what do you do when you need the ANA in the Pashtun region? Does the normal 27 percent Tajik membership stand down for the operation because of ethnic differences? Does it stand up and create chaos, or does it refuse to carry out orders it does not favor?

Afghanistan is not America, Australia or Canada where, despite the “melting pot” nature of those societies, all the trappings of nationhood exist. Armies in those liberal Western democracies truly are national armies. They lack any meaningful, negative, ethnic schisms and understand the concept of nation that they are there to support. In Afghanistan, you have all the ethnic differences with no allegiance to the nation, no meaningful understanding of what nation means, and little inclination to support national goals over family or ethnic goals.

Then there is the Afghan flavor that permeates society and the ANA and the ANP. The turnover rate in the army is said to be about 25 percent. That means that statistically, the entire army is replaced every four years. This does little for unit cohesion or combat readiness.

At one point, the ANA rewarded recruits with a Kalashnikov rifles. Recruits accepted the rifle, then either did or did not serve out their enlistments, went home, waited a while and re-enlisted a second time in a new name to get another Kalashnikov.

A recent examination of U.S. Marine trainers of the ANA by the Guardian newspaper in London showed the acute frustrations of the Marines in trying to accomplish their missions. One trainer referred to his group of trainees as no easier to handle than “26 children.” All the Marines questioned said that narcotics use was so high that it seriously hindered the ANA in their appointed tasks. One trainer surmised that if drug tests were used and drug use were unacceptable, 75-80 percent of the ANA would not qualify for service.

These are extreme examples, but they are generally supported by embedded reporters and trainers who have worked with the trainees. Ultimately, the trainees represent what would be expected of a broadly illiterate, backward population of a country that really isn’t a nation at all. And this is the raw material on which our success is to be built?

As under the Bush administration, we continue now to see Afghanistan as we would like it to be, not as it is. There are alternate strategies that better reflect reality. As long as domestic American politics remains at the top of our list of imperatives in foreign policy formulation and we refuse to employ different strategies, our prospects for any kind of “success” in Afghanistan are minimal.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief, who served in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in Afghanistan |

Legacy of The Wall: An Evil Never To Forget

November 26, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Randolph Herald.]

On August 13, 1961, the East German Army and police installed the Berlin wall, or Schandmauer (Wall of Shame).  It began in the dead of night with the East Germans stringing barbed wire and concertina along the line that marked the boundary between the Soviet Sector of Berlin and the English, French and American sectors.  Before that moment, there had been no physical barrier between the sectors.

The decision to approve the erection the wall was probably made on the spur of the moment , most likely by Nikita Khrushchev. It was clearly made because of the debilitating flow if refugees from East to West Germany.  By 1961, roughly 3 .5 million East Germans had left for the West.  The total loss to East Germany was measured in the tens of billions of 1961 dollars.  The Wall was clearly a snap decision, as no one in the West had any inkling that it was in the offing.  It was then and remains today a telling testimony to the horrors of Soviet style communism.

Unfortunately for the East Germans, those who departed were the cream of their crop. They were smart, educated, and competent, consisting mostly of professionals – teachers, engineers, physicians, technicians  and skilled workers – anyone capable of making a good life in the West..  They were just the kind of people whom the East German regime could least afford to lose.  The issue was often referred to as the” Brain Drain” which, in fact, it most certainly was.

Over the twenty-eight year life of the Wall, some 5,000 East Germans managed to escape, despite its existence.  In addition, over 200 were killed in the process of trying to escape.

On Sunday, November 14, 2009, an exhibit opened at Harvard University’s Davis Center which displayed photos and narratives of the Cold War Czechoslovak Secret Service’s (StB) covert photographic surveillance of dissidents in and around Prague.  It was an excellent exhibit attended by much of the northeastern Czech/American academic community as well as a diplomat from the Czech Embassy in Washington who gave an excellent presentation on the issue of surveillance of dissidents during Cold War.

These two events, the Czech exhibit at Harvard and the celebration of the demise of the Wall of Shame took place in the rather narrow contexts of the countries in which they had taken place.  This is not to say that the Wall was not important to Germans.  It was, as it symbolized the rupture of the previously heterogeneous German State, the artificial separation of families and friends and probably underlined the realities and humiliation of the German loss of the Second World War.

At the same time, the Czech surveillance exhibit, at least on the face of it, showed seemingly unaware Czechs as seen through the photographic lenses of their own secret police – their countrymen.

Even though these exhibits and events were effectively presented and celebrated, as were probably all those other commemorations of the downfall of  Soviet Communism in Eastern Europe, what seemed to be missing from them was an explicit focus on the extraordinary evils that these now fallen regimes represented not only in the countries in which they existed, but in the world at large.

Soviet-style Communism was the quintessential totalitarian regime.  It most certainly was an Evil Empire.  It was totally disinterested in the welfare of its people.  It put up its walls, surveilled its own people and murdered millions of its own citizens purely to maintain itself in power. It committed these horrors because it knew that it had scant support from its people and because it had no reason to believe that would change.

When you think of the extraordinary cynicism such an approach involves, it boggles the mind.  The regimes of the USSR and its satellite countries presented themselves to the world, particularly the developing world, as having a system worth emulating, while at the same time knowing they were  politically and morally bankrupt at home.

The world now has an entire generation that never experienced the horrors and the incredible cynicism of Soviet communism. Yet there is no communist equivalent of the Holocaust Museum.   Even though it all ended with a whimper and not in the glory of a VE day, we in the West should make sure we neither forget, or permit those who follow us not to learn just how evil those folks really were.  Otherwise, like skinheads and neo-Nazis, they will sneak back to plague us again.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.  A longtime resident of Brookfield, he now lives in Williston.

Posted in Russia |

Why Iran wants the bomb

November 22, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. That simple act effectively ended the Second World War. It also set off a race for other countries to develop their own nuclear weapons.

France undertook its successful nuclear weapons program at the insistence of Charles de Gaulle who was preoccupied with France’s strategic independence. England, after an initial unilateral start, has largely developed its capability jointly with the U.S. The Soviet Union was the first country to develop a program (based on espionage) designed to establish a balance of power in the Cold War. China’s device was developed as a deterrent to both US and Soviet power.

Later members of the Nuclear Club began to show a change in the rationale for developing those weapons. India was interested in a deterrent, but also sought nuclear weapons to project power in their region. Pakistan’s motivation was more traditional – they needed a deterrent against their Indian enemy, but then later sold their technology to others.

North Korea’s motivation is really difficult to judge, but it is probably safe to say that is partly their perceived need for a deterrent against the US, possibly projection of power and possibly a commercial enterprise, as they are said to be helping with the development of a weapons program in Myanmar.

Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program, given the realities of the region in which they live, is most likely designed to give them equivalent power against an array of populous, non-nuclear countries who, they believe, wish them ill. Syria, if it truly has a program, and any other Middle East state that might want such a program, is logically looking for a counterbalance to the Israeli arsenal.

The same may well be true of Iran, however, given what has happened in the region over the last 7-8 years, they are almost certainly interested in the nuclear capability in the context of their projection of regional power.

With its military activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US has severely curtailed if not eliminated Iran’s two major competitors, Iraq and the Taliban, for regional influence and Gulf hegemony. A nuclear weapon is most logically a further attempt by Iran, a country acutely aware of its long and rich history, to reestablish preeminence in its region.

It seems that many countries want nuclear weapons. Does the possession of those weapons automatically enhance either the power or the security of anyone? Probably not.

Not one such weapon has been used in anger since we dropped our bombs on Japan in 1945. Yet, despite that fact, the bomb still seems to symbolize power.

In fact, the bomb is useful and powerful only as long as it is not used, and everyone on this planet knows it.

The Cold War nuclear powers already know that fact. Powers that have acquired it more recently are learning fast. They know that just about every country in the world that matters is implicitly under the nuclear protection of one of the current members of the Club. They know that if they were to drop one of their weapons on a friend of Russia, China or the US, they would seriously run the risk of being incinerated.

Even if Israel did not have nuclear weapons of its own, would Iran, above all a country of intelligent and rational people, despite what one might think of Ahmadinejad, use a nuclear weapon against Israel knowing that it would result in the virtual end of their own country either at Israel’s hand or ours? Not hardly!

No, the Iranians want the bomb simply because having it, as opposed to using it, is power incarnate. They almost certainly believe that the bomb will bring them the respect they feel is due them as a power in the region. In that context they have everything else they need to gain that respect and influence. There are 66 million of them. Iran is third in the world in proven oil reserves. Iranians are 77 percent literate. 73 percent of them are between the ages 15-65 and the median age is 27. They have thrived in an unfriendly environment for over 5,000 years. That’s a pretty good power base.

The only existential threat posed by nuclear weaponry in today’s world is the possibility of itc s falling into terrorist hands. Nevertheless, the difficulties of acquiring, handling, delivering and detonating such a weapon are overwhelming and probably well beyond the capabilities of today’s terrorist organizations.

That may well change in the future and could be complicated by major changes in Pakistan, but our defensive capabilities will grow commensurately with them. For now, however, there appears to be little objective reason for us to attack anyone simply because they have or are anticipated to have a nuclear weapon.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in Iran |

The long term: Unintended consequences could help or hinder Obama

November 8, 2009 by Haviland Smith

[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]

What’s going on today in the White House is the perfect argument for a non-renewable six-year presidential term. There are so many incredibly difficult and intractable issues on this president’s plate right now, that any preoccupation with the possibility of a second term is only going to inject domestic politics into the decision-making process, lead to bad decisions and, in effect, preclude Obama’s re-election in 2012.

George W. Bush’s November 2008 legacy to whichever presidential candidate was elected to follow him in office was, quite simply, a kiss of death. It wouldn’t have mattered whether it was McCain or Obama, for what Bush willed to his successor was extremely toxic and under the best of circumstances probably would have limited anyone to four years in office. Just consider Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Iraq.

The Middle East is a different world. Americans, with their notion of American Exceptionalism, would notice little but strange behaviors, strange beliefs and strange activities. Unfortunately, this American ethnocentricity, among the most pervasive in the world, makes our dealings with different cultures abroad extremely problematical.

The key to all of this is the unfortunate fact that many of the most important foreign policy decision made by any U.S. president are made, not on the basis of the objective facts that exist in the country or region in question, but rather on the basis of the domestic political needs of the president in power and his party.

Faced with the intractability of the situations that face him in the Middle East, President Obama has little wiggle room. He is disadvantaged by his own lack of military experience. His campaign pronouncements that Iraq was a bad place to be, but that Afghanistan is a good one, do not help. When he got rid of General McKiernan and replaced him with General McChrystal, he put himself at the mercy of the military and its vocal supporters in the congress and around the country.

As an inexperienced president with no military expertise, how could he possible go against McChrystal’s recommendations? Was the president so naïve that he thought a hard-charging, ambitious, three-star would admit that virtually any counterinsurgency program would entail decades of future effort and trillions of dollars or even, perhaps, that it might not be doable? Would he think that for the first time since MacArthur, a general would go public, eschewing the chain of command?

This is not to say that the decision of what to do in Afghanistan is clear-cut. What is clear is the fact that there is no present connection between Afghanistan and terrorism. The issue in Afghanistan is the Taliban insurgency and has nothing whatsoever to do with Al Qaida. Additionally, history provides little evidence of successful, traditional counterinsurgencies. Why should we succeed here?

Given that and the fact that Afghanistan has never been successfully conquered by anyone, the policy decision should only be whether we really want or need to fight an expensive, long-lasting and problematic counterinsurgency against the Taliban, when the president has told us repeatedly that our real fight is against terrorism.

In this context, the re-establishment of Afghanistan as an Al Qaida safe haven is highly unlikely. Al Qaida was directly responsible for the defeat of the Taliban in 2002, a course of action the Taliban is hardly likely to repeat. Besides that, Al Qaida has proven it can act in America, Spain, England and France without Afghanistan.

And what of Iraq? Will the fragile respite of the past months continue or will it, as many experts fear, devolve into sectarian and ethnic struggles? If it does, what will Obama do? Will he succumb to pressure from those who feel that military response is the only and best response, like the pressure he feels today on Afghanistan, or will he find a better way to get us out of a mess with which we never ever should have become involved in the first place?

With politics what they are, the president likely will be tempted to take the middle of the road on these military issues. That will be a mistake that will almost certainly limit him to one term.

Conversely, imagine the president undertaking the unusual, groundbreaking policy of letting the realities of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran dictate his policies. Not only would such a policy be in tune with such realities, it would almost certainly have the best chance for “success”, however he may choose to define it. He certainly won’t get there with compromise policies based on domestic politics.

The unintended consequences of implementing a rational foreign policy built on facts as opposed to one preoccupied with domestic politics, could be a startling amount of “success,” which very possibly might even lead to a second term.

Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.

Posted in foreign policy, United States |

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »