Adam Serwer

Reporter

Adam Serwer is a reporter at Mother Jones. Formerly a staff writer at the American Prospect, he has written for the Washington Post, the Root, the Village Voice, and the New York Daily News.

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Another Of Qaddafi's Sons Captured

—By Adam Serwer

| Mon Nov. 21, 2011 12:11 PM PST

On Sunday, Libya's Transitional National Council announced that its fighters had captured Saif al-Islam, a son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi. Here's a bit from the New York Times' report:

But while transitional government leaders in the capital, Tripoli, promised that Mr. Qaddafi would be closely guarded and turned over to the International Criminal Court to be tried on war crimes charges, leaders in Zintan insisted that they would not hand him over until a formal national government was formed — a process that is in the works but at least a day or two away.

Such insistence on factional power is at the heart of international concerns about Libya’s future. And after Colonel Qaddafi’s capture and killing at the hands of militiamen a month ago, his son's case will be an important test of Libya's commitment to the rule of law.

Videos and images posted on the internet after Moammar Qaddafi's capture showed apparent torture followed by what seemed to be a summary execution. One of the dictator's sons, Mutassim al-Qaddafi, died under similarly sketchy circumstances, and human rights groups have raised the possibility that Qaddafi supporters in the town if Sirte may have been summarily killed as well. Now Human Rights Watch is calling for al-Islam to be handed over to the International Criminal Court for trial—perhaps so that he might avoid the fate of his father and brother.

But according to Reuters reporters, one of whom traveled with TNC forces as they transported al-Islam, Saif al-Islam's capture was quite different from his father's:

Speaking to journalists on Sunday, Atari said that, in the darkness, "Saif jumped out and tried to take cover behind the car." He then tried to conceal himself under a bundle of clothes, covering it with sand. "But when we told him to surrender he did," Atari said.

"The operation was simple and without any resistance or casualties. We treated Saif al-Islam properly. No one laid a finger on him because we are men of honor."

It's probably a hopeful sign that this time around, forces aligned with the TNC were able to restrain themselves from sexually assaulting and executing their prisoner.

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Pamela Geller: Beware "Stealth Halal" Turkeys This Thanksgiving

—By Adam Serwer

| Mon Nov. 21, 2011 8:44 AM PST

Muslim Brotherhood Turkeys Are Taking Advantage Of The Arab Spring.

Anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller, one of the driving forces behind the Ground Zero mosque controversy, has set her sights on a new manifestation of the stealth jihad: Your Thanksgiving turkey. Geller is calling for a boycott of Butterball, accusing the compainy of selling "stealh halal" turkeys prepared in accordance with Muslim dietary laws:

Across this great country, on Thanksgiving tables nationwide, infidel Americans are unwittingly going to be serving halal turkeys to their families this Thursday. Turkeys that are halal certified -- who wants that, especially on a day on which we are giving thanks to G-d for our freedom? I wouldn't knowingly buy a halal turkey -- would you? Halal turkey, slaughtered according to the rules of Islamic law, is just the opposite of what Thanksgiving represents: freedom and inclusiveness, neither of which are allowed for under that same Islamic law.

Just in case you're wondering, Jewish and Muslim dietary laws regarding meat are very similar. Similar enough, in fact, that a proposed ban on the ritual killing of animals in the Netherlands has both the Jewish and Muslim religious communities up in arms.

Now, assuming Geller's right about Butterball turkeys being halal, you might think that in a capitalist economy, halal turkeys are a sign of meat sellers responding to market demand for food prepared a certain way. You might even be tempted to observe that Muslim Americans marking a secular, American holiday celebrating pluralism and freedom from religious persecution might be a sign of the extent to which American Muslims have assimilated into American culture. What you didn't know was that when markets respond to the demands of Muslim consumers, freedom dies.

Cain Thinks the Taliban Are Taking Over in Libya

—By Adam Serwer

| Fri Nov. 18, 2011 3:35 PM PST

You'd think that after flubbing a question on Libya earlier this week in a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Herman Cain might have done himself a favor by reading a newspaper article or two on the subject, or maybe even just the Wikipedia summary. Instead, Cain went on CNN this afternoon and warned that "the Taliban" might take over the country now that former Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi is dead:

Do I agree with siding with the opposition? Do I agree with saying that [Qaddafi] should go? Do I agree that they now have a country where you've got Taliban and Al Qaeda that's going to be part of the government? Do I agree with not knowing the government was going to—which part was he asking me about? I was trying to get him to be specific and he wouldn't be specific.

Now look, it's fair to worry about how Libya's transitional government will handle issues like the large number of armed militias or human rights and the rule of law. But this answer reflects particularly poorly on Cain, and not just because there is no Taliban in Libya, and no evidence that Al Qaeda is "going to be part of the government." It's because the only thing he was able to muster after minutes of hemming and hawwing during his disastrous meeting earlier this week was that he "would have done a better job" than Obama "of determining who the opposition is."

Now how exactly is anyone supposed to believe that, as president, Cain would have done a better job of finding out who the opposition is when he can't even be bothered to know who they are now?

Obama Threatens To Veto Defense Bill Over Detention Provisions

—By Adam Serwer

| Thu Nov. 17, 2011 10:51 AM PST

President Barack Obama.

The Obama administration released a statement of administration policy Thursday afternoon that threatens to veto the upcoming defense spending bill if it retains provisions further militarizing domestic counterterrorism operations.

The detention provisions in the Senate version of the defense spending bill authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens, and requires that any non-citizen terrorism suspect be held in military custody. It also forces the Secretary of Defense to personally approve transfers of detainees out of Gitmo*. When the bill was introduced, it created a rare moment of consensus between former Bush administration officials and civil liberties advocates who warned against constraining the president's "flexibility" in counterterrorism operations.

The administration's statement harshly criticizes the bipartisan Senate compromise hammered out by the Senate Armed Services Committee, noting that rather than take out provisions that critics warned would impede the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and apprehend terrorism suspects, the committee's revised language merely "directs the President to develop procedures to ensure the myriad problems that would result...do not come to fruition."

Broadly speaking, the detention provisions in this bill micromanage the work of our experienced counterterrorism professionals, including our military commanders, intelligence professionals, seasoned counterterrorism prosecutors, or other operatives in the field. These professionals have successfully led a Government-wide effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents over two consecutive Administrations. The Administration believes strongly that it would be a mistake for Congress to overrule or limit the tactical flexibility of our Nation's counterterrorism professionals.

The section on detention provisions concludes with the statement that "any bill that challenges or constrains the President's critical authorities to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists, and protect the Nation would prompt the President's senior advisers to recommend a veto."

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned the Senate earlier this week that the provisions would harm national security, but until now it was unclear whether the administration would threaten to veto the defense bill over the Senate detention language. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated he wants to pass the bill as soon as possible.

UPDATE: In his floor statement, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) said that "the Administration and others expressed misgivings about the detainee provisions in the initial bill, although the provisions in our initial bill represented a bipartisan compromise that was approved by the Committee on a 25-1 vote. Many of these concerns were based on misinterpretations of the language in that bill. Nonetheless, we have worked hard to address these concerns...I look forward to working with my colleagues to promptly pass this important legislation. "

*A previous version of this post incorrectly states that the bill would prohibit transfers of Gitmo detainees to US soil for trial.

Leon Panetta: New Detention Provisions Will Harm National Security

—By Adam Serwer

| Thu Nov. 17, 2011 9:28 AM PST

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the bipartisan compromise mandating indefinite military detention of non-citizen terrorism suspects apprehended in the US would damage national security.

The detainee provisions may "needlessly complicate efforts by frontline law enforcement professionals to collect critical intelligence concerning operations and activities within the United States," Panetta wrote in a letter first reported on by the Associated Press, and "restrains the Executive Branch's options to utilize, in a swift and flexible fashion, all the counterterrorism tools that are now legally available." (The detainee provisions would also authorize the indefinite military detention of American citizens suspected of being members of Al Qaeda or an "associated force.")

At a press briefing yesterday, Pentagon spokesman Capt. John Kirby said Panetta had not yet recommended vetoing the bill. "He has not, to our knowledge, recommended to veto this," Kirby said. "Again, he really—he wants to work with them as they move forward [on] this." Critics of the bill contend that the administration's skittishness in issuing veto threats suggests that the White House's warnings about the bill's detention provisions won't be taken seriously by Congress.

"If Congress is going to take the president seriously, it has to believe the president is prepared to use the National Defense Authorization Act as toilet paper," says Ben Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "If it's not convinced of that, the president has given away his negotiating leverage."

In an interview with the Associated Press, Senator Lindsey Graham suggested that the armed services committee had altered the bill in response to the administration's concerns:

The military custody provision has been changed to accommodate what I thought were some legitimate concerns of the administration...There's been a criminalization of the war that makes a lot of members uncomfortable and this is congressional involvement that brings balance.

The Obama administration has largely maintained the trajectory of Bush-era policies on national security, and the detention provisions represent a substantial militarization of the Bush-Obama policy, not a return to the status quo ante. Moreover, the White House threatened a veto over similar detention provisions in the House version of the defense bill in May. White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan blasted the detainee provisions in September, and Pentagon Counsel Jeh Johnson criticized them in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in October. Graham is concern-trolling the White House.

"What has to happen is the president needs to express that this is something that they're going to veto over, and make very clear that threat is real," says ACLU Legislative Counsel Chris Anders. "These are provisions that really deserve a veto if they end up on the president's desk."