Rebranding America - Topic 2 TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISM, AL-QAEDA, AND TORTURE

This is the second of the ten topics discussed by the students in Ambassador Derek Shearer's Rebranding America project. The complete report can be found here.

The point papers or policy memo is divided into four sections - Problem, Strategic Interests, Means, and Possible Outcomes. The means section is further divided into subsections consisting of actions to be taken in the first month, first six months and one year and beyond time frames.

This is my summary of the student's summaries:

Problem:

Transnational Terrorism is bad. Al-Qaeda and other terror groups have shown they can and will commit atrocious crimes and they want to kill Americans. Even though this has nothing to do with terrorism my first two sentences have me agreeing with President Bush entirely too much, and since this entire project is based around the premise that President Bush's entire foreign policy is bad I can't have that. Therefore, Additionally, the US torture policy at Guantanamo Bay and the Abu Gharib scandal are a source of lost credibility in the international community and do not demonstrate American respect for Human rights.

Strategic Interests:

The United States needs a coherent plan for dealing with the problem we caused through our political and economic repression of the world. The well-deserved attacks on 9/11 spurred the largest shift in foreign policy since the cold war and while that policy been effective in reducing terror attacks world wide, just as Reagan's policies ended the Cold War, we don't like it because it is

a) effective thus perpetuating the cycle of injustice that causes terrorism.
b) not very nice and we all know that it is more important that a policy feel good than it actually be effective.

Means:

First Month:

1. The President should immediately renounce the "War on Terror" terror is a tactic not an actor. Never mind that this a rhetorical device and since we are being so frickin' literal we should also renounce the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the War on Male Pattern Baldness and the War on Erectile Dysfunction.

2. The US Army should stop killing babies and the US should start handling terrorism in accordance with international norms, such as abject surrender in the case of Spain, letting them run around out in the woods taking hostages and murdering people ala Columbia and the Philippines, or actively encouraging them to kill more Americans and some Jews as in the case of Iran, Syria, most of Africa and parts of Western Europe.

"the President should emphasize that a normative prohibition on targeting non-combatants and increased cooperation with other states in the international system are the goals of US counterterrorism strategy"

3. The next President should ensure the world understands that "with us or against us" is no longer a policy, instead we will handle terrorism as a violation of international norms, in the same way that genocide and nuclear proliferation is treated. It works for Darfur and Iran it should work on terrorism too.

4. Obama The next President shouldn't be stupid enough to tell people this but he should realize that despite what I said earlier about al-Qaeda having the ambition and the ability to commit atrocious crimes 9/11 was really just a fluke. The fact that they had tried to bring the WTC down before, in 1993, and spent years planning and training for the mission in no way shows a level of sophistication that would allow another similarly scaled attack to succeed.

I know you guys think I make this up but here is the actual quote - "Though this should not be mentioned in the speech, the next President must also recognize that 9/11 was a long shot, and that it should not be cause for further restriction of freedoms or invasions."

5. The next President should appoint an international terrorism expert to the National Security Council. This person should not come from within the intelligence community or the Department of Homeland Security and should be named Amb. Derek Shearer a noted scholar of international peace and security issues and will serve as the next President's direct pipeline to the international counterterrorism framework.

OK Amb. Shearer I have pimped you for your next government job. Now can I have my A please?

6. The President should address the UN and let them know that terrorism is not an acceptable tactic for either state or nob-state actors. Since we are going to recommend that the address the UN about 75 more times during the course of this report he may want to try and schedule it all on the same day. While he is there he should give Iran mad props for speaking out against terrorism, even though the State Department considers them the number one terror exporter in the world. Maybe he could also thank them for exposing that entire Holocaust thing.

7. The President should repeal restrictions blocking pilots from carrying firearms aboard their planes. This doesn't really have anything to do with addressing the causes of terrorism, which we have already established fall squarely at the feet of the US, but we have to give the slack-jawed mouth breathers in the square states something or they will start seeing black helicopters again.

Head about to explode - but must press on!

First 6 Months:

The next President should set up an International Compact to Undermine Terrorism (INCOUNTER). This program will do nothing new or useful but it does give me a chance to demonstrate just how clever I am by coming up a catchy acronym. Lucrative State department career here I come.

The President should shut down Guantanamo Bay. Not just the detention center but the entire base all it does is show how relentlessly imperialistic the US is. By closing the base we can once and for all cleanse the stain that is George W. Bush from the national psyche. The detainees still being held there should be returned to their home countries where they can immediately be released and returned to the battlefield. If their home countries refuse to accept them (true in many cases) or we are constrained by law from returning them too their home country we can just put them in a burlap bag with a bunch of raw meat and toss them to the sharks.

1 Year and Beyond:

The US must remove combat troops from Iraq. We are winning against al-Qaeda there and we can't have that so our plan is to remove the 30,000 or so actual frontline combat troops and leave the 90,000 or so logistics and administrative troops unprotected. That should make it much easier for us to lose and our troops to be slaughtered thereby putting the final stake in the heart of this failed George Bush policy. The fact that terrorists don't check MOSes before attacking never really occurred to us.

Continue the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Since President Bush is such a doofus I am sure he didn't think of this we should freeze bin-Laden's assets to keep him from funding any more of those super-lucky 9/11 style attacks.

Fight the public relations battle against terrorism. In all speeches, documents, National Security Strategies and other assorted measures the government should treat terrorism as a violation of a globally accepted norm rather than actually doing something about it.

Emphasize that there is no room for torture in the US response to Transnational Terrorism. The definition of torture may be a little slippery but if we establish the line at speaking harsh words we may be OK. This shouldn't be a problem because "torture" doesn't yield any useful information, except of course when it does.

Possible Outcomes:

We aren't quite sure how, but we are positive that by reframing the conflict, increasing international cooperation, renouncing torture and creating a global anti-terror regime the risk of transnational terrorism will be significantly reduced allowing people to go about their lives with confidence. This is also a strategy that can be upheld as it does not require an endless war and reliance on fear. Until of course our actions are seen as capitulation enboldening the terrorists to start using suicide bombers in the US, but that will probably be on the next guys watch so who cares.

Despite it's probable complete ineffectiveness this strategy is particularly politically viable because it completely divorces the US from all the actions of The Worst President in History George W. Bush(tm)


Note:I was flipping through this report again, despairing at all the work ahead because lemme tell ya it's freaking tough pouring through this puerile adolescent crap, and I noticed two things.

The first - while discussing energy independence the claim is made that in 1997 the US and Kazakhstan were the only two countries not to ratify the Kyoto Protocols in 1997. Simply untrue. The protocols weren't even open for signature until 1998 and many countries including Australia didn't ratify them until much later.

Second - while discussing US / UN relations the authors say that the United States should close Guantanamo Bay and assure the UN that the US is committed to following the Geneva Conventions for all prisoners. Funny thing is though, nowhere in the rather extensive reading list for the course or in the works consulted list do I see the text of any of the Geneva Conventions mentioned, or for that matter any of the court cases dealing with the Conventions. So how do they know that prisoners are not being treated in accordance with them? Crystal Ball? Or maybe it's just because the Democrats who are trying to make political points say so?

Once again I am amazed that people think this is higher quality work than the "experts" produce.

Rebranding America
Topic One - Iraq
Radio Free Moronosphere