http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/is-this-a-new-war-on-terror-111022_full.html#.VBjwxkuBvFw
Is This a New War on Terror? Barack Obama entered the White House vowing to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and transformed his predecessor’s “global war on terror” from a sweeping boots-on-the ground effort to a targeted-killing operation, with drones and small teams of Special Forces leading the way. But with his decision to authorize a new military campaign against Islamic State militants rampaging across Iraq and Syria—and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey’s statement today that he might eventually ask the president to send ground troops to the region—Obama, whether he likes it or not, seems to be hewing closer to George W. Bush’s broader anti-terror strategy. The president himself initially called the mission a “counterterrorism campaign,” which Secretary of State John Kerry echoed last week, insisting that the United States is not fighting a “war” with the Islamic State (also known as ISIL) but instead is engaged in a “major counterterrorism operation.” But in the days since, the administration seems to have changed its tack, with White House press secretary Josh Earnest and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declaring that the United States is “at war with ISIL” just as it is “at war with al Qaeda.” So how should we think about America’s campaign against ISIL? Is it a new “war on terror”—or even a “war” at all? We asked top defense and intelligence thinkers to weigh in. *** A war. Full stop. By Michael Chertoff If this isn’t war, what is? And that’s as it should be. As I understand the Obama administration’s new strategy, among other things, the United States will engage in lethal air strikes against ISIL leaders and fighters, acting in some instances in support of allied ground troops—including Iraqis and Kurds—with the aim of dislodging, degrading and destroying an enemy. While we will not put large massed infantry in the fight, our rules of engagement will be set by the laws of war, and the president will be invoking his commander in chief authorities. Indeed, if this is not war, then we will be seriously circumscribed in the kinetic activities we can undertake. Although the enemy does not possess the instruments of a real state, no matter how ISIL describes itself, that does not take us out of the category of warfare. Historically, wars have included insurgencies, guerrilla conflicts and revolution. ISIL has ousted the Iraqi government from part of its territory and avows its intent to overthrow legitimate governments throughout the region. Fighting back easily fits within the historical construct of warfare. If some of our leaders seek to minimize the risks of the new strategy by characterizing it euphemistically, they are making a mistake. We need to be completely candid about the seriousness of this endeavor and the fact that we will need to see it through to success—the degradation and destruction of an evil enemy. Temporizing about this effort only shakes the confidence of our allies in our commitment. Worse, it leaves the American people unprepared for the scope of the challenge that lies ahead. Remember, as well, that our enemy also has a say in how this goes, and we should expect that they will try hard to strike back at us, which might further escalate the conflict. I think the president is taking steps in the right direction, but to maintain support for the long haul, we will need to be unflinching about what we are doing—waging war. Michael Chertoff, executive chairman and co-founder of The Chertoff Group, was secretary the Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009. *** A hostage crisis, too. By Bruce Riedel Al Qaeda declared war on America in 1998 with a fatwa signed by Osama bin Laden, and since then, the United States has been in multiple interrelated wars with al Qaeda and its allies and offshoots. The enemy has demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability. For example, three different leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of today’s Islamic State, were killed by U.S. forces, yet the group has not only survived but thrived. Franchises and offshoots have repeatedly shown a capacity to regenerate after major setbacks. (We should expect the same in Afghanistan and Pakistan as we depart by next year.) Now, the group calling itself the Islamic State poses a number of challenges for the United States, including potential threats to the homeland in the future, an immediate regional and ideological threat and an insurgent threat. Importantly, ISIL is also a hostage challenge. In general, the American people want hostages rescued, not grand strategic plans that take years to succeed. But some 35 years ago, two presidents—Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan—found it extremely difficult to handle hostage-taking. Carter lost his bid for reelection in 1980 with Desert One, his failed mission to end the Iran hostage crisis, and Ronald Reagan foolishly traded arms for American hostages held in Lebanon by Iran-backed Hezbollah and narrowly escaped impeachment. Both presidencies became consumed with hostage crises. The United States has not confronted as significant a hostage/counterterrorism problem as ISIL since 1991. That year, George H. W. Bush found a winning strategy because he had something to give Iran and Hezbollah (blaming Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for starting the Iran-Iraq War after it was long over) and because Hussein had inadvertently freed Shia captives in Kuwait, for whom Hezbollah wanted to trade hostages. President Obama has no such negotiating options. He has also learned that hostage rescue missions are almost always long shots. ISIL’s next move is probably to seize more hostages while it continues to execute those it already holds—including more than 40 Turkish hostages the group is using to keep Ankara sidelined in the regional war and at least four remaining American and British hostages. And it can easily acquire more. The American public is likely to find a disconnect between a three-year or longer strategic response and images of horror that will continue on the nightly news. It could easily get worse. Al Qaeda’s old core in Pakistan has one American hostage (completely forgotten by the media) and could easily take more in Pakistan. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in Northern Africa, is basically a kidnap/extortion machine but has avoided Americans until now. That could change. And al Qaeda’s offshoot in Egypt is well-placed to take tourists hostage and has already beheaded captives. To add to the horror, ISIL cynically uses the symbols of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp—waterboarding and orange jump suits—to signal to its own constituency why the group takes and kills innocent journalists and aid workers: for revenge. No doubt ISIL hopes this will incite copycat violence in the West. Obama could face two-plus years of hostage-taking and executions that seem to underscore the limits of American power. It will be easy for critics to charge him as weak and ineffective without, of course, providing a policy that stops hostage-taking. He says we need to fight smarter against our enemy. The president has that right. Bruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, served for 30 years in the CIA. An “armed conflict”—not unlike Bush’s. By John B. Bellinger III Both the Bush and Obama administrations have wrestled with the proper political nomenclature for the U.S. conflict with al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, most recently ISIL. As a matter of international law, however, both administrations have treated the U.S. confrontation with al Qaeda and associated groups as an “armed conflict,” and the Obama administration is very likely to do the same with ISIL. President George W. Bush referred to U.S. policy toward al Qaeda and other terrorist groups as the “global war on terror.” Critics ridiculed the term and accused the Bush administration of waging war on all terrorist groups everywhere in the world. But as I explained in a 2006 address in London, the phrase was not a legal statement but a political expression, intended to mean that all countries must strongly oppose terrorism in all its forms, everywhere around the globe. As a legal matter, the Bush administration considered the United States to be in an armed conflict specifically with al Qaeda and associated groups. The Obama administration, while dropping the “global war on terror” phrase, has reaffirmed that the United States remains in a global armed conflict with al Qaeda and its affiliates. This has been the international legal basis for continued detention of detainees in Guantánamo and Afghanistan and for nearly 400 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. With respect to ISIL, the Obama administration appears to be internally conflicted for political reasons. Having ended the U.S. “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama has wanted to declare an end to the “perpetual war” with terrorists and certainly does not want to declare the start of a new “war” in Iraq. But he also wants to demonstrate that he takes the threat posed by ISIL seriously (which might explain why administration officials have shifted to using the “war” terminology). More important, in order to justify the use of military force against ISIL in Iraq and, especially in Syria, in the absence of an imminent threat of attack by ISIL against the United States, the administration likely will want to treat the U.S. conflict with ISIL as part of its ongoing armed conflict with al Qaeda and associated groups. Under international law, the Unite States may not use force in the territory of another country unless the government of that country has consented; or to defend against an attack or the threat of an imminent attack against the United States or its allies; or unless the use of force is part of an ongoing armed conflict. John B. Bellinger III, partner at Arnold & Porter and adjunct senior fellow in international and national security law at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as legal adviser to the State Department from 2005-2009 and legal adviser to the National Security Council from 2001-2005. *** Not a war on terror, a war on an ideology. By Jane Harman “War on terror” was always a misnomer. Terror is not our enemy; it’s a tactic. Unfortunately, by framing our actions in a linguistically sloppy way, we’ve hurt our narrative with several important groups. First, Muslims who think that we’re at war with them. Second, many around the globe who think—rightly—that playing whack-a-mole will never persuade the kid in the boonies of Yemen not to strap on a suicide vest. So how to unpack the problem? Let’s separate named groups (our “war with al Qaeda”) from ideologies. Degrading organizations is the relatively easy part, something the United States has been doing with substantial success throughout the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In this regard, it isn’t surprising that the campaign the president wants to pursue against ISIL looks like the campaigns underway against al-Shabaab and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. What’s much more challenging is to confront—and defuse—the ideologies that underpin these groups. The jargon for this is “countering violent extremism” (CVE), a crucial part of the strategy that’s underfunded and hard as all get-out to accomplish. If we lump both al Qaeda and ISIL into one bucket labeled “terror,” we’ll never pull it off. An example: The State Department recently put out an exceptionally violent video that used some of ISIL’s own promotional materials. The point was to highlight that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s thugs kill Muslims—which is an important point to make. Osama Bin Laden cautioned ISIL’s ancestor, al Qaeda in Iraq, that its slaughter of fellow Muslims made for bad optics. But what might have worked against al Qaeda won’t necessarily work against this new enemy. ISIL glamourizes violence, the notion that its caliphate is worth dying and killing for. The group celebrates death. We need to undermine that pitch with a positive narrative, not amplify its negatives. The moniker “war on terror” needs to be retired, and replaced by a nuanced strategy aimed at that kid in Yemen I mentioned above. ISIL’s Baghdadi has found a message with staying power. Let’s develop a counter-narrative with even greater force. *** Not just a war—a limitless one. By Jameel Jaffer It’s strange to think of it now, but when Congress authorized President George W. Bush to use military force in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the authorization was meant to be a limited one. The Bush administration wanted a more sweeping resolution—one that would allow the use of military force against any group, anywhere, that the president believed was planning terrorist attacks against the United States. But some in Congress believed it would be reckless to give the executive branch such boundless authority, and the language that Congress ultimately settled on was narrower: It authorized the use of military force only against groups connected in some way to the 9/11 attacks. As it’s turned out, the language of the 2001 resolution hasn’t actually been very limiting. Quite the opposite. The government’s lawyers cited Congress’s 2001 resolution to justify dragnet surveillance programs. They cited it to justify the imprisonment without charge or trial of an American citizen seized at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. They cited it to justify the torture of prisoners in CIA black sites and the targeted killing of an American citizen in Yemen. They cited it to justify the use of military force in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, and now they are citing it to justify a new war in Iraq and Syria. The use-of-force authorization has turned out to be as broad as the government’s lawyers have been creative. At least as troubling as what the executive branch is doing, though, is what Congress and the courts are not doing. In theory, Congress decides when the country goes to war, and against whom. In theory, the courts ensure that the president doesn’t exceed the authority that Congress and the Constitution have given him. But in reality, Congress and the courts have abdicated their responsibilities. Unless that changes, the only real limits on the executive’s authority to wage war will be the limits that the president and his lawyers decide, in their discretion, to recognize. Jameel Jaffer is deputy legal director of the ACLU. A war by any other name. By David Cole President Obama has steadfastly avoided the term, but the offensive he has announced against ISIL is a war by any other name. President Harry Truman similarly called the Korean War a “police action,” but we now know the truth. That memorial on the Mall isn’t called the Korean Police Action memorial. A long-term military offensive in another sovereign’s territory, the objective of which is to “destroy” the enemy, is a war. Obama assures us that we aren’t sending in ground troops, and the only American personnel on the ground will be there to train, not to fight. But a proxy war is no less a war. And an aerial bombing campaign is no less a war than a charge of the cavalry. Not long ago, if the United States felt threatened by a group of 10,000 to 20,000 men in a foreign country thousands of miles away, it would have two basic choices: (1) support the host nation in addressing the threat; or (2) if that nation was unwilling or unable, send American troops and invade. The latter option is obviously very costly, both politically and in terms of American lives. Today, technological advances have enabled us to choose the military option without jeopardizing American lives. Drone technology in particular has radically reduced the costs of resorting to force. But the fact that military responses have become less costly creates a risk, namely that we will not reserve military force for a last resort. This only makes it all the more important the limits imposed by constitutional and international law, both of which seek to ensure that military force is reserved for the most serious situations. The Constitution requires that Congress, not the president, authorize war; the framers’ aim was to clog, not facilitate, war. And the United Nations Charter requires nations to obtain Security Council approval before using force in another’s territory without its assent, absent a truly imminent threat giving rise to the need for self-defense. Neither Congress nor the Security Council has authorized the president’s war. Unless they do so, Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, will be guilty of launching an illegal war. David Cole is the Hon. George J. Mitchell professor in law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center. *** An ongoing counterterrorism mission. By Paul R. Pillar “War on terror” always was a misleading and unhelpful term. Terrorism is a tactic; to declare a “war” on it makes as much sense as declaring a war on cavalry charges or airborne assaults. Because real wars have identifiable enemies in the form of specific groups or states, application of the war metaphor to counterterrorism has fostered the mistaken idea that curbing terrorism is all a matter of destroying certain groups, their leaders and their fighters. That notion runs aground on the complex reality of shape-shifting, metastasizing groups. We have killed the leader of al Qaeda and many of its fighters, but now we are worried about one of that group’s progeny, ISIL. The war metaphor has tended to equate counterterrorism with the use of military force, even though such force always has been only one of several counterterrorist tools. The United States actually uses several other tools as well, such as diplomacy and defensive security measures. The part of any terrorist group’s activity that ought to worry us the most, epitomized by the preparation of a terrorist plot in an apartment in a Western city, typically presents few if any good military targets. The surge of alarm about ISIL has quickly gotten the American public and American politicians to think in terms of a resumed “war on terror,” even without the current administration encouraging them to do so. The aftermath of 9/11 conditioned the public to think in such terms. Names matter, even if it is not so much the term itself but associated concepts that dominate public discourse and thinking. To the extent that efforts to curb the expansion of ISIS are thought of as War on Terror II, this has unfortunate effects, including the mistaken belief that seizure of territory in the Middle East constitutes a terrorist threat to the United States, and insensitivity to counterproductive effects of the use of military force. The Obama administration isn’t calling its effort War on Terror II, because it does not want to be seen as copying the approach and the mistakes of its predecessor. Whatever the administration’s motives, eschewing the war metaphor is good for public understanding. What the United States is doing against ISIL is a continuation—albeit more intensively for right now, because of the public alarm—of counterterrorism that has been going on for a long time and, unlike wars, will not end. Paul R. Pillar, nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, served for 28 years in the U.S. intelligence community. *** A counterterrorism mission—and then some. By J.M. Berger and Jessica Stern When the Obama administration sends mixed messages about whether its campaign against the Islamic State insurgent group is war or counterterrorism, there is a reason, if not a good one. As explained by President Obama last week, the United States plans to employ counterterrorism tactics against a standing army currently preoccupied with waging war. In many ways, our confrontation with the Islamic State is the culmination of 13 years of degraded definitions. Our enemies have evolved considerably since Sept. 11, 2001, and none more than ISIL, which has shed both the name and the sympathies of al Qaeda. The Islamic State excels at communication, and it has succeeded in establishing itself as a uniquely visible avatar of evil that demands a response. But on 9/11, we began a “war on terrorism” that has proven every bit as expansive and ambiguous as the phrase itself implies. It is a symptom of our broken political system that we require the frame of terrorism and the tone of apocalyptic crisis to take even limited action as a government. Ultimately, it’s hard to escape the feeling that our policies still come from the gut, rather than the head. And ISIL knows exactly how to deliver a punch to the gut, as evidenced by its gruesome hostage beheadings and countless other atrocities. Its brutality and open taunts represent an invitation to war, and many sober strategists now speak of “destroying” the organization. Bin Laden once said, “All that we have to do is to send two mujahideen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make the generals race there.” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir of ISIL, may be counting on just that response, and for the same reason—to draw the United States into a war of supreme costs, political, economic and human. A limited counterterrorism campaign may insulate us from those costs, but it is not likely to be sufficient to accomplish the goals laid out by the president. ISIL is a different enemy from al Qaeda. It has not earned statehood, but it is an army and a culture, and more than a traditional terrorist organization. Limited measures are unlikely to destroy it and might not be enough to end its genocidal ambitions. Our stated goals do not match our intended methods. Something has to give—and it’s probably the goals. J.M. Berger, author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who go to War in the Name of Islam, is an analyst studying extremism and editor of Intelwire.com. Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, is lecturer on terrorism at Harvard University and a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. A bigger commitment than Obama might realize. By Will McCants American presidents walk a tightrope when they announce major military action to protect America’s allies—action that is often necessary for a superpower. They must reassure their allies with bellicose language while persuading a skeptical American public, usually wary of involving its country in “someone else’s war.” President Obama chose to walk the tightrope last week by framing our military aid to our Middle Eastern allies against the Islamic State as a “counterterrorism” campaign. Rhetorically, the counterterrorism framework appeals because the American public supports military action against Islamist terrorist groups, especially those that espouse al Qaeda’s worldview. Counterterrorism also implies something less than an all-out invasion, which the American public will not tolerate. But the problem with the counterterrorism framework for dealing with ISIL is that it is incommensurate with the president’s stated objectives. Obama has pledged to “destroy” ISIL, which—despite the president’s statement to the contrary—is an irregular army and not a clandestine terrorist organization. The president’s version of counterterrorism—air strikes, Special Forces raids and advising, and military assistance to friendly governments—degrades insurgent groups, but it does not destroy them. The president’s own examples of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen and al-Shabaab in Somalia—both alive but crippled by U.S. counterterrorism efforts—proves the point. Degrading insurgent groups from afar is difficult but realistic and achievable; destroying them is far harder, as we discovered in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that the home base of ISIL is in Syria, where we do not have a friendly government to work with or capable proxies, raises the bar for success much higher. The positive public response to the president’s speech means he successfully walked the rhetorical tightrope last week. But there will be no net to catch him next time, when the public predictably tires of fighting on behalf of our allies to reach an impossible goal. Will McCants, director of the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World and founder and co-editor of the website Jihadica, served as a State Department senior adviser for countering violent extremism from 2009 to 2011. *** Another example of Obama’s light-footprint strategy. By Seth G. Jones President Obama’s campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria marks a notable strategic shift in the conduct of warfare against terrorists and insurgents. It eschews the use of overwhelming force and embraces a light-footprint strategy that relies on precision strikes from U.S. aircraft, clandestine ground units and local allies. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration adopted a strikingly different strategy, which was heavily influenced by such individuals as Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Col. John Nagl. It involved the deployment of large numbers of American and other international forces to help local governments win the support of the population and secure key territory. Along these lines, the 2007 U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual advocated that 20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1,000 residents were often necessary to defeat insurgents and terrorists, with international soldiers comprising a significant portion of the force. Based on this strategy, the Bush administration surged U.S. forces into Iraq beginning around 2007, with some success. The nascent Obama administration continued this strategy in Afghanistan in 2009, supporting a surge of U.S. forces. But administration officials quickly changed course, critiquing the large-footprint strategy as too costly in an era of fiscal restraint, unpopular among a public tired of U.S. casualties and largely unsuccessful. Perhaps the decisive break came in 2011, when Obama supported the overthrow of the Qaddafi government in Libya by relying on precision munitions, covert ground units and local Libyan allies. To be clear, this was not a new way of war, but typified 20th-century mid-intensity conflict. It hinges on the use of well-directed fires with skilled ground maneuver units that can exploit their effects and overwhelm the surviving insurgents and terrorists. Today, the Obama administration is pursuing this strategy in Iraq and Syria, relying on U.S. airpower, CIA and special operations units, and local forces—not Americans—against the Islamic State. As Obama remarked last week, “American power can make a decisive difference, but we cannot do for Iraqis what they must do for themselves.” This strategy is less costly in American blood and treasure. But it also has several risks. First, success hinges on the quality of local forces, which are shaky and divided—at best—in Iraq. The picture is notably worse in Syria. Second, it requires the resolution of deep political grievances. In Iraq, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi has an important window of opportunity to reconcile with Iraq’s aggrieved Sunni population. This is no small feat. Obama’s strategy against insurgents and terrorists might be leaner than his predecessor’s strategy. But stay tuned for whether it is any more successful. Seth G. Jones is director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies. *** A new kind of war on terror. By Mia Bloom What will it take to destroy ISIL? This (re)newed war on terror might appear to be similar to George Bush’s “global war on terror,” but in many significant ways, this president has learned from his predecessor’s mistakes. President Obama’s strategy to fight ISIL with a broad international coalition drawn from the region of both Sunni states and Iran may be the only viable strategy. In essence, the president understands that while a handful of high-profile casualties have been Westerners, it is the neighboring countries in the Middle East that are most at risk from this scourge. To quote British Prime Minister David Cameron, “They are not Muslims, they are monsters,” and they are a threat to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf. Of the 17,891 deaths from terrorism last year, only 19 were Americans. The president has vowed to hunt down terrorists “who threaten our country, wherever they are,” but has insisted that American troops will play only support roles. This is a core principle of President Obama’s presidency: “If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.” U.S. airpower alone might be necessary but insufficient to fully succeed, and the president and his chiefs of staff have mooted any American boots on the ground. Al Qaeda is recruiting European militants in Syria to shoot down American planes, and ISIL managed to shoot down a Syrian plane just today, so even airpower alone has its dangers. A strategy to help the Kurds and the Sunni tribes combat ISIL is prudent, but finding moderate militants (an oxymoron?) in Syria will be an arduous challenge. The Arab league has voted that it must maintain a united front against ISIL both politically and militarily. But it remains an open question whether the Arab states can fend off the threat of ISIL without the support of other regional super powers like Turkey and. although likely unpalatable, Israel. What the United States must avoid is getting into bed with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is responsible for massacring tens of thousands of civilians. No moderate opposition, let alone the generations to come, will view a deal with the devil as expedient, and the long-term damage to America’s reputation and regional alliances will be impossible to repair. Mia Bloom is professor of security studies at University of Massachusetts, Lowell. Follow her @miambloom. __._,_.___ ------------------------------ Posted by: "Beowulf" <[email protected]> ------------------------------ Visit Your Group <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/grendelreport/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmNDNzb25mBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0MTA5NjEwODM-> [image: Yahoo! Groups] <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo;_ylc=X3oDMTJlaDk5NDViBF9TAzk3NDc2NTkwBGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDMTQxMDk2MTA4Mw--> • Privacy <https://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/groups/details.html> • Unsubscribe <[email protected]?subject=Unsubscribe> • Terms of Use <https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/> __,_._,___ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
