Somalia and Piracy

Note: the following is a work in progress

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has had a storied role in the history of Somalia. In December 2008, he resigned as President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia, four years after he stepped down as President of his native Puntland in northeastern Somalia to become TFG President.[1] In the 1980s, he headed the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), which was based in Ethiopia and sought to overthrow the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre.[2] After Barre’s regime collapsed in 1991, and Somalia’s descent into civil war, he continued to be a leading figure in the SSDF while consolidating his power base in Puntland.[3] It was during this time that he also became Somalia’s first pirate.

Not literally, of course. But Dr. J. Peter Pham notes that, in 1997, a Somali militia linked to Yusuf received a ransom of approximately $1 million after seizing a Taiwanese fishing trawler.[4] According to Dr. Pham, Yusuf thus became “the first pirate chieftain to get a $1 million payoff from the hijacking of [a] vessel.”[5] Moreover, Yusuf’s tenure as president of Puntland, which began in 1998, saw a dramatic increase in people-trafficking, counterfeiting, arms smuggling, and piracy.[6] Yusuf himself made connections with several businessmen involved in piracy, including current Puntland President Abdul Rahman Farole.[7] A decade later, Dr. Pham notes that his “fellow Majeerteen Darod sub-clansmen have a disproportionately high representation in the ranks of the pirates.”[8]

None of this is to suggest that Yusuf is the key to uprooting piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Rather, it is to illustrate that piracy in the waters off the coast of Somalia involves a network of well-connected and high-placed power brokers in Somali society, including criminal organizations, clan militias, and even jihadist elements that exploit the fragile, if not anarchic, state of affairs in the country. Yusuf’s pirate raid a decade ago exemplifies that existing power brokers in Somalia have nurtured, and continue to nurture, the ongoing problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia. This is especially so in the northeast Puntland, where piracy can be traced at least as far back as the 1990s, when Majerteen clansmen under the leadership of Abdullahi Boqor Muse made a business of “taxing” foreign fishing ships via pirate ransoms.[9]

In April, the saga of the Maersk Alabama brought U.S. and international attention to the rising tide of piracy in the horn of Africa. The International Maritime Bureau has recorded at least 84 attacks in the first quarter of 2009 and 111 attacks in the region in 2008, approximately twice the number of recorded attacks in 2007.[10] One source puts the typical ransoms paid at $3 million to $5 million on demands that range from $100 million to $150 million.[11]

Headlines in the press often parlay the story of Somali piracy as “economic opportunism” by uprooted Somali fishermen-vigilantes striking back at international sea vessels guilty of over-fishing and dumping waste into waters. According to one account, the collapse of the Somali government in 1991 has brought 9 million Somalis to the brink of starvation, a situation that “many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen…as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump [its] nuclear waste in their seas.”[12]

But this analysis is too simplistic. It is true enough that the well-stocked seas have attracted unscrupulous poachers, and waste-dumping has been a problem in the ungoverned waters. However, piracy would not be possible without opportunistic forces in Somalia that arm, train, motivate, and dispatch gangs of pirates into the open seas, sometimes hundreds of miles off the coast.

The problems of over-fishing and waste dumping, while important problems in their own right, seem little more than convenient justifications for rogue opportunism, i.e. piracy. Fishing is not a significant part of the Somali economy.[13] Most Somalis apparently do not eat fish, so the fishing stock is mainly exported. There are approximately 30,000 full-time Somali fishermen in a population estimated at 10 million people.[14] Meanwhile, according to the East African Seafarers' Association, there are at least five pirate gangs making up a total of approximately 1,000 men between the ages of 20 and 35.[15] Thus, even if many Somalis profess support for pirates, most do not take up piracy themselves. Why?

In short, one does not simply wake up one morning and become a pirate. Aside from the obvious risk-reward calculations, one chooses to become a pirate if he has the skills and connections. This means prospective pirates must arm and train. They must also navigate the seas as well as the existing landscape of power brokers who inevitably want a cut of the ransoms in exchange for the right to dock at harbors and to operate underground exchanges of arms and money without disruption by ruling authorities. Speaking generally about pirate operations, Daniel Sekulich writes in his book Terror on the Seas:

You must overcome whatever moral qualms you might have about a life of crime, recruit individuals willing to aid and abet in attacking mariners, acquire vessels to carry out these attacks, develop a base from which to operate those vessels, outfit the craft with suitable weaponry and sundry supplies, foster sources of intelligence from within the shipping community, and find the ways to dispose of whatever booty is obtained, to say nothing of risking your life and freedom.[16]

In other words, piracy is a business. It reflects a risk-reward calculus, a disciplined effort, and good connections. Haphazard operations devised by inexperienced operators usually do not pan out well, as shown here.[17] But well-organized operations with sufficient funds, arms, and skilled participants provide a good investment opportunity for the high-placed individuals and groups behind the scenes who fund, arm, and mobilize the bands of “poor” pirates ferreting out to sea in search of booty. According to Peter Lehr:

Their modus operandi is telling, too. The pirates have reached a technical and nautical sophistication matching that of many “real” coastguards all over the world: Somali pirates operate from mother ships, probably small freighters or local dhows, which enable them to strike so far out at sea. They use satellite phones and GPS as navigational aids, and once they spot their prey they attack it in wolfpack-style, swarming the targeted vessel with fast fiberglass boats and halting its passage by firing AK-47 salvoes or even rocket-propelled grenade rounds. Then they board the vessel, and the maritime hostage scenario begins.[18]

Somalia analyst Mohamed Mohamed says Somali pirate gangs are usually made up of (1) ex-fishermen, with the nautical skills to navigate the sea, (2) ex-militiamen, who have fought for various Somali clan warlords, and (3) technical experts, who operate the hi-tech equipment such as satellite phones, GPS and military hardware.[19] The weapons come from Yemen and Mogadishu, with dealers getting a deposit from the pirates through a hawala dealer before shipping the arms to Puntland where the remaining balance is paid and pirates receive their weapons.[20]

Thus, piracy in Somalia is facilitated by network of power brokers who control the political and economic levers that make it possible. That means clan militias, criminal organizations, and yes, jihadist groups. Jihadist networks may not be intimately involved in piracy, but reports have surfaced that al Shabaab has attempted to share in the proceeds, and pirates have shuttled foreign fighters and arms from Yemen to Somalia. The pirates who dock in south and central Somalia must be on reasonable terms with Islamic insurgents who largely control this area.

During the hijacking of Saudi ship Sirius Star last fall, fighters from the Shabaab militia reportedly turned up in the port of Haradheere in southern Somalia, close to where the ship was anchored.[21] The insurgents expressed disapproval of a pirate attack on a Muslim ship, but were undoubtedly interested in a share of ransom money.[22] The Shabaab fighters used to be the armed wing of the Islamic Courts Union, which briefly ruled Somalia a couple of years ago and attempted to eradicate piracy. But now engaged in a guerrilla war against the TFG, al Shabaab can be expected to seek a share of pirate ransoms to finance its military campaign.

None of this should come as a surprise. Though ideology drives the movement, Islamic terrorist groups have been almost cynical, and certainly creative, in their opportunism. Al Qaeda and its affiliate groups, which include al Shabaab, have shown imagination and stealth in finding sources of funding, and often stop at no bounds in their willingness to associate with groups that have diverse aims and interests. Thus, the Taliban and al Qaeda are entrenched in the heroin trade, probably involved in conflict diamonds, and engaged in strategic operations with Iran. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are the quintessential Machiavels - the end seems to justify all means.

Al Qaeda could eventually view piracy as yet another form of jihad against infidel ships passing through the seas, and the problems of over-fishing and waste dumping offer convenient sources of propaganda to mobilize prospective martyrs. It’s also conceivable that pirates could benefit from involvement with elements of the jihadist network.

Somalia is, if anything, a clan-based society with identity linked to lineage. Al Qaeda has penetrated these clan and lineage-based networks in the past. Piracy could perhaps be facilitated by the same networks and power brokers that fought in the early 1990s to eradicate international peacekeepers from the country.

[1] http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/somalia/country_conditions/Prunier.pdf
[2] http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/somalia/country_conditions/Prunier.pdf; http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/sierra/somalia1978b.htm
[3] Source
[4] http://worlddefensereview.com/pham021909.shtml ; http://www.defenddemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11785712&Itemid=0; http://www.bartamaha.com/?p=4007
[5] http://worlddefensereview.com/pham021909.shtml
[6] http://www.bartamaha.com/?p=4007
[7] http://www.bartamaha.com/?p=4007
[8] http://worlddefensereview.com/pham021909.shtml
[9] http://www.asylumlaw.org/docs/somalia/country_conditions/Prunier.pdf
[10] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30501853/
[11] http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/08/10/Commentary-Al-Qaidas-navy/UPI-37721249909200/
[12] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html
[13] http://www.photius.com/countries/somalia/society/somalia_society_population_and_settl~1595.html
[14] Source
[15] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/18/somalia-oil
[16] Daniel Sekulich, Terror on the Seas, St. Martin’s Press, 2009, pp. 80-81.
[17] http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0531/p06s03-woaf.html
[18] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/19/piracy-somalia
[19] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7650415.stm
[20] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_Somalia
[21] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/3501024/Islamic-fighters-enter-Somalia-pirate-town-and-plan-to-attack.html
[22] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/piracy/3501024/Islamic-fighters-enter-Somalia-pirate-town-and-plan-to-attack.html

NYT Reporter David Rhodes on his time in captivity

The following is a link to the series of articles by David Rhodes, the NYT reporter who was kidnapped by the Haqqani network in Afghanistan last year:

http://projects.nytimes.com/held-by-the-taliban/?hp#part-1

This is a good series of articles providing an inside look at human nature and extremism, as well as the links between al Qaeda, the Taliban, and elements of the Pakistani ISI and military establishment.

Bill Roggio picks up the theme here: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/david_rohde_taliban_no_longer.php

Gitmo detainee Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed

In a story for the New York Times on October 3, 2009, Times reporter Scott Shane discusses the case of Gitmo detainee Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed to illustrate some of the difficulties of closing down the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay. According to Mr. Shane:

It was seven years ago that Mr. Ahmed, then 18, was swept up by Pakistani security forces in a raid on a Faisalabad guesthouse and taken to the prison. It was five months ago that a federal judge, after reviewing all the government’s classified evidence, ruled that his incarceration had never been justified and ordered the government to get to work “forthwith” on his release.[1]

But Ahmed remained in detention, according to Mr. Shane, because of concerns that he may have been “radicalized” during his time in Guantanamo, making him susceptible to jihadist influence in his native Yemen. The U.S. attempted to enroll him in the rehabilitation program run by the Saudi government, but Ahmed refused to go and the Saudis would not accept a reluctant enrollee. Nevertheless, the U.S. recently released him in Sana, Yemen. After debriefing by the Yemeni government, Ahmed is expected to return to his family and, according to Mr. Shane, “decide whether to look for work or try to resume his education.”[2]

By Mr. Shane’s account, Ahmed was detained on the basis of evidence now discredited by a federal judge’s ruling, and concerns about any threat he poses are based primarily, if not exclusively, on the assessment that Gitmo may have radicalized him. Mr. Shane quotes Ahmed’s brother:

“Seven years are gone from his life and can never be gotten back,” said the brother, Wagdi Ahmed, a surgeon’s assistant in the port city of Aden, speaking through a translator. “The feeling of the family is his detention at Guantánamo was not rightful. But nonetheless, we just say, praise God.”[3]

Indeed, Mr. Shane subsequently writes that the “public file on Mr. Ahmed suggests a highly ambiguous case that typifies many at Guantanamo.”[4] According to Mr. Shane, Ahmed “told a review board that he had traveled to Pakistan to study ‘religion and science’ – but he said one reason he wanted to attend an Islamic university was that religious schools accepted students with lower grade point averages.”[5]

According to Mr. Shane, the “guesthouse where he was captured was used by both students and terrorist operatives,” and that “[f]our fellow prisoners later reported having seen him fighting or undergoing training in Afghanistan, but Judge Kessler [who ordered his release] found their accounts unpersuasive, flawed by inconsistencies, contradictions and mental illness.”[6]

Mr. Shane notes that Judge Kessler “rejected the government’s so-called mosaic theory, which asserted that the pattern of indications of terrorist ties added up to a strong case.”[7] The judge wrote that the mosaic theory collapses if “the individual pieces of a mosaic are inherently flawed.”[8] Mr. Shane quotes Ahmed’s lawyer as saying “his client never supported terrorism and was known as ‘the sweet kid’ to other prisoners.”[9] Finally, Mr. Shane observes that instability in Yemen, coupled with Al Qaeda’s infiltration in the country, does not improve the prospects for easy integration of released detainees into Yemeni society after years in detention at Gitmo.

Unfortunately, Mr. Shane cites selectively, and rather myopically, from the “public file” on the New York Times’ own website. It is true Ahmed “told a review board that he had traveled to Pakistan to study ‘religion and science’,” and the public file reveals that his travels to Pakistan took place in October 2001.[10] But this was a very interesting time to travel to Pakistan, and the Faisalabad guesthouse at which he was captured was a very interesting place to study.

Ahmed was captured in the March 2002 raid on the Issa guesthouse in Faisalabad that yielded top Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, whose role in the terrorist network has been described by Thomas Joscelyn here and here. According to Mr. Joscelyn, the guesthouse that was “used by both students and terrorist operatives” was run by Lashkar-e-Taiba – the group that allegedly had a central role in the planning of the Mumbai attacks last year – and certainly did not bear the markings of your typical school:

During the early hours of March 28, 2002, elite teams from the Pakistani and American counterterrorism forces stormed more than a dozen locations throughout Pakistan. Their target was one of the most wanted men on the planet--the al Qaeda commander Abu Zubaydah. For weeks, America's intelligence agencies had been compiling and analyzing intercepts hoping to pinpoint Zubaydah's location. The spooks were not exactly sure where he was, but they had narrowed the possibilities to nine spots in Faisalabad and a handful of other sites around Pakistan. Before dawn, the joint Pakistani-American task forces raided them all.

One of the targets in Faisalabad was a safe house run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization based in Pakistan. As reported by Ronald Kessler in his book The Terrorist Watch (2007), the place was more of a small fortress than a residence. The perimeter fence was electrified. The door was reinforced with steel. Surveillance suggested all was quiet, but the first attempt to break through the compound's defenses failed and awoke the residents. Chaos ensued. After finally breaking through the door, the agents found themselves face-to-face with junior-level terrorists wielding knives and whatever other weapons they could improvise. One even tried to strangle a Pakistani officer with piano wire. A few scampered to the roof, but there was no escape. All of the terrorists living in the house were quickly killed or captured, among them Abu Zubaydah.

The raid also yielded Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, Sufyian Barhoumi, and Jarban Said Bin al Qahtani.[11] This information alone reveals that Ahmed was, at the very least, exposed to some of the most hardened jihadists in the terrorist network of the pre-9-11 world and the immediate aftermath. As noted by Gordon Cucullu in his book Inside Gitmo, as well as Thomas Joscelyn here, Ghassan al Sharbi studied electrical engineering at Emory Riddle University in Prescott, Arizona, and became friends with Hani Hanjour, the 9-11 hijacker who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.[12]

Cucullu notes that al Sharbi subsequently teamed up with Sufyian Barhoumi “to establish a new, independent section of [al Qaeda’s] military committee” that would focus on the development of IED [improvised explosives devices] capability.[13] Barhoumi, according to Cuccullu, had become “exceptionally proficient at constructing and dismantling explosive devices” and in 1998 “allegedly attended an electronics and explosives course at al Qaeda’s Khalden Camp, a facility that specialized in advanced demolitions study.”[14] The new military committee was formed at the request of Muhammed Atef, the head of al Qaeda’s military committee who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in November 2001.
According to Cucullu, “[Atef] reportedly tasked the emir of the al Farouk camp, Abu Muhammad, with identifying two ‘brothers’ to receive special electronics-based explosive training in Pakistan at the Faisalabad facility.”[15] These two “brothers” were al Sharbi and Barhoumi. After 9-11, with the U.S. and the international community hot on their trails, the al Qaeda leadership tasked Zubaydah with completing the formation of the IED unit. According to Cucullu:

By December 2001, in reaction to the intensity of the conflict growing daily in Afghanistan, Abu Zubaydah, a high-level al Qaeda recruiter and operational planner, was reportedly pressured to expedite formation of the special bomb unit. Authorities believe he made certain that the designated fighters – Sharbi, Qahtani, and Binyam Muhammad – were moved from Bimel, Afghanistan, down to Faisalabad, Pakistan, a location the leadership considered safer. Apparently Sufyian Barhoumi was already there.

By March 2002, it is believed, all players had closed into the safe house in Faisalabad. Barhoumi, being the most experienced and most proficient, was going to train Sharbi, Qahtani, and Binyam Muhammad in “building small, hand-held remote-detonation devices for explosives that would later be used in Afghanistan against United States forces.” Barhoumi was given approximately $1,000 to purchase necessary components to conduct the training…

March 2002, it is thought, was a frantic time for the group. Abu Zubaydah urged them to construct as many remote-controlled explosive devices as possible. At the end of the month they were to take the products they had built back to Afghanistan for use against the Americans. Once back in the fight they would use their newly acquired skills to train other al Qaeda fighters.[16]

But on March 28, 2002, according to Cucullu, “in what could only have been a day or two before the group took off to return to Afghanistan and the fighting there, Pakistani forces busted into the safe house in Faisalabad and made a stunning high-value catch: Abu Zubaydah, Barhoumi, Sharbi, Qahtani, and several others were captured with all of their bombs and equipment.”[17]

Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed was among those captured in the raid. According to the public file, the government has since learned other incriminating details about Ahmed’s alleged involvement in the terrorist network. According to the files, a “known jihadist who received combat training in Afghanistan identified [Ahmed] as part of his group fleeing Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in December 2001.”[18] Along the way, this group “stayed for approximately two days at a madrassa run by the Jamiat Ulema-E-Islami (JUI).” The madrassa was located in Barmal, Afghanistan and “was used by many different groups of foreigners on their way to Pakistan.”[19] According to the government files:

The Jamiat Ulema E Islami, or “Assembly of the Scholars of Islam,” is a radical Pakistani Islamist political party best known for its anti-U.S. threats, vocal support of Usama Bin Ladin, and sponsorship of some 3,000 religious schools (madrassahs). Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the cell leader of the 26 February 1993 New York World Trade Center bombing, is associated with the Jamiat Ulema-E-Islami (JUI).[20]

As stated above, Mr. Shane notes that “[f]our fellow prisoners later reported having seen [Ahmed] fighting or undergoing training in Afghanistan, but Judge Kessler [who ordered his release] found their accounts unpersuasive, flawed by inconsistencies, contradictions and mental illness.”[21] But is Ahmed simply guilty by association?

Possibly, but the government has also learned that Ahmed’s “alias was on a list of captured mujahidin found on a hard drive associated with Khalid Shayk Muhammad, acquired in March 2003.”[22] As noted by Thomas Joscelyn in his recent article on former Gitmo detainee Fahd Saleh Suleiman al Jutayli, who was recently “killed in a shootout between the Yemeni Army and Houthi rebels in northern Yemen,” the discovery of an Ahmed alias on the KSM-associated hard drive would suggest Ahmed’s compliance with al Qaeda’s standard operating procedure:

Al Qaeda typically takes new recruits’ passports and other identifying information and gives them a new jihadist identity. This marks a break with their pre-al Qaeda past and also makes it difficult for them to be identified should they be detained.

Because al Qaeda’s leaders take their recruits’ passports and other paperwork, the safety deposit boxes and safe houses where they are stored have become valuable intelligence collection points for authorities. In fact, al Qaeda’s substantial bureaucracy leaves an evidentiary trail that makes it possible for investigators to piece together at least some of the details of a Gitmo detainee’s past.

This was the case with Jutayli. US intelligence authorities found Jutayli’s name “on a computer used by suspected al Qaeda members,” which listed “associates incarcerated in Pakistan.” Another list including Jutayli’s name was “recovered from safehouse raids associated with suspected al Qaeda [members] in Karachi, Pakistan.”

And perhaps most importantly, Jutayli’s name “was found on a hard drive associated with a senior al Qaeda operative seized during raids on 1 March 2003 in Pakistan.” Although the government’s documents do not explicitly say so, this “senior al Qaeda operative” may very well be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured on that same day in Rawalpindi.

As noted above, Ahmed’s “alias was on a list of captured mujahidin found on a hard drive associated with Khalid Shayk Muhammad, acquired in March 2003.”[23] Was Ahmed’s name on the same KSM-associated database of captured mujahideen as Jutayli, another former detainee who has since been killed in a shootout between the Yemeni army and Shi’ite Houthi rebels in northern Yemen? It is a question worth considering now that Ahmed has been released to the Yemeni government.


[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[10] CSRT (000556)
[11] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[12] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[13] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[14] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[15] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[16] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[17] Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo, HarperCollins, 2009, pp. 84-86.
[18] ARB 1 (602), ARB 2 (749), ARB 3 (434)
[19] ARB 1 (603), ARB 2 (749), ARB 3 (434)
[20] ARB 1 (603), ARB 2 (749), ARB 3 (434)
[21] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/world/middleeast/04gitmo.html?hp
[22] ARB 1 (603), ARB 2 (749), ARB 3 (434)
[23] ARB 1 (603), ARB 2 (749), ARB 3 (434)

Obama on Afghanistan

According to this article in today's NYT, President Obama reassured lawmakers yesterday that "he would not substantially reduce American forces in Afghanistan or shift the mission to just hunting terrorists there, but he indicated that he remained undecided about the major troop buildup proposed by his commanding general."

This is reassuring in light of my post yesterday about the Biden approach that would focus on hunting down Al Qaeda leaders with drones and Special Forces. This, of course, is certainly a good idea, except for any signal it might send about an eventual drawdown or withdrawal of US forces. By no means am I in a position to provide counsel on the appropriate level of troops, but I was moved to point out that signalling a drawdown or withdrawal generates an incentive for Pakistan to prop up the Taliban. However, the NYT article makes clear that Biden's approach "would increase the use of such surgical strikes while leaving the overall size of the American force in Afghanistan roughly at the 68,000 troops currently authorized."

Pakistan-Taliban alliance

A story on the Threat Matrix Blog at the Long War Journal makes one wonder whether outspoken resistance to a troop buildup in Afghanistan is ill-advised. Bill Roggio cites to a story by Farhat Taj indicating that “Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency and the Army are backing the Taliban against the Salarzai tribe in the Bajaur tribal agency.” Further along in the article, Roggio writes:

Couple this report with yesterday's report that more jihadi terror camps focusing on the fight against India have opened, and it is clear that Pakistan's military and intelligence services remain compromised and that they have refused to abandon the notion of keeping the Taliban and other terror groups in reserve against India as well as a hedge against a US withdrawal from Afghanistan. And not only that, elements in Pakistan's military and the ISI are also actively aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan: “Who will fight the NATO forces from across the Afghan border if you eliminate the Taliban?” the colonel and the political agent in Bajaur asked.

Given Pakistani concerns about a drawdown or withdrawal of US forces, one might ask whether the skepticism expressed by notables such as Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Carl Levin signals, even if unintentionally, the beginnings of a retreat from commitment to Afghanistan, and thus not only emboldens jihadists, but also plays into the expectations of elements in the Pakistani military and ISI who continue covert support for the Taliban as a hedge in Afghanistan should the US eventually draw down forces or leave outright.

The skepticism of Biden and others is apparently based partly in a belief that the real threat to the international community is from Al Qaeda and seems to assume that links between Al Qaeda and the Taliban are weak at best. This latter assumption is quite tenuous, but another matter altogether. The point is only to raise the question of whether public skepticism about the efficacy of a troop buildup in Afghanistan feeds the incentive for powerful elements in the Pakistani military and ISI to support rather than fight the Taliban. To finish the thought, here is an excerpt from a great post by Steve Coll at Think Tank about the competing factors at work:

The Pakistan military’s tolerance of the Taliban and similar groups is rooted in a belief that Pakistan requires unconventional forces, in addition to a nuclear deterrent, to offset India’s conventional military and industrial might. This self-defeating logic of existential insecurity has informed Pakistan’s policies in Afghanistan because Pakistani generals have seen an Indian hand in Kabul since the days of the Soviet invasion. They interpret India’s goals in Afghanistan as a strategy of encirclement of Pakistan, punctuated by the tactic of promoting instability among Pakistan’s restive Pashtun, Baluch, and Sindhi populations.

Pakistan has countered this perceived Indian strategy by developing Islamist militias such as the predominantly Pashtun Taliban and the Punjab-based Lashkar-e-Taiba as proxies for Pakistan in regional conflicts and as a means to destabilize India. As for the U.S. role, Pakistani generals see it as inconstant and unreliable, based on the pattern of here-and-gone U.S. engagement in the past, and they also tend to believe that the U.S. is today lashing itself, deliberately or naïvely, to Indian strategy in the region.

What does this imply for U.S. policy in Afghanistan today?

If the United States signals to Pakistan’s military command that it intends to abandon efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, or that it has set a short clock running on the project of Afghan stability, or that it intends to undertake its regional policy primarily through a strategic partnership with India, then it will only reinforce the beliefs of those in the Pakistani security establishment who argue that nursing the Taliban is in the country’s national interests. This in turn will exacerbate instability in Pakistan itself.

At the same time, if the United States undertakes a heavily militarized, increasingly unilateral policy in Afghanistan, without also adopting an aggressive political, reconciliation and regional diplomatic strategy that more effectively incorporates Pakistan into efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, then it will also reinforce the beliefs of those in the Pakistani security establishment that they need the Taliban as a hedge against the U.S. and India.

Between withdrawal signals and blind militarization there is a more sustainable strategy, one that I hope the Obama Administration is the in the process of defining. It would make clear that the Taliban will never be permitted to take power in Kabul or major cities. It would seek and enforce stability in Afghan population centers but emphasize politics over combat, urban stability over rural patrolling, Afghan solutions over Western ones, and it would incorporate Pakistan more directly into creative and persistent diplomatic efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and the region.

Taxicab Lease Rate Caps

A basic tenet of economics is that regulating the supply and price of a product or service leads to social inefficiency. The NYC taxicab industry is often cited in economics textbooks as a classic case, in which fixed supply and fare caps produce a windfall to medallion owners at the expense of drivers and the fare-paying public. But less attention has been paid to the policy of imposing caps on the rates charged to drivers who lease the taxicab.[1] Lease rate caps are another instance of price controls designed to redistribute some of the windfall to drivers in order to attract and retain better quality drivers, but may have the adverse effect of reducing the availability of taxicab rides during certain late-night peak hours when taxicabs can be hard to find. If so, the current prospect of service cutbacks in the subway system that will affect late-night riders may be even more severe.

The restriction on the number of medallion taxicabs allowed to operate in NYC was set into law in 1937 when the City Board of Aldermen passed the Haas Act, which capped the number of medallions at 13,595, equal to the number of taxicabs operating on the streets of NYC at that time.[2] The Haas Act was a legislative response to problems in the industry that many believed were associated with open entry and unregulated fares. Over the last decade, the city has auctioned over one thousand additional medallions, but otherwise the number of medallions has remained fixed by city law since 1937.

The merits of restricted entry aside, it is clear that rent-seeking prevails in the NYC taxicab industry. In a May 2008 closed-bid auction of 89 taxicab medallions by the NYC TLC, the average winning bid for 86 corporate wheelchair-accessible medallions was $618,595; for 1 independent wheelchair-accessible medallion $413,000; and for 2 independent alternate fuel medallions, $522,000.[3] The average price of medallions transferred during the years 1968 to 2005 has grown at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7 percent for individual medallions and approximately 9 percent for corporate medallions.[4] Medallion ownership has become an acceptable, accepted, and attractive entrepreneurial investment.

Meanwhile, the availability of taxicab service in NYC often seems inadequate. The near absence of service in outer boroughs is well-known, though livery cars fill the void.[5] Meanwhile, a report issued by the Design Trust for Public Space notes that “[n]ot only is there a perceived undersupply during peak hours, but taxi service is also oversupplied during off-peak times.”[6] The same report notes: “A frequently heard gripe is the inability to find a taxi when one needs one – on a wet afternoon in Midtown, for example.”[7] Moreover, among 13 measures of service quality, “able to get a taxi when you want one” received the lowest rating on a scale of 1 to 10 in a customer satisfaction study in 2004.[8] Finally, the same customer satisfaction study showed that taxicabs consistently received lower ratings on various measures of service quality (such as safety, comfort, and predictability) than private cars, the subway, car service, and buses.[9]

But an open entry system that would allow more flexible increases in supply when demand is high is unlikely, as the restriction on entry in the industry has a long history and is unlikely to be lifted given the vested interests of medallion owners. How else might the Commission address a potential period of excess demand such as during late-night peak hours when the subway lines are running even less frequently than they already do? One possibility is to remove the cap on lease rates and allow the rates to be determined in a competitive marketplace that is responsive to the forces of supply and demand.

The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission recently held a public hearing on taxicab lease rate caps. The Commission is exploring current leasing trends and practices, including the rate charged to taxicab drivers who lease their taxicabs from a medallion agent. One policy the Commission may want to evaluate is whether to eliminate the caps outright. Economic studies suggest that NYC taxicab drivers engage in a practice called “daily targeting” – i.e. they set an income target and quit when they reach it. If true, it may be that many taxicab drivers quit early on busy nights, reducing the availability of taxicabs when most needed. This is particularly so if lease rates are set too low.

If the caps are set too low, drivers earn more than their competitive hourly wage, and thus hit their income target sooner than they otherwise would, especially during busy shifts. In economic-speak, drivers begin to experience an “income effect” after a certain number of hours of driving and decide to substitute leisure for labor. The Commission currently imposes a ceiling on the rate that can be charged to drivers for leasing a taxicab for a given shift, a practice designed to ensure “equitable” distribution of fares between owners and drivers. However, data indicate that 57 percent of taxicab revenues are allocated to driver earnings, compared to 15 percent allocated to owner income.[10] Meanwhile, the Design Trust for Public Space notes that “[n]ot only is there a perceived undersupply during peak hours, but taxi service is also oversupplied during off-peak times.”[11] This raises the question of whether lease rates are lower during peak shifts than they would be in a competitive marketplace.

Of course, lease caps may allow drivers to call it quits before they become fatigued, irritable, or otherwise prone to less efficient operation, which includes the higher probability of getting into an accident or engaging in traffic violations. Moreover, drivers may take fewer risks than they would if lease rates were higher and were compelled to earn a higher rate of revenue per hour in order to quit early. However, these factors also affect behavior during less busy days when they are compelled to work more hours to meet their target, and it is not clear from currently available data that drivers get into more accidents, receive more summonses, or incur other penalties for traffic infractions during the tail end of their shift than during the earlier part of their shift. Drivers apparently still work more hours to meet their target, which suggests that drivers are more interested in hitting their target than evaluating the effect of more hours on the quality of their driving.[12]

There is some available evidence to suggest that lease rates could be set higher in high demand periods such that the availability of taxicab rides would increase at certain hours when demand is expected to remain high. Trip sheet data analyzed by the Design Trust for Public Space indicate that taxicabs spend approximately 35 percent of their time “cruising” (i.e. without a passenger) during the hour of 1 a.m. to 2 a.m., and that the average cruising distance during this hour is approximately 2 miles. These figures rank among the lowest compared to other hours throughout the day, surpassed only by the hours of 11 a.m. to noon, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., and 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. for percent of cruising time, and by the hours of 11 a.m. to noon, noon to 1 p.m., 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., and 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. for cruising distance.[13] Is it possible that high utilization late at night reflects not only high demand but also reduced supply because some drivers have already hit their income target and called it quits?

If yes, the solution is not to categorically argue for higher lease rates. Rather, it is to observe that the open marketplace is a more efficient, flexible way than regulation to set lease rates, particularly given the competitive structure of the taxicab industry. Even though entry is restricted in the NYC taxicab industry, there is little concentration of medallion ownership and management throughout the industry. Not only do drivers have the option of working as livery drivers, limousine drivers, or drivers of other alternative transport vehicles, they also have the option of leasing taxicabs from over 70 agents that serve as fleets or lease managers, none of which owns or manages more than a 7 percent share of the total number of medallions, or 11 percent share of the total number of medallions owned or managed collectively by fleets or agents. The agent with the highest share of medallions owns/manages approximately 7 percent of the total number of medallions. [14] In other words, drivers have options. Save collusion among owners, they would not accept lease rates that would reduce their wages below their competitive level.

This does not mean owners and agents have no bargaining chips at their disposal. There are more than three times as many drivers in the city as there are medallion taxicabs, and unions have ceased to exist in the industry. In 2005, there were approximately 42,900 licensed taxi drivers eligible to drive the 12,779 taxicabs licensed at the time,[15] and this proportion has not changed much in three years.[16] But given that corporate medallion taxicabs are double-shifted,[17] and that approximately 40 percent of owner-drivers lease their taxicabs for a second shift (in 2005),[18] the industry needs many more than 13,000 licensed drivers simply to have a sufficient number of drivers for the current number of taxicabs in operation. Even with the remaining surplus of drivers, however, one can still observe “drivers wanted” signs posted on taxicabs operating on city streets. Given these conditions, as well as the competitive nature of the market for lease contracts, the removal of caps on lease rates may be a more realistic, incremental approach to increasing the availability of taxicab rides during certain peak hours of high demand shifts.

Of course, drivers who lease by the shift cannot work more than 12 hours per shift. The average shift is approximately 10 hours, and it has been estimated that lease drivers work approximately 15 percent more, in terms of mileage and revenue, than did commission drivers in the early 1980s. Thus, many drivers already work a large portion of their 12-hour shift. In short, any expected effect of increased lease rates on the availability of taxicab rides would be incremental. But the point is to allow competition in the marketplace to decide whether increases in lease rates are warranted as a way to bring driver wages in line with a competitive level and thus create an incentive for drivers to work an additional half-hour or hour when demand is sufficiently high and an extra trip or two is deemed necessary to hit an income target.[19] With cuts in subway service looming, late-night riders may be appreciative.

[1] Although industry analysts Bruce Schaller and Gorman Gilbert have discussed the topic of leasing, I am unaware of any study in the economics literature of leasing in general, or price controls in the leasing market in particular.
[2] Bruce Schaller, “New York City 2006 Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 22.
[3] Data are from NYC TLC website at http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/medallion/html/home/home.shtml. Bid prices quoted are based on “tentative” results (pending confirmation) as reported in the data on the website. See also http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/about/column06_2008.shtml, and the press release issued on the website: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/press_release_medallion_auction.pdf.
[4] Data are from Bruce Schaller, “2006 New York City Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 41.
[5] According to data analyzed by the Design Trust for Public Space, “85 percent of yellow-cab trips originate in Manhattan and 86 percent have Manhattan destinations.” Design Trust for Public Space, Taxi 07: Roads Forward Report, p. 118.

[6] Design Trust for Public Space, Taxi 07: Roads Forward Report, p. 126.
[7] Design Trust for Public Space, Taxi 07: Roads Forward Report, p. 116.
[8] Bruce Schaller, “New York City 2006 Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 11.
[9] Bruce Schaller, “New York City 2006 Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 12. Taxicabs received a higher rating than buses for predictability.
[10] Bruce Schaller, “2006 New York City Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 35.
[11] Design Trust for Public Space, Taxi 07: Roads Forward Report, p. 126.
[12] If drivers do indeed get into more accidents, receive more summonses, or incur other penalties for traffic infractions during the tail end of their shift than during the earlier part of their shift, then it may be that lower lease rates during high demand periods make drivers more efficient in high demand periods than in low demand periods. If drivers hit their income target earlier, they stop working before they become fatigued and more prone to accidents. In this case, alternative ideas for increasing availability during these hours could be considered.
[13] “Design Trust fellows analyzed electronic trip-sheet data for over 5,000 medallion taxi trips, 3,700 of which included specific origin and destination data. These trips were provided by at least four different yellow cabs over the six-month period of July to December 2005.” Design Trust for Public Space, Taxi 07: Roads Forward Report, p. 116.

[14] Data are from NYC TLC website at http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/current/current_licensees.shtml. There are a total of 13,231 medallion licenses in NYC according to the data; 113 of these licenses are associated with “medallion standby vehicles,” which leaves 13,118 taxicabs currently operating on the streets of NYC. The data identify the name of the licensee, i.e. owner of the medallion, and include another field that identifies the “agent.” Medallion agents function as fleets or lease managers operating out of a garage or some other location out of which medallions/taxicabs are leased. Another dataset matches the agent number to the name of the agent, which permits the calculation of medallion shares for each agent by name. Two agent numbers – “000” and “999” – are not associated with any agent names and are assumed to apply to individual owner-operators or otherwise, meaning that agent management is not utilized by the licensee (20 medallions are not associated with any medallion agent number, but are included among the agent data). All medallion types – individual, mini-fleet, wheelchair-accessible, etc. – are included. Medallion shares are calculated based on the total number of taxicabs (i.e. 13,231). See also the TLC 2007 Annual Report, p. 9 at http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/annual_report_2007.pdf.
[15] Bruce Schaller, “New York City 2006 Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 51.
[16] As of March 2009, there were 13,231 medallion taxicabs and more than 40,000 drivers. Discussion with Adrian Gonzalez at NYC TLC. See also NYC TLC data from NYC TLC website at http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/current/current_licensees.shtml.
[17] Design Trust for Public Space, Taxi 07 Roads Forward Report, p. 126.
[18] Bruce Schaller, “New York City 2006 Taxicab Fact Book,” Schaller Consulting, March 2006, p. 32.
[19] The analysis does not apply exclusively to shift drivers. Presumably, weekly lease rates also affect driver income targets. Drivers may divide the weekly rate by the number of days worked, thereby setting a daily income target based on the effective daily lease rate they pay.

Pentagon Recidivism Report

In their NYT op-ed published on May 28, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann argue that the number of recidivists (74) among the 534 men released from Guantanamo identified in a recent Pentagon report, is “very likely inflated” because “the Pentagon includes on the list any released prisoner who is either ‘confirmed’ or just ‘suspected’ to have engaged in terrorism anywhere in the world, whether those actions were directed at the United States or not.” They state that 14 of the 29 men whose names show up on the Pentagon list “are listed as being ‘suspected’ of terrorist activities, which makes ‘recidivist’ a fairly vague definition.” They also note that (1) 9 of the 29 have engaged in activities that were not directed at America or its “immediate” allies, (2) 11 Saudis have “only” fomented resistance against the monarchy, and (3) the Defense Department “bizarrely” lumps in those who have “done no more than” criticize the U.S. after their release.

Mr. Bergen and Ms. Tiedemann are free to argue that the Pentagon should only include “confirmed” cases, but that does not mean the Pentagon has inflated its numbers. The Pentagon has simply counted the number of recidivists based on criterion it has developed. It would appear that Mr. Bergen and Ms. Tiedemann are being disingenuous in their attempt to make the more reasonable argument that the Pentagon has “inflated” the threat. But even that is unlikely. The public discussion often focuses on whether former detainees now released have participated in a direct attack such as 9-11. But just as important as an actual terrorist attack is the infrastructure that enables, supports, cultivates, and plans terrorist attacks.

For example, “mere” criticism of the U.S. may not be innocuous if, say, criticism is part of a propaganda campaign waged on As-Sahab (al Qaeda’s media production agency) or another outlet, and used for recruitment. The ongoing threat of terrorism depends significantly on the infrastructure that enables it, and this includes recruitment of fledgling jihadists susceptible to anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric from sheiks, fatwas, and al Qaeda facilitators. It may be that the criticism of America to which Mr. Bergen and Ms. Tiedemann refer was merely conversational, but it may also be that “recidivists” have joined the propaganda campaign against America, thereby contributing to the recruitment and radicalization of budding jihadists. If so, the criticism offered by Mr. Bergen and Ms. Tiedemann is rather bizarre.

Moreover, Mr. Bergen and Ms. Tiedemann imply that we should not be concerned because, for example, Ravil Gumarov and Timur Ishmurat, two of the men released and since designated as recidivists, were convicted in 2006 of blowing up a gas pipeline in Russia and not in the U.S. But a terrorist is a terrorist, and there are more than a few examples of terrorists who started out fighting in other arenas but went on to attack America. Case in point: Mohammed Atta and some of his accomplices, for example, were initially attracted to jihad in Chechnya until they were subsequently recruited to carry out the 9-11 attacks.

Terrorist Recruitment

On January 28, 2009, former national security officials and counterterrorism experts submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in support of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, the lone “enemy combatant” held in the U.S. They contend that military action alone is insufficient to defeat terrorism, and that countering terrorist recruitment efforts by winning “hearts and minds” is an integral part of the battle, a contention with which this author does not disagree. They also argue that “[i]mprisonment without trial of individuals seized inside the United States promotes the false narrative of a United States engaged in war on Islam and Muslims, which the terrorists exploit for recruitment.”[1] As a result, “using the paradigm of the ‘war on terror’ and the label ‘enemy combatant’ to justify the indefinite military detention of individuals seized inside the United States does not preserve our national security; it threatens it.”[2]

As an empirical matter, this contention is a testable hypothesis according to which national security is undermined by a system of indefinite detention by more than it otherwise would be under an alternative system of justice, namely, trial in a U.S. court. But the authors do not rigorously apply this test. They simply reiterate the commonly heard argument that indefinite detention in Guantanamo has undermined our national security because it serves as a recruiting tool. They write: “By treating a terrorism suspect apprehended within the United States as an ‘enemy combatant,’ rather than as a criminal suspect, we grant the suspect the very status a terrorist seeks, a status widely honored by those to whom terrorists propound their narrative.”[3]

They contrast this scenario with trial and conviction in U.S. courts, after which, they argue, terrorists are forgotten and lose their ability to inspire jihad. The authors mention the cases of terrorists tried and convicted, namely, Ramzi Yousef and Fawaz Yunis, stating:

…treating the terrorism suspect seized in the United States as a criminal suspect pursuant to statutes that proscribe engagement in terrorist activity focuses the narrative on the alleged terrorist activity, rather than his status as a ‘warrior,’ thereby deconstructing the terrorist narrative. The heroism of armed conflict against the enemy becomes the cowardice of anonymous violence against innocent victims. The aspiring member of a great army, when isolated to his crime, becomes a small-minded individual.

About a warrior held in a military prison an extravagant mythology may be erected; but the fellow in the dock of a public trial, forced to witness the deliberate presentation of evidence of his cowardice becomes pathetic. His narrative loses the power to inspire. Like Ramzi Yousef, Fawaz Yunis, and many others convicted of terrorist acts in U.S. courts, he may soon be forgotten.[4]

Surprisingly, the authors ignore the case of Sheik Omar Abdul al-Rahman. Sheikh al-Rahman had a leading role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and was eventually indicted and convicted for seditious acts against the U.S. He is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security penitentiary in the U.S., but has not been forgotten by our enemies and is frequently cited in recruitment efforts by al Qaeda.

For example, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri concluded an interview conducted four years after 9-11 by making no distinction between terrorists convicted in U.S. courts and detainees held in Guantanamo and elsewhere: “In closing, I take this opportunity to address our captives, who are being held in Crusader jails, and especially our mujahid Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman, as well as our captives in America, in Guantanamo, in Abu Ghraib, in Baghram, in the secret American jails around the world, and in the prisons of the tyrants of Egypt, the Peninsula, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and in Palestine and elsewhere – I say to them: We have not forgotten you. We are still committed to the debt of your salvation. And with Allah’s strength, we will continue to deliver blows to America and its allies, until we shatter your shackles.”[5]

Moreover, Osama Bin Laden made no such distinction in a speech on “tactical recommendations” in which he made clear he has not forgotten Sheikh Omar Abdul al-Rahman: “We ask God to free us from the Americans and their allies, and to free Sheikhs Omar Abdel Rahman and Said Ibn Zuwayr, as well as our brothers in Guantanamo.”[6] In a Declaration of Jihad against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries, Bin Laden said: “…the Judeo-Christian coalition assassinated or jailed the most sincere ulema and the most active preachers…; they killed Abdallah Azzam, the sheikh and mujahid, and jailed Ahmad Yassin, the sheikh and mujahid, on the path of the Prophet’s ‘nocturnal voyage’. They jailed Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman in America….”[7]

In May 1998, two years after Sheikh al-Rahman was convicted and sentenced to life in a U.S. prison, the sheikh’s two sons were present at a press conference where, as recounted by Rohan Gunaratna in Inside Al Qaeda, “Osama [Bin Laden] called once again for jihad against US troops and announced the formation of the World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders.”[8] Gunarantna notes that al-Zawahiri and Muhammed Atef, the one-time head of military operations for Al Qaeda until he was killed in November 2001, were also present at the press conference.[9] During the conference, the sheikh’s two sons distributed a card with a picture of the blind sheikh praying and a message calling for Muslims to attack Jews and Christians: “Divide their nation, tear them to shreds, destroy their economy, burn their companies, ruin their welfare, sink their ships and kill them on land, sea and air.”[10]

It is clear that al Qaeda has not forgotten the case of Sheikh al-Rahman. Moreover, it appears that the blind sheikh has not lost his ability to inflame the passions of potential jihadists. This is not to say that trial in U.S. courts is a bad idea. But to imply that it is more effective in countering terrorist recruitment efforts than indefinite detention in Guantanamo is to ignore a blatant example suggesting that al Qaeda makes no distinction between Guantanamo detainees and terrorists convicted in U.S. courts.

[1] Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, Petitioner, v. Daniel Spagone, U.S.N. Commander, Consolidated Naval Brig, Respondent, On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Brief Amici Curiae of Former National Security Officials and Counterterorism Experts in Support of Petitioner (“Amicus brief”), p. 11.
[2] Amicus brief, p. 22
[3] Amicus brief, p. 18
[4] Amicus brief, pp. 20-21
[5] Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader, Broadway Books, 2007, pp. 188-89.
[6] Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, Al Qaeda in Its Own Words, Harvard University Press, 2008, p. 65.
[7] Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, Al Qaeda in Its Own Words, Harvard University Press, 2008, p. 48.
[8] Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, Berkeley Publishing Group, 2002, 2003, p. 63.
[9] Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, Berkeley Publishing Group, 2002, 2003, p. 63.
[10] Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, Berkeley Publishing Group, 2002, 2003, p. 63.

Force-Feeding at Guantanamo

In the July 2009 issue of Harper’s Magazine, Luke Mitchell proclaims that the force-feeding of detainees in Guantanamo who go on hunger strike indicates that, in spite of changes promised by the Obama administration, the U.S still tortures. He writes that “we still use a series of punishments and interrogation techniques – touch and ‘no touch’ – that any normal person would acknowledge to be torture,” and that “when those men protest such treatment by refusing to eat, we strap them to chairs and force food down their throats.” Finally, “we know all of this because it is well documented, not just by reporters and activists but by the torturers themselves.[1]

Claims of abuse by detainees, attorneys, and activists are nothing new, and indeed have been standard operating procedure for detainees since the opening of Guantanamo. What is apparently novel in Mitchell’s analysis is the claim that the U.S. government, under the leadership of the Obama administration, condones the continued abuse of current detainees simply by playing semantics. Mitchell explains:

As we learned from the Office of Legal Counsel memos, it is possible to parse “torture” to a considerable degree. What is the allowable incline for a waterboard? How many calories will suffice to avoid starvation? Which insects are permitted to be used in driving a man insane? The correct answer, according to those who parse, is the difference between a war crime and a heroic act of patriotism.

The OLC memos have been discredited but not the thinking behind them. We are still parsing, still weighing, still considering the possibilities. Whereas once we understood torture to be forbidden – something to be hidden and denied – now we understand it to be “complex.” We are instrumental in our analysis, and that instrumentality is held to be a virtue. We don’t torture not because it is illegal or immoral or repugnant to democracy but because “it doesn’t work,” leaving the way clear to torture that does “work.”[2]

According to Mitchell, a line has been drawn between torture and otherwise permissive practices, where the dividing line is drawn between what does and does not work. What is deemed “instrumental,” however, is the result of “complex” analysis, with the upshot that certain practices that should be labeled as criminal are not: “[w]hat was once a crime becomes a sensible approach to law enforcement. And in becoming sensible it also becomes invisible.”[3] Mitchell cites “our evolving understanding of force-feeding” as an example “that most clearly demonstrates this process of inversion and invisibility…because it has been so completely mainstreamed.”[4]

Mitchell does not, however, present an alternative analysis to make more precise what should be considered torture. He seems to want us to take an intuitive approach. If it looks like torture, it is. But even Mitchell writes that “[f]orcing a man to drink a diet shake may seem like a minor affront, far removed from the rack or even from waterboarding.”[5] So Mitchell, like many critics of Guantanamo, is left to take detainees at their word that they have been unconscionably abused and tortured, giving short shrift to the notion that many detainees have been trained or otherwise coached by camp leaders to concoct fabricated claims of abuse while held by “infidel” authorities.

This is not an unfamiliar approach. British historian Andy Worthington, among the most vocal and prolific critics of Guantanamo and author of The Guantanamo Files, published in 2007, refers to a “document that the US administration has persistently used to justify its harsh treatment of prisoners: the so-called ‘Manchester Manual.’”[6] This manual “provided details of all aspects of terrorist training and operations, and included key passages dealing with conduct after arrest.”[7] Worthington continues:

If captured, prisoners were urged to remain silent or to tell false or confusing stories, and, if given the opportunity, they were also encouraged to ‘complain of mistreatment while in prison’ and ‘to insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them.’ In the ‘War on Terror,’ the manual’s use has been two-fold: first , it has convinced the [Bush] administration to behave like the witch hunters of the seventeenth century, treating every single claim of innocence as a lesson learned from the manual, and second, it has been used to refute all claims of torture.[8]

Worthington does not mention that the declassified files on detainees include declarations of innocence by the detainees without any judgment of whether or not such declarations are true. The merits of detainee assertions aside, however, it appears that Worthington, and now Mitchell, are happy to invert the process and simply take self-interested detainees at their word. They unquestionably treat many, if not most, claims of innocence and abuse as true, and seemingly dismiss out of hand any claim that detainees may be disingenuous or flat out lying. For example, Mitchell simply quotes detainee testimony from Red Cross interviews published in The New York Review of Books in which force-feeding is described as “traumatizing.”[9]

But there is reason to be skeptical of what detainees say given abundant evidence that detainees manipulate the perceptions of the public with the help of defense attorneys and the media while rankling commanders, soldiers, and medical personnel charged with supervising their detention and medical treatment while in Guantanamo. Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu, author of Inside Gitmo: the True Story behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay, recounts that one hospital corpsman he interviewed said that if hospital personnel did not comply with requests “they would say that they were going to tell their brothers that we de faced the Koran and start an incident. So we gave them what they wanted.” One such request was to feed them 1,000 calories per day, an amount sufficient “to keep them alive but looking wan.”[10] According to Paul Rester, director of the Joint Intelligence Group at Guantanamo, also interviewed by Cucullu:

The hunger striking population will pick up when they know the time for attorney visits is getting close…That way they’ll look really awful when the attorneys are here – and some media is around. Once the lawyers leave then they’ll start eating again.[11]

Cucullu’s book is the result of “numerous visits to the detention facility at Guantanamo” in which he “interviewed scores of military and civilians serving there, men and women of all specialties, ranging in rank from flag officer to private first class.”[12] His visits were “over the course of several years” and involved a regiment in which he “toured every camp and facility associated with detainee support, walked almost every square yard of the blocks, ate the same food that was served to detainees, observed interrogations, and walked through Camp IV the day after the May 2006 riots.”[13] Here is what Cucullu learned about the initial testing and ultimate application of the force-feeding technique:

All hunger strikers are clinically stable and receive excellent medical care. Initially they were fed by a nasogastric tube that is soft, flexible, and only four millimeters in diameter. That narrow tube has since been replaced by an even smaller-diameter tube of three millimeters. This is very small and comfortable. It is an apparatus commonly used in American hospitals. Of interesting note is that in the U.S. federal prison system – which has developed settled policies and procedures for addressing hunger strikes – a slightly larger tube is standard use. A lubricant with a mild painkiller in it is used to reduce any discomfort.[14]

Detainees are fed twice daily only if they refuse a standard meal that is always offered first. They will remain in the chair if considered a purge risk just long enough to digest the food. In order to test the system shortly after his arrival in spring 2006, Admiral Harris directed that medical personnel set him up with a tube feeding exactly as they do a hunger-striking detainee. He went through the entire process, including actually being given liquid nourishment, without discomfort.[15]

Based on Cucullu’s findings, an intuitive assessment might suggest that U.S. personnel are clinically careful and humane in their application of the force-feeding technique. In fact, Cucullu writes that, when many detainees were on strike in the fall of 2005, detainees could even expect to get a “foot rub”:

The hospital was quickly becoming overworked, as were the escort teams required to move striking detainees to and fro for their twice daily feedings, weigh-in, and medical evaluation. “They get to where they knew it was wearing us down,” an Army major in the JDG said. “It had turned into a game with them and they were winning. They got to go to the air-conditioned hospital for a few hours, hang out with the brothers and talk all they wanted, get a feeding, and have their feet rubbed. Not a bad deal.”

What’s with the foot rub? “Hunger striking leads to poor circulation in the extremities. So the nurses and female corpsmen rub their feet.”[16]

Nevertheless, Mr. Mitchell insists that force-feeding is abusive if only because the U.S government employs the technique to suppress legitimate resistance. In particular, Mr. Mitchell takes issue with the practice of strapping detainees to chairs, describing the practice as “a method of…preventing [detainees] from registering protest at the injustice of their condition.”[17] Noting that at least 30 men are currently on hunger strike, he writes:

Most of these prisoners are not facing imminent death. In fact, force-feeding is itself a risky “treatment” that can cause infections, gastrointestinal disorders, and other complications. The feedings begin very soon after prisoners begin a hunger strike, and continue daily – with military guards strapping them to restraint chairs, usually for several hours at a time – until the prisoners agree to end the strike. This hunger striker is not an emaciated Bobby Sands lying near death after many weeks of starvation. He is a strong man bound to a chair and covered in his own vomit.[18]

Indeed, most are not facing imminent death, and this fact has lead Mitchell to address elsewhere the claim that strapping down prisoners is necessary to protect medical personnel by pointing out a putative logical quandary:

If the prisoners are in danger of imminent death, one must assume that, by definition, they would lack the strength to present a threat to medical or military personnel. And yet if they are in fact strong enough to present a threat to medical or military personnel, then the claim of “imminent death” no longer carries legal or ethical relevance.[19]

But Cucullu explains that the issue is more than academic:

Detainees brought into the hospital were shackled to the beds with two-point restraints. Shackling detainees alleviated concerns about a detainee using on-hand equipment to injure medical staff or attempt an escape. Then the detainee would moan about the pain in a foot or hand and ask that the restraints be loosened. Often sympathetic medics would comply with the request.

On one such occasion, while being treated by a female nurse, a detainee with no provocation drew back and punched her so hard that her nose was broken and splashed across her face. Blood spattered profusely. She withdrew to get medical attention herself. Meanwhile the detainee loudly complained for his clothing and sheet to be changed. “The infidel whore’s blood has defiled me,” he shouted. “Change my clothes!”[20]

Indeed, detainees in Guantanamo should not be mistaken for modern-day Ghandis engaging in non-violent protest. The fall 2005 hunger strikes put severe capacity strains on hospital staff.[21] In the wake of these strikes, according to Cucullu, “[i]ncidents of detainees striking or clawing nurses and corpsmen rose sharply, due in part to a failure to restrain the patients properly.”[22] Some detainees “were moved into the newly constructed mental health facility for feeding due to overcrowding at the hospital,” and “[a]ngry incidents rose to a peak and culminated with two detainee uprisings in the mental health area.”[23] According to a medic:

They tore out the IV bottles, swung the poles like clubs, ripped up the cots, and threw everything they could at us….Finally the guards came in with an ERF [emergency response force] team and quieted them down.[24]

Mitchell may dismiss such instances of violence as manifestations of detainee frustration with “unjust” detention. But there is reason to believe he is naïve to do so. For example, detainees have been quite successful in organizing resistance efforts not so graphically violent (to say nothing of verbal insults hurled at military personnel, such as “shitheads, niggers, fucking donkeys”) but nonetheless disruptive and indicative of deliberate planning. [25] While Mitchell writes sympathetically of detainees “covered in [their] own vomit,” Cucullu notes that “[s]ome of the hard-core detainees had gamed the system and began to vomit up the liquid – ‘purging,’ the medics called it. Others figured that if left alone for a few minutes they could suck on the NG tubes and siphon the liquid back out of their systems.”[26] It was then that Joint Detention Group commander Colonel Michael Bumgarner ordered special restraint chairs from the U.S.[27] Moreover, military and medical personnel have grown accustomed to resistance efforts that involve teams of detainees who coordinate to disrupt the aplomb of command personnel. According to an Army major:

It was highly organized….They would designate 10 guys to go on a hunger strike for a week. After it was over most would come back to eat. Some of the guys would say ‘I can hang in a few days more,’ and the leaders would tell them to ‘go for it.’ You could see them rotating teams in and out. Sometimes they’d eat for a few days, then go back. It was all designed to jerk us around.[28]

Mr. Mitchell has heard this sort of claim before and seems to think it strange. He writes: “[Pentagon spokesperson Cyntia] Smith went on to note that some strikers may be protesting because they feel pressured to do so by other prisoners. In such cases, force-feeding was a way to help them resist that pressure. This was a strange argument. Given that the prisoners are separated from one another and are under constant surveillance, such pressure could come only in the form of appeals to conscience.”[29] But it is not strange at all. Apparently, Mitchell is unaware of the subtle means of covert communication employed by detainees to organize resistance efforts and undermine the system of detention and interrogation.

There are multiple camps for holding detainees in Guantanamo, some of which are designed as maximum-security camps with no communal living and others (e.g. Camp IV) which are designed, according to Cucullu, for compliant detainees who are allowed “to wear white or beige clothing, live in 10-man communal facilities, and have a great deal of outside recreation time.”[30] According to Cucullu, almost 90 percent of the population wears white or beige clothing and lives communally.[31] Nonetheless, construction of new camps has been ongoing at Guantanamo, in part to reduce detainee movement among camps. Camp V was constructed based on lessons learned from U.S. prisons, but critics of Guantanamo have cited Camp V as an example of how detainees are held in isolation in Guantanamo.[32] Cucullu points out that while prisoners are indeed segregated, they are not isolated:

They see other detainees, and are permitted to converse across the hall and from cell to cell. “They talk to each other all the time,” [Sergeant First Class Allen] Rich noted, “and, of course, we don’t interfere with that.” It was reported that in Camp V, detainees also will yell into the toilet piping to communicate with their fellows.[33]

In addition, detainees have devised creative means of covert communications. Many detainees in a leadership role advise younger, less senior detainees to deliberately violate rules to be sent into different camps, or to the hospital wing, as a way to send messages to other detainees. According to SFC Rich:

I call a couple of them ‘Heavies’….They don’t ever get involved in assaults themselves but they have enough authority to tell other, younger ones what to do. Sometimes they’ll have one of these guys assault us to get moved to discipline block or to fake being sick to get over to the hospital. That’s how they communicate and pass messages back and forth.[34]

At a cost of $37 million, Camp VI is “designed as a communal facility in which maximum recreation time, co-mingling, and socialization among detainees was permitted.”[35] It “has eight separate pods surrounding common areas,” in which “[e]ach pod is two-story, with a high ceilinged, roughly circular interior, and contains 22 individual cells plus a common area.” Moreover, “[p]od interior space is very open and well lit, with both skylights and protected fluorescent lighting,” and “[c]ells have protected fluorescent lighting and are painted a light, neutral color.” Individual cells are “6 feet, 8 inches in width by 12 feet in depth, for an 81-square-foot capacity.” Both Camps V and VI meet or exceed the American Correctional Association standards of 80 square feet space per cell.[36] Camps V and VI have been constructed with full on-site dental and medical support facilities, interrogation rooms, and meeting rooms for attorneys and detainees, in an attempt to reduce detainee movement:

Why is this detainee movement reduction so important? In a large percentage of the cases, movement facilitated communications between camps and among detainees. Common areas like the detainee dispensary and the detainee hospital were favorite meeting places to exchange camp-to-camp information. The medical personnel were told not to refuse a detainee the right to go on sick call, so the local camp or block leader might designate one to complain of stomach cramps and diarrhea that day or to wake up with a headache. Once at the hospital, he could converse with fellow detainees, trade news and information, and pass along instructions. Many think that orders to engage in hunger strikes, to act hostile toward guards, or other instructions were commonly passed by this method.[37]

In his dismissal of Pentagon remarks that hunger strikers may feel pressure from camp leaders, Mitchell is apparently unaware of, or ignores, evidence of covert communication among detainees. Perhaps he is naïve, or too wedded to his cause. In either case, his apparent ignorance is reflected throughout his analysis, which rests primarily on the presumption that detainees are abused innocents telling the truth, and that government explanations of its conduct are little more than nefarious cover-ups.

Like detainees, military and medical personnel serving in Guantanamo have every incentive to describe their role in the best light possible. Perhaps it is impossible for us to go beyond “he said, she said” unless we visit the facilities ourselves or serve time in a support role to see for ourselves what goes on. However, let us at least acknowledge that Mitchell’s analysis, as it stands, takes for granted the veracity of statements and descriptions by detainees and their advocates. In so doing, he ignores a great deal of evidence that detainees wage asymmetrical warfare with a simple game of deception.

[1] Luke Mitchell, “We Still Torture: The new evidence from Guantanamo” (“Mitchell Critique”), Harper’s Magazine, July 2009, p. 50.
[2] Mitchell Critique, p. 51.
[3] Mitchell Critique, p. 51.
[4] Mitchell Critique, p. 51.
[5] Mitchell Critique, p. 53.
[6] Andy Worthington, The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (“The Guantanamo Files”) (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 94.
[7] The Guantanamo Files, p. 94.
[8] The Guantanamo Files, p. 94.
[9] Mitchell Critique, p. 53.
[10] Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu, Inside Gitmo: The True Story behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay (“Inside Gitmo”), (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), p. 185.
[11] Inside Gitmo, p. 185.
[12] Inside Gitmo, p. xxx.
[13] Inside Gitmo, p. xxx.
[14] Inside Gitmo, pp. 188-89.
[15] Inside Gitmo, p. 189.
[16] Inside Gitmo, p. 186.
[17] Mitchell Critique, p. 54.
[18] Mitchell Critique, p. 52.
[19] Luke Mitchell, “Six Questions for Cynthia Smith on the Legality of Force-Feeding at Guantanamo,” Harper’s Magazine, June 4, 2009, http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/06/hbc-90005110.
[20] Inside Gitmo, pp. 158-59.
[21] Inside Gitmo, p. 185.
[22] Inside Gitmo, p. 186.
[23] Inside Gitmo, p. 186.
[24] Inside Gitmo, p. 186.
[25] Inside Gitmo, p. 96.
[26] Mitchell Critique, p. 52. Inside Gitmo, p. 187.
[27] Inside Gitmo, p. 187.
[28] Inside Gitmo, p. 186.
[29] Mitchell Critique, p. 54.
[30] Inside Gitmo, p. 94.
[31] Inside Gitmo, p. 95.
[32] Inside Gitmo, pp. 120, 125.
[33] Inside Gitmo, p. 125.
[34] Inside Gitmo, p. 125-26.
[35] Inside Gitmo, p. 129.
[36] Inside Gitmo, p. 129.
[37] Inside Gitmo, p. 133.