President Barack Obama has said the United States is at war with al-Qaeda and its associated forces. As far as who that entails exactly, though, remains a matter kept strictly confidential.
So is the White House really refusing to say who can be targeted
by drone strikes and blown to smithereens? Essentially, yes.
ProPublica journalist Cora Currier explored the president’s
remark about who America is exactly at war with for an article
published Friday morning, and learned that even the identity of
the country’s foes has been ordered to be confidential.
After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, President George
W. Bush signed the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) to
give the go-ahead to take on enemies deemed to be “part of” al
Qaida, the Taliban, or part of “associated forces.” And while
that power was reaffirmed in the National Defense Authorization
Act of 2012 – and arguably even expanded – exactly who falls into
the “associated forces” category is a question that only the most
powerful people in American can answer.
President Obama most recently weighed in on the status of what
has become an open-ended war against terror during a national
defense speech gave in Washington in May 2013.
“Under domestic law, and international law, the United States
is at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated
forces,” the president said. “We are at war with an
organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they
could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war — a
war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in
self-defense.”
That same week, though, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan) inquired
with the Pentagon as to what that exactly means. Levin – a member
on the Senate’s committees on Armed Service, Homeland Security
and Intelligence – was eventually met with an answer. But as the
shadow war wages on, the Department of Defense said that the
information shared with only select members of Congress should be
kept that way. Revealing the identified of those “associated
forces,” Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Jim Gregory told Currier,
could cause “serious damage to national security.”
“Because elements that might be considered ‘associated forces’
can build credibility by being listed as such by the United
States, we have classified the list,” Gregory insisted.
“We cannot afford to inflate these organizations that rely on
violent extremist ideology to strengthen their ranks.”
Other high-placed people in Washington have brushed off Levin’s
request with other remarks, including Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Michael
Sheehan’s quip earlier this year in which he suggested that
“it would be difficult for the Congress to get involved in
trying to track the designation of which are the affiliate
forces” of al-Qaeda.
As a matter of literally life or death, though, Currier says the
question should provoke an answer that’s easier to understand.
Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith spoke with Currier for the
ProPublica article and asked, “If the organizations are
‘inflated’ enough to be targeted with military force, why cannot
they be mentioned publicly?” Weighing in further with a blog
post this week, Goldsmith gave even more insight into the issue.
“I suppose the idea, viewed charitably, is that being a named
enemy of the United States can spur recruitment and might enhance
the group’s interest in targeting US interests,” wrote
Goldsmith. “Still, ‘inflating’ the enemy is a pretty soft
criterion for keeping its identity secret. After all, the premise
of for including a group on an AUMF list is that the
AQ-associated force is (in the Obama administration’s typical
formulation) ‘engaged in hostilities against the United
States,’ and presumably the fact of being on the receiving
end of US or US-supported military operations can be known
locally and a spur to recruitment regardless of USG
acknowledgment.”
Goldsmith also says it’s peculiar that the president has no issue
with identifying al-Qaeda as an enemy but is reluctant to reveal
much more, and also raises issues with how the revelation that a
list of “associated forces” exists suggests the roster is highly
secretive, though not a tool involved in covert operations.
“[T]he fact that the ‘list’ is classified only at the secret
level suggests the perceived national security harms from
disclosure are not that high,” Goldsmith wrote.
Meanwhile, the war that opened up the US to an array of
activities across the globe is scheduled to wrap up in 2014. But
if the end of the Afghan War seems like it could provoke the
sunset of the AUMF, think again. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California)
attempted to have Congress revoke the legislation after the last
US troops return home. Currier noted that the attempt to pass
that amendment lost by a vote of 185 to 236.
Republished from: RT