...and counting...

(Occasional sobering thoughts.) It's been 6 weeks since we last looked at how things stand in Iraq and Afghanistan, the theaters since 2003 and 2001, respectively, of armed conflict between a multistate coalition led by the United States and a myriad of nonstate groops. Story lines noted then continue to dominate. Often heard still is that "the surge" -- a U.S. effort to reduce violence by increasing U.S. troops -- is working.
On a closer look one finds chinks in the armor of that argument.
► Noteworthy in Sunday's Democratic presidential debate was the degree to which candidates responded to the moderator's suggestion that the surge had worked. Sen. Hillary Clinton began with this pushback:

[T]he purpose behind the surge was to create the space and time for political reconciliation, for the Iraqi government to do what only it can do and trying to deal with the myriad of unresolved problems that confront it. ... [B]ut there has not been a willingness on the part of the Iraqi government to do what the surge was intended to do, to push them to begin to make the tough decisions. And in the absence of that political action, 23 Americans dying in December is totally unacceptable.

Gov. Bill Richardson pushed back further:

The policy's a massive failure. Here are the measurements that we should look at: Thirty-nine hundred Americans have lost their lives. There are 60,000 Americans today that are wounded, mainly mentally wounded. Tell that to the family that only 23 died in December.
Look, here are the barometers that we need to look at. First, there is no military solution; there's a political solution. Secondly, has there been progress in any political compromises of reconciliation between the Sunni, the Shi'a and the Kurds? Zero. Has there been progress in sharing oil revenues? Zero. Has there been any regional elections? Zero. Is the Maliki government intensifying its efforts to train the Iraqi
security forces more than they have? No. Is there any end to Iran's efforts to bring terrorist activities to Iraq? No. Iran, Syria -- no one has participated in the regional solution.

Then Sen. Barack Obama joined the pushback:

[T]he bar of success has become so low that we've lost perspective on what should be our long-term national interests. It was a mistake to go in from the start, and that's why I opposed this war from the start.
It has cost us upwards of $1 trillion. It may get close to 2. We have lost young men and women on the battlefield, and we have not made ourselves safer as a consequence.
... [W]e started in 2006 with intolerable levels of violence and a dysfunctional government. We saw a spike in the violence, the surge reduced that violence, and we now are, two years later, back where we started two years ago. We have gone full circle at enormous cost to the American people.

Finally, Sen. John Edwards made pushback a 4-for-4 Democratic position:

[T]he whole purpose for the surge was to create some environment where there could be political progress and political reconciliation between Sunni and Shi'a. ... [E]ven George Bush acknowledges that that's -- that's what we're trying to accomplish. ... I don't believe ... that there will be political progress until we make it clear that we're going to stop propping the Sunni and Shi'a up with American lives and with the American taxpayer dollars.

► Another "barometer," to use Richardson's term, is the question of overall U.S. casualties. That question surfaced during an excellent panel on private military contracting at last weekend's Association of American Law Schools annual meeting, at which law professors Laura A. Dickinson (Connecticut), author of a new ASIL Insight already mentioned in IntLawGrrls, Martha Minow (Harvard), Paul Verkuil (Cardozo), and Steven L. Schooner (George Washington), spoke. Schooner noted that deaths of contractors appear to be going up -- perhaps up to 1 contractor death for every 3 servicemember deaths. The numbers are hard to come by. Neither the Department of Defense nor other contracting departments collect them, leaving researchers to look to loss-of-job-force statistics issued by the Department of Labor. Assuming these gleanings to be accurate, there's reason to think that the drop in servicemember casualties may have been offset by a rise in contractor casualties, with the result that overall U.S. casualties have remained constant.
Missing from all these considerations is the casualty count on which we've focused since starting this "... and counting" series nearly a year ago: (additional post) the number of Iraqi civilians who've died since the 2003 invasion. Here are those numbers: according to Iraq Body Count, between 80,331 and 87,742 Iraqi women, children, and men had died in the conflict -- an increase of between 2,998 and 3,492 deaths in the last 6 weeks, and of 23,451 to 25,129 deaths since we began counting last February.
Regarding servicemembers: by the U.S. Defense Department's figures, as of Sunday 3,911 American servicemembers had been killed in Iraq. Total coalition fatalities: 4,218 persons. (That's 36 servicemember deaths in 6 weeks, all but 1 of them Americans.) The Department stated that 28,661 servicemembers have been wounded, and that 8,691 of them required medical air transport.
Military casualties in the conflict in Afghanistan stand at 476 Americans and 278 other coalition servicemembers, an increase of 7 and 9, respectively, in the last 6 weeks.
No numbers on civilians in Afghanistan; no one seem to keep them.

"Human rights v. American national security"

Can't let last week's presidential debate recede into dim memory without taking note of an interesting colloquy on the role of human rights in today's political discourse.
Eventually enveloping 5 of the contenders for the Democratic nomination, the discussion began when the moderator, Wolf Blitzer, questioned the call of Gov. Bill Richardson (New Mexico) (left) to cut off military aid to Pakistan unless its President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, moves "to restore the constitution, take off his military uniform, end the national state of emergency and have free and fair elections." Here's the response:

RICHARDSON: ... [W]hat happened with our Pakistan policy, we got our principles wrong. ... [W]e said to Musharraf: 'You know, Musharraf, security is more important than human rights.' If I'm president, it's the other way around -- democracy and human rights. ...
....
BLITZER: What you're saying, Governor, is that human rights, at times, are more important than American national security?
RICHARDSON: Yes, because I believe we need to find ways to say to the world that, you know, it's not just about what Halliburton wants in Iraq. It's also about our values of freedom, equality. Our strength is not just military and economic. ... Our strength as a nation is our values: equality ... freedom, democracy ... human rights.

Asked "to weigh in," former Sen. John Edwards (North Carolina) dodged the human-rights-versus-national-security dichotomy posited, and so in turning to Sen. Barack Obama (Illinois) (right), the moderator homed in on that question:

BLITZER: ... [I]s human rights more important than American national security?
OBAMA: The concepts are not contradictory, Wolf.
BLITZER: Because occasionally, they could clash.
OBAMA: They are complementary. And I think Pakistan is a great example. Look, we paid $10 billion over the last seven years and we had two goals: deal with terrorism and restore democracy. And we've gotten neither. ... Pakistan's democracy would strengthen our battle against extremists.
The more we see repression, the more there are no outlets for how people can express themselves and their aspirations, the worse off we're going to be, and the more anti-American sentiment there's going to be in the Middle East. We keep on making this mistake. ... And that's going to make us less safe.

Then it was the turn of Sen. Christopher Dodd (Massachusetts) (left):

BLITZER: What is more important, human rights or national security?
DODD: Obviously, national security, keeping the country safe. When you take the oath of office on January 20, you promise to do two things, and that is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect our country against enemies both foreign and domestic. The security of the country is number one, obviously.

Finally, the moderator turned from Dodd to Sen. Hillary Clinton (New York) (left):

BLITZER: You say national security is more important than human rights. Senator Clinton, what do you say?
CLINTON: I agree with that completely. The first obligation of the president of the United States is to protect and defend the United States of America. That doesn't mean that it is to the exclusion of other interests.
And there's absolutely a connection between a democratic regime and heightened security for the United States. That's what's so tragic about this situation. After 9/11, President Bush had a chance to chart a different course, both in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and could have been very clear about what our expectations were.

A few comments about this colloquy.
1st, there's the matter of the President's oath, which both Dodd and Clinton misremembered. See below.
2d, there's cause to be disturbed in the degree to which some contenders acceded to the moderator's insistence that "human rights" and "American national security" are at odds with each other, that they "clash" in a manner that demands abstract prioritization of one over the other. Seemed clear to him, at least, that "American national security," standing alone, is the lone right answer. Little need, then, to consider precise context, let alone the security of other states, let alone the security of humanity as a whole. To be commended are those who said otherwise -- who resisted playing the moderator's zero-sum game and instead suggested that in the reinforcement of human rights may be found national security and that, conversely, national security ought to encompass human rights.
Only by acknowledging the complexity of the contemporary world can America's leaders hope truly to improve it.

Gitmo on the Demo campaign trail

Democratic presidential candidates seem even more united than Republicans on the issue of Guantánamo/"Guantánamo"; that is, not only on questions of closure of the detention camp that bears the name, but also on post-September 11 practices of coercive interrogation. As detailed yesterday, nearly all GOP candidates favor the camp and/or the harsh methods. In stark contrast are the Democrats: nearly all have advocated closing the camp, and none has supported coercive interrogation. Here's a sampling of Demos' comments this campaign year (and in the 1st example, well before):

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, 2005 TV appearance:

This has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world. And it is unnecessary to be in that position. ... I think we should end up shutting it down, moving those prisoners. ... Those that we have reason to keep, keep. And those we don't, let go.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Senate committee hearing:

Rather than keeping us more secure, keeping Guantanamo open is harming our national interests. It compromises our long term military and strategic interests, and it impairs our standing overseas. I have certainly concluded that we should address any security issues on what to do with the remaining detainees, and then close it once and for all.

U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut:

Dodd has sponsored the Restoring the Constitution Act 0f 2007, a bill that would not close Guantánamo, but would allow detainees to petition federal courts for writs of habeas corpus, and also would address some due process concerns related to the military commissions set to try some Gitmo detainees.

Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, speech to the California Democratic Party Convention, San Diego:

On my first day in office, you have my word that Guantanamo will be closed.

Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska, radio appearance:

I will withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 60 days and raze Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo. We must tell the world that the United States does not stand for
torture. It is unacceptable human behavior.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, news interview:

You could close Guantanamo; that’s a good move — but until the United States ends the occupation (of Iraq), we will still have this war.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, speech in Kansas City:

He also called for the closing of Guantanamo -- the American military base in Cuba where putative al-Qaida terrorists are imprisoned: 'Why don't we say we don't do torture, we don't do rendition, that's not who we are as a people.'

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, 2007 speech in Washington:

... Richardson told an Arab-American group that, as president, he would close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorists ... Richardson said the prisons at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib had made Americans 'very, very ashamed.'

'Nuff said.