(Credit: AP)

America’s winding down of the war in Afghanistan picked up steam on Tuesday with the announcement that it will participate in its first peace talks with the Taliban in more than a year in the coming days.

Senior administration officials revealed the talks on a call with reporters on Tuesday morning, stressing that they are only the beginning of what will “certainly promise to be complex, long and messy, but nonetheless, [..] an important first step.” Officials were also quick to downplay the idea that peace talks will impact ongoing military operations against the Taliban. “Our military and diplomatic efforts continue to be mutually reinforcing,” the same official said.

Meetings between the Taliban and the Afghan government will take place in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban has worked in fits and starts over the last several years to set up a diplomatic headquarters. That office finally opened on Tuesday as well when the Qatari government gave final approval to the post. A Taliban spokesman indicated in a statement that moving forward the former leaders of Afghanistan will oppose the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries and that they support an Afghan peace process, two steps the U.S. had identified as preconditions. A senior administration official confirmed, however, that the Taliban will not have to drop immediately drop its ties to Al-Qaeda before conducting talks.

Afghan officials and the Taliban will be the key participants in the discussions, according to the officials who called it “an Afghan initiative and this is Afghan-led and Afghan-owned.” President Hamid Karzai welcomed the coming talks, announcing that the High Peace Council will travel to Qatar to conduct the talks. “We hope that our brothers the Taliban also understand that the process will move to our country soon,” Karzai said.

The United States’ announcement comes on the same day that Afghan security forces were handed control of military operations against the Taliban. Following today, NATO forces will only serve as support to the Afghans during combat missions, part of the transition that will culminate in the complete withdrawal of Western combat forces due to finish in 2014. The Obama administration has not yet revealed the number of U.S. troops it will seek to leave behind in the country after that date, though the number has been speculated to be as high as 20,000.

The handover will provide an opportunity to appraise how well the Afghan security forces will be able to handle full responsibility for the security of their country after 2014. A number of recent attacks have raised concerns over the preparedness of the Afghans, including suicide attacks on the Afghan Supreme Court and the International Committee of the Red Cross in recent weeks. Issues still remain as well over the use of children in the Afghan National Police and other possible human rights violations.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) (Credit: Reuters)

The proposal — put forth by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — notes that many of al-Qaeda core’s top leaders and those responsible for the attacks — including Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — are either dead or in prison and that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said that AQ core has been so “degraded” that “probably unable to carry out complex, large-scale attacks in the West.” The measure proposes sunsetting the 9/11 AUMF to coincide with the transition of U.S. military forces out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

“Schiff’s legislation finds that the [AUMF] now poorly defines those who pose a threat to the country, and that it should expire concurrent with the end of our combat role in Afghanistan,” a statement on Schiff’s website says:

“When Congress passed the AUMF shortly after 9/11, we did not intend to authorize a war without end,” said Rep. Adam Schiff. “The cessation of our combat mission in Afghanistan next year is a logical end point for an authorization that now provides a poor description of the groups which threaten us, and an increasingly precarious legal rationale for going after them. As the President observed recently, if we don’t define the nature of the threat we face, it will define us.”

In his major national security speech last month, President Obama said he wanted to work with Congress on changing or repealing the AUMF because the nature of counterterrorism has changed and the authority granted by Congress has become outdated.

“The AUMF is now nearly 12 years old. The Afghan war is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self,” Obama said. “Unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.”

Congress is responding to calls to rein in the more far-reaching aspects of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism polices. Democrats are joining Republicans in calling for more oversight of the targeted killing program and the Hill recently reported that some “defense lawmakers” are considering a measure to tighten the scope of those individuals the program targets. (HT: Lawfare)

(Credit: Rob Jensen/USAF via Getty Images)

President Obama in a major speech last week said that he would begin the process of putting tighter restrictions on his administration’s counterterrorism policies, including calling for a revision or an outright repeal of the 2001 Authorization of Military Force Congress past after 9/11 giving the president wide powers to militarily confront terrorists abroad.

However, an outline of the White House’s policy guidance on counterterrorism missions abroad released after the President’s speech says that the U.S. has the authority to “use all available tools of national power to protect the American people from the terrorist threat posed by al-Qa’ida and its associated forces [emphasis added].”

According to the Hill, “defense lawmakers” want to require the President and the Defense Department “to review all groups or individuals now characterized as ‘associated forces’ under the current rules” as the “associated forces” language can be broadly interpreted to justify targeting those who do not pose a direct threat to the United States.

While it’s unclear who is advocating for the changes, the Hill says a spokesperson for the House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) disputed that the changes are being debated.

While some in the House GOP caucus are calling for more oversight of the President’s targeted killing program, other Republicans haven’t been too enthusiastic about Obama’s plans to scale back America’s so-called “war on terror.”

“I believe we are still in a long, drawn-out conflict with Al Qaeda. to somehow argue that Al Qaeda is ‘on the run’ comes from a degree of unreality that, to me, is really incredible,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said in response to Obama’s speech last week, adding, “To somehow think we can bring the [AUMF] to a complete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground.”

Back in 2004, in a video addressed to the American people, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden described his “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy. “All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies,” bin Laden taunted. “So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

The twin goals of this strategy were to drain the U.S. of resources by baiting it into expensive, open-ended military interventions like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the resulting anger over those interventions causing more people to join Al Qaeda’s cause.

I was reminded of that by these specific remarks from President Obama’s speech on counterterrorism yesterday:

The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old. The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al Qaeda is a shell of its former self. Groups like AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant Presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states. So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

There was a lot to chew on in the president’s speech, and obviously we’ll have to wait and see how much weight the president actually puts behind some of the reforms he suggested, but I think this core passage represents another important shift away from the rhetorical construct of a “Global War on Terror.”

Meanwhile, on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, four of the Senate’s leading hawks — Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC), Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Kelly Ayotte (NH) — responded as you might expect to the prospect of the loss of that rhetorical construct, which has proven extremely politically beneficial to hawks over the last decade.

“I believe we are still in a long, drawn-out conflict with Al Qaeda. to somehow argue that Al Qaeda is ‘on the run’ comes from a degree of unreality that, to me, is really incredible,” said McCain, adding: “Al Qaeda’s ‘on the run’ is expanding all over the Middle East from Mali to Yemen and all places in between and to somehow think that we can bring the authorization of the use of military force to a complete closure contradicts the reality of the facts on the ground. Al Qaeda will be with us for a long time.”

“The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,” Chambliss declared.

Graham took the chance to ding the president on Iraq: “Iraq is a country that went through hell, was inside the 10-yard line, the surge did work and it’s falling apart because the president chose not to leave any American soldiers behind when 10,000 or 12,000 would have made a difference.”

Leaving aside why Graham thinks 10,000 or 12,000 U.S. troops would have made a difference in Iraq when over 100,000 couldn’t stop it from descending into civil war in 2006 (not to mention the tension between claiming to support democracy in Iraq while bashing the president for not working harder to circumvent democracy in Iraq in order to keep U.S. troops there), it’s remarkable that these Congressional leaders essentially want America to keep playing into Al Qaeda’s “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy.

(Credit: AP)

Most importantly, Obama announced that he intends to work closely with Congress to “refine, and ultimately repeal” the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Passed in the aftermath of 9/11, the AUMF gave the president broad authority to carry out military action against “those nations, organizations, or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 2001 attack.

“Groups like [Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula] must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States,” Obama said. “Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.”

Congress recently began its first set of hearings into possible revisions of the AUMF, which is about to enter its twelfth year in force. Currently, there are competing proposals in the Senate and House to either repeal the authorization in its entirety or revise it to allow for the use of force beyond the perpetrators of 9/11. Obama, however, refused to go along with any broadening of the AUMF, saying he “will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”

CAP expert Ken Gude hailed Obama’s commitment to repealing the AUMF as the “beginning of the end” of the war against al Qaeda. While remnants of al Qaeda and new groups remain threats, “the extraordinary military response that followed the attacks of 9/11 embodied in the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force can now be wound down, the permanent war footing retired, and we can rebalance our efforts to fight terrorism to rely more on our effective and efficient law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” Gude told ThinkProgress.

In his speech today, Obama continued: “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.” The clear declaration builds upon previous statements from former members of Obama’s administration that the battle against al Qaeda cannot go on indefinitely.

That desire to eventually repeal the AUMF makes up the cornerstone of the counterterrorism strategy Obama laid out today. The current Obama administration approach to conducting targeting killing and other portions that strategy were only just recently codified, as Obama acknowledged in his remarks. In it, the use of drone strikes and other applications of force will be streamlined to a more limited set of targets, with a higher level of scrutiny applied when determining those targets, while a renewed focus on the other elements of preventing terrorism will be implemented.
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(Credit: SOCOM)

The Senate Armed Services Committee today held its first hearing on whether or not to revise or rewrite the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) questioned one of the witnesses, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Michael Sheehan, about how long he foresaw the war against Al Qaeda will extend for. The answer was much longer than the twelve years that the AUMF has already been in place:

GRAHAM: Do you agree with me the war against radical Islam, or terror, or whatever description you like to provide, will go on after the second term of President Obama?

SHEEHAN: Senator, in my judgement, this is going to go on for quite awhile, yes, beyond the second term of the President.

GRAHAM: And beyond this term of Congress?

SHEEHAN: Yes, sir. I think it’s at least ten to twenty years.

GRAHAM: I think you’re absolutely right. I think we’re involved in a generational struggle.

That response appears to contradict former Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson’s comments in January. At the time, Johnson said the fight against Al Qaeda “shouldn’t be regarded as a perpetual war without any sort of end.” Likewise, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in January that the targeted killing program authorized under the AUMF is “not something that we’re going to have to continue to use forever.” While Sheehan’s comments today put a more definite end date on the AUMF’s authority, they are far further in the future than Johnson and Panetta’s comments would lead one to believe.

Passed in the aftermath of 9/11, the law gave the President broad authority to target “those nations, organizations, or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the 2001 attack. Since then, that authority has been used as the basis for conducting military actions around the world, including not only in Afghanistan, but also in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. At present, the AUMF is criticized for being overly broad in its wording and used to target individuals who had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, leading to conflicting moves in Congress to either narrow or expand its scope.

The Obama administration does have some say, however, in when the AUMF’s authority expires. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) asked the panel what, other than Congress revoking the AUMF, could shut down the battle against Al Qaeda. “If the President were to issue a declaration stating that the conflict against Al Qaeda has been concluded, I would think that would constitute an end,” the Pentagon’s acting general counsel Robert Taylor said, opening the door to just such a move from President Obama or some future administration.

(Photo: AP)

News broke on Monday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) — in conjunction with U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials — had foiled a plot targeting a railway between Toronto and New York. According to the RCMP, there was never an imminent danger from the plot, but the alleged perpetrators did have the desire and ability to follow through with their plans, which would target a passenger line between the two cities.

That plot, however, was only discovered thanks to a timely intervention from an imam based in Toronto. Worried that one of the suspects, Raed Jaser, was promoting extremist propaganda in his community, the imam — who remains anonymous — sounded an alarm with the Canadian Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP over a year ago. That support did not go without thanks from Canadian law enforcement, the Globe and Mail reports:

The nation’s top counterterrorism police officials briefed reporters about the arrest Monday, but not before they made a point of summoning about 20 leaders of Toronto’s Islamic community to a meeting.

The message from authorities to the Muslim community? Thank you for a helping hand.

“The first comment they made, and they encouraged us to make it a talking point, is that, but for the Muslim community’s intervention, we may not have had the success we’ve had,” said Hussein Hamdani, a lawyer who was invited to the pre-briefing.

The two suspects are in custody in what is being called the first Canadian breakup of an allegedly al-Qaeda-connected terror plot. According to Canadian authorities, the two were receiving “support and guidance” from elements of Al Qaeda based in Iran. The Iranian government has denied any ties to the group and Canadian officials made clear there was no evidence of state-support for the plot.

Canadian law enforcement’s relationship with the Muslim community is markedly different from the relationship seen in the United States. The ACLU accused the FBI of using Muslim outreach as a cover for illegal information gathering, a charge that the civil liberties group say continues today. The New York Police Department hasn’t fared much better, with distrust arising out of its program to spy on Muslim communities including college student group.

Compounding the problem in the United States is the right wing’s ongoing suggestion that all Muslims as terrorists. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) in particular has a long history of focusing on Muslim communities as sources of terrorism, including once falsely claiming Muslims were responsible for 90 percent of all terrorism. King’s anti-Muslim hearings as chair of the House Homeland Security Committee were widely criticized as being discriminatory and drove a wedge between law enforcement and the Muslim communitiy.