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Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks to Sarah Mendelson, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, about a speech given there today by President Obama’s Assistant for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism, John Brennan.
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LISA MULLINS: As we heard in Katy Clark’s report, the United States is worried about Somalia becoming the next breeding ground for violent extremists. President Obama’s Assistant for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism gave a talk in Washington today. John Brennan spoke about the administration’s strategy. Sarah Mendelson was at that talk. She is the director of the human rights and security initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This talk by John Brennan was billed as a chance for the Obama team to really lay out its counter terrorism strategy. What was the takeaway message that you came away with?
SARAH MENDELSON: Well, I’d say that there were bits of it that were new, old and unknown. On the new part, essentially the Obama Administration is declaring that there’s not a global war on terror, that there’s a specific battle with terrorists in various places. Um, what is old or in some ways what we saw in the Bush Administration is a focus, at least at the rhetorical level, on the condition that can lead to someone to join a terrorist organization. The socio-economic deprivation. That is something that we heard a lot of from David Colcullen [PH], who was a state department official in the Bush Administration. And I think it’s interesting that it was a central part of John Brennan’s speech today.
LISA MULLINS: Well let’s get to that then first, how one prevents terrorism? How one specifically prevents individuals from gravitating toward extremist groups? Is there a new plan under the Obama Administration?
SARAH MENDELSON: I didn’t hear too much about details, what I heard was a focus on the fact that terrorist organizations often times can provide governments structures, deliver services to people in environments where the government itself is not doing that.
LISA MULLINS: Specifically places like Somalia?
SARAH MENDELSON: Well, like Somalia. I mean, he mentioned [INDISCERNIBLE]. I can think of parts of the north Caucuses in Russia where we know that this has occurred. So, what the specific policy is that the Obama Administration is gonna under take to address that is not clear to me. I mean, he talked about integrating every element of US power, including foreign assistance. At the moment we have no idea who the head of US Aid is gonna be.
LISA MULLINS: US Aid, which is what?
SARAH MENDELSON: Which is the instrument of the US government that delivers foreign assistance.
LISA MULLINS: Okay, so Brennan talks about the political economic social factors that put individuals on the path to violence, but he’s not saying how the Obama Administration would differ from the Bush Administration on cutting that path short.
SARAH MENDELSON: Well, I mean, I would say that he was making an argument that combined both, although I think the White House doesn’t like to speak this way, but combines both hard power and soft power, that there’s a military element to this. But there are also very specific political economic, and social dynamics that need to be addressed. Again, the details of how exactly they’re gonna do that, I didn’t really hear today.
LISA MULLINS: Okay, so how about on the other end then, as you say, the use of military force potentially. One of the things I know that Brennan said today, this counter terrorism advisor to the president, said that the US needs to replace the so-called war on terror with a new strategy, because, he said, terrorism is a tactic, a means to an end, and you cannot have a war against a tactic. It sounds in a way as if it’s just semantics. Do you hear more than that in it?
SARAH MENDELSON: I think it’s more, it is more than semantics. He’s quoting Dr. Braginski, who is former national security advisor to President Carter. What they’re really doing is they’re putting terrorism, or the struggle that we have with terrorists, in a larger context. It’s not the only challenge before obviously the Obama administration, and US foreign policy. In some ways, I think critics are gonna read this as a downgrading of terrorism. And I think people who’ve been long concerned that the Bush Administration focused on terrorism to the detriment of other issues, will be greatly relieved.
LISA MULLINS: So is the Obama Administration taking the US in a new direction, in terms of countering terrorism or not?
SARAH MENDELSON: I think that Mr. Brennan put some architecture around what has already been, a house that’s been built in some ways. I think we’ve been going down this path for quite a while, you don’t hear Obama Administration officials talk about a global war. They haven’t talked about it that way for a long time. But there’s still pieces that are left to be put in place. I mean, if foreign assistance, for example, is gonna play a role, if democracy assistance is gonna play a role, we need to know more about how it’s gonna play a role, who’s gonna be leading it, and what role precisely it plays in the arsenal that the Obama Administration is using to counter terrorist threats.
LISA MULLINS: Alright. Sarah Mendelson is with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking to us about the Obama Administration’s strategies on countering terrorism. Nice to speak with you, thank you.
SARAH MENDELSON: Thank you.
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