Why Do We Keep Building Needless Prisons?
By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project | June 26, 2012
Why are the Feds spending $250 million in taxpayer dollars to build an unnecessary and counter-productive prison for women in rural Aliceville, Alabama?
As the New York Times pointed out recently, most women in federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody are incarcerated for non-violent offenses; over half of them have minor children. Many of these women do not need to be incarcerated in order to protect public safety. Locking them up hundreds of miles away from their families, children and communities is exactly the wrong step to take if we want them to re-enter society successfully. Decades of research demonstrates the success of policies that keep prisoners near their homes – and for women especially, concern for their children is most often cited as a prime motivator for successful rehabilitation.
But visits to remote Aliceville by most prisoners’ family members and children will be difficult, if not impossible. And the increased recidivism and negative effects this will have on the women prisoners, their children, and the community will be devastating.
What could possibly justify a decision with such a predictably bad result? The BOP claims that its overcrowding problems continue to justify prison expansion, such as the Aliceville facility, but it’s hard to credit these claims – especially since the BOP has continually failed to implement sentencing reduction measures that would help alleviate overcrowding and lower the federal prison population at great savings to the taxpayer.
Here are just a few examples:
• BOP does not allow prisoners to take full advantage of its community corrections programs, so that prisoners now serve an average of only four of the available 12 months in the community authorized by the Second Chance Act.
• The Residential Drug Abuse Program incentive for nonviolent offenders is underutilized so that successful participants rarely receive the 12 month sentence reduction to which they are legally entitled.
• BOP rarely uses its authority to request sentence modifications for “extraordinary and compelling reasons,” often referred to as “compassionate release,” which deprives sentencing judges of the opportunity to shorten the terms of deserving prisoners, especially the elderly and infirm whose continued imprisonment involves some of the highest prison costs.
These management failures lead to both over-incarceration and overcrowding and they waste millions: just by increasing home confinement by three months, the BOP could save up to $111.4 million each year.
In condemning the Aliceville facility as an example of misguided and costly policy, the New York Times noted that in contrast to the BOP, state corrections systems are scaling back incarceration due to its crushing costs. A recent report by the ACLU, Smart Reform is Possible, highlighted reform efforts in several states, including New York and Texas, which were both able to stop building prisons, save money and lower crime rates by implementing sensible alternatives to incarceration.
It’s time for BOP leadership to look to the states for new ideas and approaches. Based on the successful reforms being implemented around the country it’s clear that we don’t need another federal prison for women in a remote corner of Alabama. We need leadership dedicated to producing the best, most cost-effective outcomes for women, their children and the community.
Related articles
- ACLU: Releasing Old Prisoners Is Low Risk, Financially Prudent (blogs.wsj.com)
- Plantations, Prisons and Profits: Louisiana is the prison capital of the WORLD (innerstandingisness.wordpress.com)
Obama Regime Files Midnight Brief Defending Secrecy Surrounding “Targeted Killing”
ACLU | June 21, 2012
Just before a midnight deadline, the Obama administration filed a 50-page brief this evening defending the secrecy surrounding the “targeted killing” program. The administration writes: “Whether or not the CIA has the authority to be, or is in fact, directly involved in targeted lethal operations remains classified.” The case concerns a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the ACLU last year for records concerning the targeted killing program generally as well as the killing of three American citizens in Yemen last year.
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU:
“The notion that the CIA’s targeted killing program is still a secret is beyond absurd. Senior officials have discussed it, both on the record and off. They have taken credit for its putative successes, professed it to be legal, and dismissed concerns about civilian casualties. If they can make these claims to the media, they can answer requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The public is entitled to know more about the legal authority the administration is claiming and the way that the administration is using it. The administration should release the legal memos that purportedly justify the targeted killing program, and it should release more information about the process by which individuals, including American citizens, are added to government kill lists. It should also release the evidence that led the administration to kill three Americans, including a 16-year-old boy, last year.”
“We continue to have profound concerns with the power the administration is claiming and with the proposition that the President should be permitted to exercise this power without oversight by the courts. That the administration believes a power so sweeping should be exercised in secret is astounding.”
Today’s filing comes after the government sought several extensions to respond to the ACLU’s lawsuit. In its last request for an extension, the government stated to the court that it needed further time to allow for “deliberations at the highest levels of the Executive Branch.”
The government’s brief can be found here:
www.aclu.org/files/assets/https___ecf.nysd_.uscourts.gov_cgi-bin_show_temp.pl_file10176016-0–17573.pdf
CONTACT: ACLU national, media@aclu.org
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Island of Impunity: Puerto Rico’s Outlaw Police Force
ACLU | June 19, 2012
A report released by the ACLU in June 2012 concludes that the Puerto Rico Police Department is plagued by a culture of unrestrained abuse and impunity. The PRPD – which, with over 17,000 officers, is the second-largest police department in the U.S – is charged with policing the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
After a comprehensive six-month investigation of policing practices in Puerto Rico, building on eight years of work by the ACLU of Puerto Rico documenting cases of police brutality, the ACLU has concluded that the PRPD commits serious and rampant abuses in violation Puerto Ricans’ constitutional and human rights, including:
- Use of excessive and lethal force against civilians, especially in poor and Black neighborhoods and Dominican communities, often resulting in serious injury and death. Read More»
- Violent suppression of peaceful protestors using batons, rubber bullets, and a toxic form of tear gas that was phased out by mainland U.S. police departments in the 1960’s. Read More»
- Failure to protect victims of domestic violence and to investigate reported crimes of domestic violence, rape, and other gender-based crimes. Read More»
The ACLU’s research shows that these abuses do not represent isolated incidents or aberrant behavior by a few rogue officers, but that such police brutality is pervasive and systemic, island-wide and ongoing. In fact, our research has found that the PRPD’s disciplinary, investigatory, and reporting systems prevent accountability. Read more»
The report offers numerous detailed recommendations, including:
- The Justice Department should enter into a court-enforceable and court-monitored agreement with the PRPD.
- The PRPD should develop and implement policies on the use of force, improved training, the investigation of civilian complaints of police abuse, and the discipline of officers.
- Puerto Rico’s legislature should create an independent and effective oversight body to monitor the PRPD. Read more»
The ACLU’s report comes nine months after the release of a scathing U.S. Justice Department report on the PRPD, which found a pattern and practice of constitutional violations by the department, including widespread use of excessive force. The Justice Department investigation, the findings of which were long-delayed, focused on 2004 to 2008. The ACLU’s report focuses on incidents from 2007 through May 2012.
Read and download the ACLU’s report: “Island of Impunity”
Download the full report » (PDF)
Read the Executive Summary » (PDF)
Descargar el resumen ejecutivo del informe en español » (PDF)
See also:
Slideshow: Police Brutality and Unjustified Use of Lethal Force in Puerto Rico
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Supreme Court Denies Request to Hear American Torture Victim’s Lawsuit
ACLU | June 11, 2012
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today announced that it would not review the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit against current and former government officials for their roles in the unlawful detention and torture of U.S. citizen José Padilla. In January, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s ruling that an American citizen designated an “enemy combatant” by the executive branch could not sue to vindicate his constitutional rights based on a claim that he was tortured at the direction of senior government officials.
“The Supreme Court’s refusal to consider Jose Padilla’s case leaves in place a blank check for government officials to commit any abuse in the name of national security, even the brutal torture of an American citizen in an American prison,” said Ben Wizner, the ACLU’s lead counsel on the case. “To date, not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture regime has received his day in court. It is precisely the role of the courts to ensure that allegations of grave misconduct by executive Branch officials receive fair adjudication. That vital role does not evaporate simply because those officials insist that their actions are too sensitive for judicial review.”
Padilla was taken from a civilian jail in New York in 2002 by military agents, declared an “enemy combatant” and secretly transported to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C. He was imprisoned without charge for nearly four years, subjected to extreme abuse and was unable to communicate with his lawyers or family for two years. The illegal treatment included forcing Padilla into stress positions for hours on end, punching him, depriving him of sleep and threatening him with further torture and death.
More information and case documents are available at:
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/padilla-v-rumsfeld
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License Plate Tracking Spreads beyond Criminal Suspects
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | May 08, 2012
From Tennessee to the District of Columbia, police are using mobile and stationary surveillance cameras to collect and store license plates of residents who have committed no crime—so that they can be found if they ever do.
In Tennessee, police utilize cameras mounted atop patrol cars that can capture thousands of license numbers each day. The information is then loaded into an ever-expanding database, which can help officers locate a vehicle in the event its owner is suspected of criminal behavior. The program is now expanding to include stationary cameras mounted next to busy roads.
“I’m sure that there’s going to be people out there that say this is an invasion of privacy,” Detective James Kemp of Gallatin County told The Tennessean. But “the possibilities are endless there for solving crimes. It’s just a multitude of information out there—to not tap into it to better protect your citizens, that’s ludicrous.”
In Washington D.C., local police make use of 250 cameras set up around the city that can capture license plates. Last year they claimed that the cameras led to an average of one arrest a day. DC reportedly has the highest concentration of cameras per square mile in the United States for spotting criminals on the move or just ordinary citizens going about their lives.
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program, expressed concern over D.C.’s “large database of innocent people’s comings and goings.” He told The Washington Post: “The government has no business collecting that kind of information on people without a warrant.”
Others predict that the technology will be declared constitutional because license plates are displayed in public, so there is no invasion of privacy.
To Learn More:
- High-Tech License Plate Readers Aid Police But Raise Ethical Issues (by Tony Gonzalez, The Tennessean)
- License Plate Readers: A Useful Tool for Police Comes with Privacy Concerns (by Allison Klein and Josh White, Washington Post)
- Utah Police Cameras Could Identify Drivers with Auto Insurance Issues (news.onlineautoinsurance.com)
Orwell Comes to the Guantanamo Tribunal
By Steve Gosset | ACLU | May 3, 2012
The hundreds of lawyers, reporters and observers headed to Guantanamo Bay for Saturday’s arraignment of five defendants at the 9/11 military commission better check their calendars: Suddenly, it feels a lot like 1984.
The government wants to censor any statements the defendants have made about how they’ve been treated while in U.S. custody. If they were tortured or abused by CIA or Department of Defense personnel, that’s information the government wants to keep classified.
If it sounds Orwellian for a government to claim it can classify statements made by a defendant about their own experiences with illegal government conduct such as torture, that’s because it is. Such a move also has no basis in law, which is why the ACLU filed a motion yesterday with the military commission that asks it to deny the government’s request to suppress the defendants’ statements.
As Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project notes: “The most important terrorism trial of our time should not be an exception to the rule of public access because its legitimacy depends in part on its transparency.”
The ACLU is also asking the commission to bar a delayed audio feed of the proceedings. Right now, observers can see the hearing live behind a glass, but the audio they hear is on a 40-second delay to give censors the ability to cut off any mentions of purportedly classified information.
The truth may be ugly, but better to get it out in the open than keep it under wraps. Those seeking justice for the victims of the 9/11 attacks should want nothing less.
A Slick Trick on the NDAA and Indefinite Detention; Don’t Be Fooled!
By Chris Anders | ACLU | April 19, 2012
It looks like there is slick little trick brewing in Congress. Supporters of locking people up without charge or trial are getting ready to play yet another trick on the American people.
Late yesterday, Congressman Scott Rigell and 26 other members of Congress introduced a bill, H.R. 4388, which he is trying to sell to the American people as a “fix” for the National Defense Authorization Act. But in fact, it is a useless bill that might actually end up causing harm.
That’s right. The plan in the House of Representatives seems to be to try to fool Americans into thinking that they are fixing the indefinite detention problems with the NDAA and the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, when in fact, they are doing nothing good.
Don’t be fooled!
Here’s how they hope their trick will work. H.R. 4388, which was sneakily mistitled as the “Right to Habeas Corpus Act,” states that no one in the United States will lose their habeas rights under the NDAA. That might sound like something good, but it’s meaningless.
The question with the NDAA was never whether habeas rights are lost. Instead, the question is whether and when any president can order the military to imprison a person without charge or trial. The NDAA did not take away habeas rights from anyone, but it did codify a dangerous indefinite detention without charge or trial scheme. And nothing in the proposed bill by Rigell would change it. The Rigell bill won’t stop any president from ordering the military lockup of civilians without charge or trial.
And there’s more. Not only is it a useless bill, but it could end up causing harm too. It doesn’t accurately and fully list who is entitled to habeas (for example, it doesn’t even mention American citizens traveling outside the country), which could end up causing confusion.
They are hoping you will fall for their trick and waste all your time and energy on something meaningless — and not fight for legislation that actually protects people from indefinite detention without charge or trial.
They are hoping you will ignore the bills that actually are first steps towards fixing the NDAA. Congressman Adam Smith and Sen. Mark Udall introduced H.R. 4192/S. 2175, which codifies a ban on the military imprisoning civilians without charge or trial or trying persons before military commissions within the United States, as well as repeals section 1022 of last year’s NDAA. Also, Congressman Ron Paul has sponsored H.R. 3785, which repeals section 1021 of the NDAA. Both are meaningful first steps towards fixing a problem.
Supporters of last year’s NDAA indefinite detention provisions hope you will fall for their trick. They want you to spend your time pushing for the Rigell bill, instead of working on something meaningful. For more information about our opposition to the bill, you can read the letter that we sent to congressional offices earlier this week. Retweet our tweet to Rigell to tell him to stop playing games with indefinite detention without charge or trial.
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ACLU calls for closure of Tamms supermax facility
By Rachel Myers, ACLU | April 4, 2012
David Fathi, director of the ACLU National Prison Project, testified today in favor of closing Tamms Correctional Center at a hearing before the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability in Ullin, Illinois. Tamms is a supermax prison where prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement, often for a decade or longer.
The following is an excerpt from the ACLU’s testimony:
Tamms is a supermax facility in which prisoners — many of them mentally ill — are held in solitary confinement, sometimes for years on end. A 2009 study by the Belleville News-Democrat found that 54 Tamms prisoners had been in continuous solitary confinement for more than ten years.
The shattering effects of solitary confinement on the human psyche have long been well known.
In 1890, the United States Supreme Court described the devastating effects of solitary confinement as practiced in the nation’s early days:
A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others, still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community.
Half a century later, the Court referred to solitary confinement as one of the techniques of “physical and mental torture” that have been used by governments to coerce confessions.
More recently, the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit observed that “the record shows, what anyway seems pretty obvious, that isolating a human being from other human beings year after year or even month after month can cause substantial psychological damage, even if the isolation is not total.” The court recognized that “there is plenty of medical and psychological literature concerning the ill effects of solitary confinement (of which segregation is a variant)[.]”
And in 2010, an Illinois federal court found that “Tamms imposes drastic limitations on human contact, so much so as to inflict lasting psychological and emotional harm on inmates confined there for long periods.”
A number of states have dramatically reduced their use of solitary confinement, preserving prison and public safety and saving millions of dollars in the process. None of these states have experienced any adverse effect on prison or public safety as a result of reducing their use of solitary confinement. This is not surprising, as evidence shows that prisoners released from solitary confinement have higher recidivism rates than comparable prisoners released from general population.
Because of the profoundly damaging effects of solitary confinement, particularly on prisoners with mental illness, a number of federal courts have ruled that conditions in supermax prisons like Tamms cause such extreme suffering that they violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.
A federal court in California characterized housing prisoners with mental illness in a supermax unit as “the mental equivalent of putting an asthmatic in a place with little air to breathe.” And a federal court in Wisconsin ordered prison officials to remove prisoners with mental illness from the state’s Supermax Correctional Institution.
Conditions at Tamms are also inconsistent with international human rights principles. In a global study on solitary confinement, presented last year to the United Nations General Assembly, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture called on all countries to ban the practice, except in very exceptional circumstances, as a last resort, and for as short a time as possible. The Special Rapporteur concluded that solitary confinement can amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and in some cases even torture. He recommended a ban on solitary confinement exceeding 15 days, and the abolition of solitary confinement for juveniles and mentally disabled persons.
The U.N. Committee Against Torture, the official body established pursuant to the Convention Against Torture — a treaty ratified by the United States — has also recommended that the practice of long-term solitary confinement be abolished altogether.
Because it is inconsistent with international human rights norms, the use of supermax prisons like Tamms threatens the ability of the United States to secure the extradition of criminal suspects from other nations. The European Court of Human Rights has temporarily blocked the extradition of three terrorism suspects to the United States on the ground that if convicted, their eventual confinement in a U.S. supermax prison might violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
Closing Tamms will advance human rights, preserve public safety, and save Illinois taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. The ACLU respectfully urges the Commission to take this long overdue step.
The full text of the written testimony submitted to the Commission by the ACLU and the ACLU of Illinois is available here. You can also listen to a new podcast with former Tamms prisoner Brian Nelson (pictured above), who spent 23 years in solitary confinement.
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The ACLU and Obama’s Assassination Program
By Binoy Kampmark | Dissident Voice | April 2, 2012
Due process and judicial process are not one and the same. The Founders weren’t picky. Trial by jury, trial by fire, rock-paper-scissors – who cares?
— Stephen Colbert, March 6, 2012
The policies around the assassination program of the United States are surreal.
Trafficking in murder while espousing noble things is a habit regimes fall into, though the more sinister ones tend to use weasel words to conceal that fact. The Obama administration, having long abandoned its role as the knight in shining armour, is now rusting away with the effects of realpolitik.
The ACLU has been trying through Freedom of Information channels to force a disclosure of the guidelines the administration uses in targeting foreign nationals or American citizens through the infamous drone program that has become de rigueur in military circles. The CIA has insisted that it cannot confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of those records that cover the targeting of individuals, or whether it is even employing such vehicles in the first place. They are “intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure by section 6 of the CIA Act of 1949, as amended”. In such circles, the response is termed the Glomar response, after the CIA’s refusal in 1976 to confirm or deny its relationship with Glomar Explorer, a drill ship created at the direction of Howard Hughes for the agency to recover the sunken Soviet submarine, the K-129.
In the words of Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU, as reported by Salon (March 26). “At this point, the only consequence of pretending that it’s a secret program is that the courts don’t play a role in overseeing it.” With the courts left out in the cold, the administration can run riot. This, of course, is its self-appointed prerogative.
The Obama administration is engaging in a lexical game of murder, a game that has certainly silenced many of those who would have expressed outrage at the assortment of abuses perpetrated by the Bush administration. Tinker with the words, and the result is considered perfectly justifiable in the name of a higher state interest. This is Cheney with the gloss, Rumsfeld with the polish. Adjust the terms of reference, and assassination is an entirely rum thing.
Obama’s front man in this entire business, in true tasteless fashion, is Eric Holder. Instead of defending the law as is the incumbent duty of any Attorney General, he has a nasty tendency to get sick on it. He brings in his broom to clean up, and in its place he leaves the slime of gibberish. At Northwestern University Law School, he clearly repudiated the position he had taken regarding the Bush administration, whose policies in the ‘war on terror’ had occasioned ‘needlessly abusive and unlawful practices’. That, however, was in 2008. The new Holder was a different beast, more prone to splitting hairs. ‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’, we are made to realise, ‘are not one and the same’. The President, according to Holder, is not required to seek permission from any court before targeting American citizens abroad (Washington Times, March 12).
Supposedly, the targeting of such individuals is constrained by guidelines. The problem with such dangerous talk is that guidelines are merely points on paper, the scrawl of the moment. They have a tendency of disappearing as quickly as they appear. These guidelines tend to revolve around the nature of the target (an operative of a terrorist group seeking to actively kill American citizens, for one; that the target poses an imminent threat to the US; that the capture of the target is impractical; and that the target is to be eliminated on the basis of ‘relevant law of war principles’ (Washington Times, March 12). Such determinations do not lie in the legal domain. They are rather matters of political expediency.
An administration up to its eyeballs with legal rhetoric is bound to eventually be told it has no clothes, that its efforts are simply acts of distortion. The time it seems, courtesy of the ACLU’s efforts, is now.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He can be reached at bkampmark@gmail.com
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Results of Nationwide Government Cell Phone Tracking Records Request Show Frequent Violations of Americans’ Privacy Rights
By Catherine Crump, ACLU Staff Attorney | March 31, 2012
The ACLU has just released the results of our affiliates’ public records requests to hundreds of police departments around the country asking them about their cell phone tracking policies.
What we have learned is disturbing. Many of the approximately 200 law enforcement agencies that responded said they track cell phones without a warrant. As The New York Times reports, this invasive form of surveillance often happens without any court oversight at all.
A small number of agencies, such as in North Las Vegas and Wichita, said they do obtain warrants based on probable cause before tracking. Others, such as the Kentucky State Police, said they use varying legal standards, such as a warrant or a less-strict subpoena. The result is unclear or inconsistent legal standards from town to town that frequently fall short of probable cause.
The government should have to get a warrant before tracking cell phones. That is what is necessary to protect Americans’ privacy, and it is also what is required under the Constitution.
The fact that some law enforcement agencies do get warrants shows that a probable cause requirement is a completely reasonable and workable policy, allowing police to protect both public safety and privacy.
Last August, in an unprecedented effort to penetrate the secrecy around the policies, 35 ACLU affiliates around the country filed over 380 requests under states’ freedom of information laws. The ACLU asked state and local law enforcement agencies about their policies, procedures and practices for tracking cell phones. An in-depth summary of what we found, with links to documents, is here.
The responses varied widely, and many agencies did not respond at all. The documents included statements of policy, memos, police requests to cell phone companies (sometimes in the form of a subpoena or warrant), and invoices and manuals from cell phone companies explaining their procedures and prices for turning over location data. There’s a map with links to the documents and requests state-by-state here.
The documents provide an eye-opening view of police surveillance of Americans. In Wilson County, N.C., police obtain cell phone tracking data where it is “relevant and material” to an ongoing investigation – a standard much lower than probable cause. Police in Lincoln, Neb., without demonstrating probable cause, obtain even GPS location data, which is more precise than cell tower location information. In Tucson, Ariz., police sometimes obtain cell phones numbers for all of the phones at a particular location at a certain time (this practice is known as a “tower dump”).
The U.S. Supreme Court in January held in U.S. v. Jones that prolonged location tracking is a search under the Fourth Amendment, but the effects of that ruling on law enforcement have yet to be seen.
The ACLU supports bipartisan legislation currently pending in both the House of Representatives and the Senate that would address this problem called the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act. It would require law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant to access location information from cell phones or GPS devices. It would also mandate that private telecommunications companies obtain their customers’ consent before collecting location data. At least 11 state legislatures are also considering bills related to location tracking.Technology is evolving quickly, and often to the detriment of privacy. How much privacy Americans enjoy is a choice that ultimately is ours as a society to make.
Tell Congress: Support the GPS Act!
Act Now
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Provoking a Path to Persia
The Saban Center’s prescient paper on war with Iran
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | October 20, 2011
In June 2009, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy published “Which Path to Persia?—Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran.” Writing in a tone strikingly reminiscent of the Project for a New American Century’s infamous pre-9/11 paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” the six co-authors noted that, “It seems highly unlikely that the United States would mount an invasion without any provocation or other buildup.” For a think tank specifically established by media mogul Haim Saban to protect Israel, this could prove to be a formidable obstacle impeding their desired march—of U.S. troops—to Tehran.
“In fact, if the United States were to decide that to garner greater international support, galvanize U.S. domestic support, and/or provide a legal justification for an invasion, it would be best to wait for an Iranian provocation, then the time frame for an invasion might stretch out indefinitely,” Saban’s think-tankers ruefully observed.
“With only one real exception, since the 1978 revolution, the Islamic Republic has never willingly provoked an American military response, although it certainly has taken actions that could have done so if Washington had been looking for a fight. Thus it is not impossible that Tehran might take some action that would justify an American invasion. And it is certainly the case that if Washington sought such a provocation, it could take actions that might make it more likely that Tehran would do so (although being too obvious about this could nullify the provocation). However, since it would be up to Iran to make the provocative move, which Iran has been wary of doing most times in the past, the United States would never know for sure when it would get the requisite Iranian provocation. In fact, it might never come at all.”
Seemingly undeterred by Iran’s frustrating unwillingness to provide the requisite provocation, the analysts continued to examine this option… continue
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