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Phillip Carter Walks Away From the Obama Administration

Phillip Carter

This is far more devastating than I think people realize. Phillip Carter's resignation from the Obama Administration is a crucial loss on the road to applying the rule of law to the situation at Guantanamo and to the detainees in American custody. This is ten times more devastating than the resignation of Matthew Hoh and it is a troubling sign for the future of this Administration:

The Pentagon's top detainee affairs policy appointee has quit the Defense Department just seven months into the job, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Phillip Carter, a former Army captain and Iraq War veteran, had been an outspoken critic of Bush-era war on terror detention policy as an attorney and blogging commentator.

He got the job of U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs in April, months after President Barack Obama pledged to empty the detention center at Guantánamo. He quit without explanation just days after Obama confirmed in aninterview with Fox News in Beijing that his administration would miss its Jan. 22 Guantánamo closure deadline.

The development apparently took the Department of Defense by surprise. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to say precisely when Carter submitted the resignation, or where he last traveled in a job that took him frequently to Afghanistan, Iraq and the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

As of yet, I don't see where Carter has spoken out publicly. He could be entirely on board with the Obama Administration, and may have, indeed, resigned because of another issue.

Carter is a known blogger and writer on the issues at hand, leaving his Intel Dump blog at the Washington Post in 2008 after rising to prominence as one of the early voices opposing the Iraq War, where he served. He was not a contractor or a temporary employee, like Hoh. He was a fairly prominent political appointee with a sterling resume:

Phillip Carter was appointed as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy on April 27, 2009. In this capacity, he is responsible for developing policy recommendations and coordinating global policy guidance relating to detainees. Mr. Carter practiced government contracts and national security law with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.  His practice included work with major defense and aerospace firms, focused on government contracts compliance, export controls, security issues, and contractor support to overseas contingency operations. 

Mr. Carter wrote amicus curiae briefs in the landmark national security cases FAIR vs. Rumsfeld and Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, and has participated in various working groups studying the issue of private military contractors on the battlefield.

Mr. Carter served nine years in the Army, in the active, reserve and National Guard components.  During his military career, he served in a number of military police, civil affairs and infantry units, including duty in the Republic of Korea, Iraq, and in the United States. From 2005-2006, he served as operations officer for an adviser team embedded with the police in Iraq’s Diyala province, where he worked closely with the Iraqi police, provincial courts, jails, and government, as well as the State Department-led Provincial Reconstruction Team, to establish and promote the rule of law.  Mr. Carter’s military awards include the Bronze Star Medal, Army Commendation (2 Oak Leaf Clusters), Army Achievement Medal (1 Oak Leaf Cluster), Iraq Campaign Medal, Korean Defense Service Medal, and Combat Action Badge.

The Obama Administration has either lost a talented and dedicated member or it has gained a very eloquent and credible critic of a highly unpopular policy, and we will know soon enough what Mr. Carter thinks of what has been going on. So far, he has resisted appearing everywhere and anywhere with his breathless assessment.

Who Knew Missile Defense Could Be So Pretty?

A Man Who Never Should Have Made Major

This memo about the job performance of Major Nidal Hasan is a kick in the pants:

The memo obtained by National Public Radio said that Hasan, then a captain, was "counseled for inappropriately discussing religious topics" with patients and went through a remediation program for inappropriate documentation of his handling of a homicidal patient during an emergency room encounter.

The document said Hasan's remediation on that problem was successful but added that he was placed on administrative probation at the end of the year for not taking and passing the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination. He later corrected that problem as well, the memo said.

The memo also noted a poor attendance record and lower-than-expected scores on the Psychiatry Resident-In-Training Examination, a yearly exam that Hasan failed to take during one of his residency years.

In his final year of residency, the memo said, Hasan saw 30 patients in 38 weeks and was required to use elective class time to make up the lost clinic time. And, it said, he missed a night of emergency room on-call duty and did not respond to Moran's pages the next day.

"These issues demonstrate a lack of professionalism and work ethics," the memo said. "He is able to self-correct with supervision. However, at this point he should not need so much supervision."

The memo concluded, however, that Hasan's record was not enough to indicate "he is not competent to graduate" or that further academic probation would be helpful.

I believe it was me who said that whoever signed off on this man's promotion should have ALL of their evaluations looked at again for similar examples of gross incompetence. Major Hasan should never have been promoted; he should never have been allowed to remain in the United States Army. He should have been chaptered for having an inability to adapt to Army life. And he should have been arrested when he didn't report to work or respond to the inquiry of his supervisors. I believe they call that Absent Without Leave, and the Medical Corps had better straighten itself out and rejoin the United States Army no sooner than five minutes ago.

What a bald-faced outrage.

Obama Has Owned the Afghan War Since the Campaign

There was a stark moment of realization that took place over a year ago when Candidate Obama was wiping the floor with Candidate McCain. Deftly using the war in Afghanistan as a way of bolstering his own lack of foreign policy experience, he spelled out what he was going to do. That's what makes this recent dithering so difficult to accept.

When you see things like this:

For nearly a week, I have been thinking about a comment my friend and fellow civil-military relations specialist Eliot Cohen made in a Washington Post story about President Obama struggling to come to terms with his role as "commander-in-chief." I am quoted in the story, too, but the part that really gripped me was this quote from Cohen:

With this decision, he's really going to own this war, and he's going to be sending young men and women to their deaths. And when that realization sets in, it's a very grim thing. He may have known it intellectually before, but what I think is happening is he's learning it viscerally."

Cohen's larger point, and the general thrust of the article, is spot-on. Throughout the painfully long and awkward Afghan Strategy Review 2.0 -- with all of the back-stabbing leaks and blame-throwing -- it is increasingly clear that the president is visibly wrestling with his commander-in-chief duties, and doing so at a gut level (vice an abstract intellectual level) for the first time.

I also think that Cohen captures accurately the president's own thinking about the gravity of the choice before him: with his decision, Obama will acknowledge that he "owns this war." I have probably said something similar myself in commentary about the strategy review process. But the more I think about it, the more I think that this insight is misleading in a fundamental way. Obama may well think that he does not yet own the Afghan war and will only own it once he finally decides this issue. But in truth he has "owned" the war for many months now, and it is a dangerous conceit for the president or his team to think otherwise.

That's where some try to walk it back and say that President Obama hasn't owned the Afghanistan war for as long as he has, in fact, owned it. This stark exchange last month with Senator John McCain highlights the dithering:

President Obama met with House and Senate leaders of both parties at the White House yesterday to discuss the future of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, and there was at least one pointed exchange.

Inside the State Dining Room, where the meeting was held, Mr. Obama's Republican opponent in last year's presidential race, Sen. John McCain, told the president that he should not move at a "leisurely pace" on a decision over whether to increase U.S. troops in the region, according to people in the room.

That comment later drew a sharp response from the president. Mr. Obama said no one felt more urgency than he did about the war, and there would not be nothing leisurely about it.

McCain has been a very public advocate to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, an approach advocated by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top military commander in the country.

For the most part, House and Senate leaders emerged from the nearly 90-minute conversation with Mr. Obama offering praise for his candor and interest in listening. But politically speaking, all sides appeared to exit where they entered, with Republicans pushing him to follow his military commanders and Democrats saying he should not be rushed.

That meeting took place on October 6 and today is November 18. Nothing has been decided, much has been leaked, and the dithering continues. This is a President who fails to understand what it is he owns and doesn't own. He doesn't own Iraq, but he does own Afghanistan. He really took ownership on the day that General David McKiernan was fired. He had de facto ownership on Inauguration Day, of course. But, terms of the way forward and in terms of in the American political arena, he owned Afghanistan after this exchange in the first debate between himself and the hapless Senator John McCain:

[Jim] LEHRER: ...And it goes to you, Senator Obama, and it’s a — it picks up on a point that’s already been made. Do you think more troops — more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, how many, and when?

OBAMA: Yes, I think we need more troops. I’ve been saying that for over a year now.

And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible, because it’s been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better.

We had the highest fatalities among U.S. troops this past year than at any time since 2002. And we are seeing a major offensive taking place — Al Qaida and Taliban crossing the border and attacking our troops in a brazen fashion. They are feeling emboldened.

And we cannot separate Afghanistan from Iraq, because what our commanders have said is we don’t have the troops right now to deal with Afghanistan.

So I would send two to three additional brigades to Afghanistan. Now, keep in mind that we have four times the number of troops in Iraq, where nobody had anything to do with 9/11 before we went in, where, in fact, there was no Al Qaida before we went in, but we have four times more troops there than we do in Afghanistan.

And that is a strategic mistake, because every intelligence agency will acknowledge that Al Qaida is the greatest threat against the United States and that Secretary of Defense Gates acknowledged the central front — that the place where we have to deal with these folks is going to be in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

So here’s what we have to do comprehensively, though. It’s not just more troops. We have to press the Afghan government to make certain that they are actually working for their people. And I’ve said this to President Karzai.

Number two, we’ve got to deal with a growing poppy trade that has exploded over the last several years.

Number three, we’ve got to deal with Pakistan, because Al Qaida and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the northwest regions, and although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we’ve been giving them $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens.

And until we do, Americans here at home are not going to be safe.

LEHRER:Afghanistan, Senator McCain?

MCCAIN: First of all, I won’t repeat the mistake that I regret enormously, and that is, after we were able to help the Afghan freedom fighters and drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, we basically washed our hands of the region.

And the result over time was the Taliban, Al Qaida, and a lot of the difficulties we are facing today. So we can’t ignore those lessons of history.

Now, on this issue of aiding Pakistan, if you’re going to aim a gun at somebody, George Shultz, our great secretary of state, told me once, you’d better be prepared to pull the trigger.

I’m not prepared at this time to cut off aid to Pakistan. So I’m not prepared to threaten it, as Senator Obama apparently wants to do, as he has said that he would announce military strikes into Pakistan.

We’ve got to get the support of the people of — of Pakistan. He said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan.

Now, you don’t do that. You don’t say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government.

Now, the new president of Pakistan, Kardari (sic), has got his hands full. And this area on the border has not been governed since the days of Alexander the Great.

I’ve been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It’s ruled by a handful of tribes.

And, yes, Senator Obama calls for more troops, but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It’s going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.

And we’re going to have to help the Pakistanis go into these areas and obtain the allegiance of the people. And it’s going to be tough. They’ve intermarried with Al Qaida and the Taliban. And it’s going to be tough. But we have to get the cooperation of the people in those areas.

And the Pakistanis are going to have to understand that that bombing in the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was a signal from the terrorists that they don’t want that government to cooperate with us in combating the Taliban and jihadist elements.

So we’ve got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. But I’m confident, now that General Petraeus is in the new position of command, that we will employ a strategy which not only means additional troops — and, by the way, there have been 20,000 additional troops, from 32,000 to 53,000, and there needs to be more.

So it’s not just the addition of troops that matters. It’s a strategy that will succeed. And Pakistan is a very important element in this. And I know how to work with him. And I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I’m going to attack them.

Now, how many people are willing to admit that President Obama has, essentially, become John McCain? He certainly won't stand for anyone who isn't an ass kisser.  If we had known then that a President and not a Candidate Obama would adopt the "surge" strategy endorsed by General Petraeus and Senator McCain, and let the generals pour more troops into the region, who would have supported such a thing without a clear exit strategy and a willingness to let a political settlement happen?

I don't think anyone was paying enough attention to the fact that President Obama knew over a year ago that Afghan corruption and the Pakistani safe havens were insurmountable challenges. Were people expecting him to keep Secretary Gates and General Petraeus in place? Instead of admitting then what we've known for a long time, he deftly boxed out Senator McCain and delivered a stunning knockout (even though, at the time, it wasn't one). You can tell that all McCain wanted to say was, "you're lying, and you're going to end up doing it my way anyway."

Going downfield...

Thinking that when you turn the phone vertically, you should get a deeper field. That way you can diagram longer plays.

Will have to check to see if the positions get too small to select at that size.

Also notice the first instance of defensive players. :-) Still likely to be a phase 2 thing.

//
Sent/posted/uploaded from my mobile.

Code Pink Gets it Wrong About Major Nidal Hasan

I've had a few chances to comment over at Sic Semper Tyrannis about the Major Hasan shooting rampage at Fort Hood, and I don't have much to add here. I agree that he must be tried by the Army, and the gist of my comments are fairly simple to understand--hang the bastard. I hate to be bloodthirsty, and I certainly want him to have a fair trial and all, but the unspeakable cruelty of his betrayal has me baying at the moon. I cannot understand an ounce of sympathy for that man, I truly cannot. His actions were premeditated and treasonous and terroristic in nature.

When I saw this, I froze up:

This Veteran's Day, you can support Under the Hoodand the soldiers who walk through their doors with a cash or in-kind donation, such as books and dvds. Even a small donation will make a difference:

• $10 will buy two reams of paper for flyers and outreach
• $25 will keep the coffee pots perking for two weeks

Click here to see how else you can support Under the Hood (in-kind donations accepted too).

Our soldiers clearly need more care; the last thing they need is to be put into more harm's way. Even US military officers think so--Matthew Hoh resigned from the Foreign Service in protest of the lack of clear mission and achievable results in Afghanistan, and of course the Ft. Hood shooter was a Major who did not wish to be deployed to Afghanistan.

I have disabled the links, and I think it is quite reprehensible for Code Pink to ask for dollars while asserting that Major Hasan had a legitimate concern about being deployed. He did not. He is someone who has never done anything in the military except go to school, get paid a ridiculous amount of money, and fail miserably in terms of honoring the soldiers who came to him for help. There is no PTSD in his makeup. There is only a cowardly hatred for an institution that could have made him a successful person. What other Army would take a man such as this, give him a commission, educate him, and promote him? The Army tried to make something out of Hasan, and Hasan pissed it away like the misguided fool that he is. No matter what anyone says, the order deploying Hasan was a lawful order, and he tried to avoid it by shooting and killing fellow soldiers and a contractor. He's not worth a bullet. He should dangle from a short rope in his wheelchair when they conclude his court martial, and I say that as an opponent of the death penalty. I have seen a little right wing outrage over this, but I doubt if I'll see any media or left-wing outrage over such a blatant attempt at exploiting a shooting rampage. To equate Matthew Hoh--an honorably discharged Veteran--with Major Hasan offends anyone with a brain. I have had my own beef with Hoh, but Hoh is no Hasan, and he shouldn't even appear in the same sentence as Hasan. No decent human being should be smeared that way.

Golf, with a Chance of Seeing the Elusive ManBearPig

Sign, Camp Bonifas, South Korea

Here's a story about our troops that doesn't involve horrible news and tragedy. This is exactly the sort of thing I enjoy reading about, and learning about. I'm afraid I can't do horror and screaming and what the hell is our government doing? posts all of the time. Most of the time, sure. I have brass balls in that regard. But, once in a while, I have to get off that bus and stretch my legs.

In South Korea, our troops have many, many golf courses. One, in particular, stands out:

You stand atop an elevated tee box on the first and only hole of the world's most dangerous golf course.

And you consider your chances.

This deadly little par 3 measures 192 yards but plays more like 250 in the face of the vicious winds that often blow out of North Korea across an exclusive piece of real estate called the DMZ just a few yards away.

Underneath your feet and off to the right are bunkers. The military kind. To the left, over an 18-foot-high security fence topped by concertina wire, are hazards that make high rough, deep water and dense woods seem like child's play.

Try countless unexploded mines -- the very definition of out-of-bounds. One herky-jerky backswing, one snap hook yanked out of your bag at the wrong moment and . . . ba-boom!

I've seen some nutty things on the golf course, but this is a bit much:

Over the years, the course has developed its own mystique. Play alone here and you'll see. Weird things happen.

"You see animals," [Army Sgt. Mikel] Thurman says.

Like wild boars, Korean tigers and so-called vampire deer.

And even something weirder.

"Some guys say they've seen this thing, a man-bear-pig," Thurman says without smiling. "That's what they say."

Well, there is no man-bear-pig. There are men who don't shave, and there are men with pig faces, but unless someone has been dabbling in the realm of cloning and dogs and...and...

Research by South Korea's top human cloning scientist  [he announced in August, 2005 that his team had created the world's first cloned dog]- hailed as a breakthrough earlier this year - was fabricated, colleagues have concluded.

A Seoul National University panel said the research by world-renowned Hwang Woo-suk was "intentionally fabricated", and he would be disciplined.

Dr Hwang said he would resign, but he did not admit his research was faked.

"I sincerely apologise to the people for creating shock and disappointment," he said after the panel's announcement.

"As a symbol of apology, I step down as professor of Seoul National University."

Never mind.

florida against october players his touch

Florida Gators Preview

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florida-> against-> october-> players-> his-> touch

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McDaniel Eyes Ponder

Clemson's DeAndre McDaniel seems to be smiling before leveling Christian Ponder on a late game interception return. Ponder was injured on the play and his status for the remaining games doesn't look good right now.

The Clemson Tiger defense was superb all night forcing the Seminoles into 5 turnovers, 4 of which were interceptions. Cemson's McDaniel continues to be a force in the secondary. 

Spartan By Choice?

This dog had a wilder lifestyle than Crazy Major Hasan

When you read this profile about Major Nidal Hasan, remember one thing—the man should never have been in the United States Army in the first place:

The residents of Casa del Norte [the Kileen, Texas apartment complex where Hasan lived] tend to be transient, and the place is a little worse for wear. The “d” on the sign out front is covered in duct tape and is nearly falling down. The gray gutters are rusted. A weathered banner greets tenants: “Welcome Home Ft. Hood Heroes — We’re Proud of You.” Across the street is another apartment complex, the Brigadier, its cream brick marred by graffiti.

Hasan found the apartment through an advertisement in the Killeen Daily Herald, said Jose Padilla, a retired Army man who owns the complex. Hasan signed a six-month lease, at $325 a month. Hasan paid it all upfront with a cashier’s check from Bank of America, Padilla said.

This is the part that escapes me. I know that people have their issues with money, but there’s a missing aspect of this story. Why was Hasan living like an E-2 instead of an O-4?

The cost of living around Fort Hood is, by necessity, very low. It’s low because of the high volume of low income families, consisting of young soldiers with new children and spouses that are either unable to find work, or are underemployed. Hasan could have lived anywhere around Fort Hood. I have located apartment complexes where, for just a few hundred dollars more per month, he could have lived much more comfortably. Instead, he choose to live in a tumbledown apartment complex where people drank beer in the courtyard. He chose to live around lower enlisted soldiers. That indicates to me either an inability to manage his money wisely or that he was giving most of his money away.

If you figure that Hasan’s eight years as an enlisted man, and six years as a commissioned officer add up to over 14 years of active duty service, then my previous estimate on his monthly income was way off, but I was trying to be conservative. According to the 2009 military pay chart, Hasan was making a base salary of 6534.30 per month, for a yearly salary of $78,411.60. With other stipends and pay, such as basic allowance for housing, you could easily see Hasan making much more than that. In fact, just for housing costs, Hasan, who had no dependents,was allotted $1,212 per month—and he was living in a fleabag apartment for $325 a month?

Something doesn’t add up. This was a man making (and I’m estimating here—I might be off if he had less than 14 years of active duty service) $93,000 per year, driving an old Honda, living in near poverty. As a medical officer, he would also have been entitled to other financial compensation to allow for his specialty—incentive pay and/or some sort of re-enlistment bonus to keep him in the service. I don’t know.

Was he living like a monk on purpose, supporting family members? Entirely possible. There are stories of men who serve 25 or 30 years on active duty and bank their military pay, amassing small fortunes and leaving the service with only a handful of personal possessions. I think that the rather impoverished way that he lived probably indicates an inability to “fit in” and live like a commissioned officer. I don’t mean to suggest that he should have driven a sports car and lived beyond his means, but I do mean to suggest that the rather spartan way in which he lived was probably an indication that he was beyond weird.