Washington Post — Official: Accused 9/11 mastermind, others to be tried in N.Y.
It is not coincidental that on the same day that White House Counsel Greg Craig will formally announce his departure the administration makes it known that the highest-value terrorists in Guantanamo Bay – the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks and some of his helpers – are heading to New York City for criminal trial.
The struggle to close Guantanamo has been a persistent annoyance to liberal Democrats. That’s why the White House spent months pinning the blame on Craig and now seeks to couple his departure with the biggest action yet on clearing out the terrorist prison in Cuba.
But after an Army major killed a dozen soldiers inside the largest military installation in the United States, having Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at the federal courthouse in Manhattan will make many Americans nervous about efforts to free him or at least disrupt his trial.
Writers Peter Finn and Carrie Johnson have the details:
“Administration officials say they expect that up to 40 of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will ultimately be tried in either federal court or military commissions — possibly including federal courts in the District or Alexandria.
Approximately 90 others have been cleared for repatriation or resettlement in a third country, according to an administration official.
That leaves up to 75 individuals remaining at Guantanamo who could continue to be held under the laws of war because they are deemed too dangerous to release but cannot be prosecuted because of evidentiary issues and limits on the use of classified material.”
New York Times — Among Obama Aides, Debate Intensifies on Troop Levels
Writers Mark Landler and Jeff Zeleny looks at the conflict within the Obama administration over Afghanistan. What was once Stanley McChrystal versus Joe Biden is now being cast as Stanley McChrystal versus Karl Eikenberry.
But Ambassador Eikenberry is reportedly making many of the same arguments that Biden did – that the U.S. should have a small-footprint operation in Afghanistan focused on training the Afghan security forces and engaging in counterterrorism.
The president demands more options, better exit strategies, and more specifics in his next (ninth) colloquy on military strategy when he returns from his week-long Asia trip.
But there will still be no confidence in the Karzai government, the Taliban will still be on the rise, and 68,000 Americans will still be freezing their BDUs off and risking their lives in Afghanistan waiting for the president to make up his mind.
Count von Moltke said that “strategy is a system of expedients”—plan well but focus on goals, resources, and execution because strategy will have to change as the circumstances change.
The choice for President Obama was whether to leave Afghanistan or increase our efforts there – to set a goal and find the resources needed to pursue it. He instead seems to be looking for a strategy that will succeed and then will tailor a goal to suit it.
Having his top general defending a specific strategy unsupported by a presidential mandate doesn’t help with goals and hurts implementation.
“General Eikenberry’s reluctance on additional troops would seem to put him at odds not only with General McChrystal but also with Mr. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who have been coalescing around a plan to send roughly 30,000 troops, according to officials. The State Department has declined to comment on General Eikenberry’s cables, saying that his advice and that of Mrs. Clinton were confidential.
General Eikenberry, who holds degrees from Harvard and Stanford, has long been a controversial figure in the military, with some faulting his management style as high-handed.”
Wall Street Journal — U.S. Posts $176.36 Billion Deficit for October
The binge-spending Obama administration and its fiscal enablers in the press (I’m looking at you, David Brooks) say that 2010 is the year of the budget crackdown.
They just need to spend a couple trillion more this year and then next year, they’re all going to be regular Dick Darmans.
But the spending and borrowing is piling up so fast that promises of fiscal probity sound laughable. And like a Medicare cut, will the resolve melt in the face of continued economic woes?
Writers Meena Thiruvengadam and Darrell Hughes give us the details on the largest one-month deficit ever. We’re going into the red at $176.6 billion a month.
“The Treasury on Thursday also revised September’s deficit to a slightly narrower $46.57 billion, from a previously reported $46.61 billion. Even with the revision, the U.S. in fiscal year 2009 posted a record total budget deficit of near $1.4 trillion — three times its previous record.
At the equivalent of 9.9% of gross domestic product, the figure is the widest U.S. deficit as a share of GDP since 1945.”
New York Times — Reid Mulls Medicare Tax Increase for High Earners
One pictures Harry Reid sitting at his desk staring at a 2,000-page pile of legislative gobbledygook and just calling people up when another idea for wriggling out from under his burden occurs to him.
The big issue is how to pay for all the goodies, so Reid is floating the idea of a $50 billion payroll tax on those earning $250,000 and more to help offset the costs still being estimated by the CBO. This is more in line with the House bill but may not be palatable to senators from wealthy states.
Take it away, Robert Pear:
“Economists and politicians pointed out several possible objections to Mr. Reid’s proposal. It does nothing to slow the growth of health spending, as the tax on high-cost insurance would. And, as the Congressional Budget Office pointed out recently, ‘higher tax rates on earnings reduce people’s incentive to work.’
Moreover, the higher payroll tax would not be sufficient in the long run. Payroll tax revenues generally grow with payroll, which is expected to increase more slowly than health costs under even the most optimistic projections.”
Peggy Noonan — Just the Facts, Mr. President
As the president looks for a way to break the news about his new goals for Afghanistan, Noonan encourages Obama to level with the American people.
“All presidential decisions come within a context. My read of that context is that the days of foreign policy by sentiment are over. The country’s mood now is intensely bottom-line. Americans aren’t concerned about Afghanistan because they are swept by democratic feeling and certain world peace will be enhanced if Afghans are able to vote in honest elections. They aren’t driven only by indignation that the Afghan government is corrupt, which it is. Americans have assumed for 40 years that every faraway country we give money to is corrupt, that the rulers and insiders skim off the top, or more commonly from the top and middle, allowing a little at the bottom go to their people in order to show off the new health-care hut to the credulous visiting Yanks. Americans put up with this on the assumption that in the end such aid does more good than harm. And Americans aren’t motivated primarily by concern about Afghanistan’s inadequate infrastructure. They’re concerned about their own.”
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