As we remember the thousands of lives lost during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Trump administration has been busy firing public servants who maintained the global security infrastructure that prevented more attacks on our homeland.
I was one of more than 1,300 State Department employees fired by the Trump administration in July. These layoffs may seem insignificant compared with the private sector, but the loss of critical expertise carries serious national security implications.
My work in the Bureau of Counterterrorism’s Office of Countering Violent Extremism helped quell the recruitment appeal of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) and other terrorist groups. But even though my colleagues and I played a central role in efforts to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the recent reorganization terminated this office and the Counterterrorism Bureau’s Office of Strategy, Plans, and Initiatives. These were offices that ensured U.S. taxpayer dollars were used effectively and programs and policies aligned with national security priorities. More Counterterrorism Bureau officials were pushed out through early retirement or resignation programs.
In his July 16 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, acting counterterrorism coordinator Gregory LoGerfo, my former boss, detailed many of the accomplishments made by Counterterrorism Bureau staff members over the last year. Left unsaid was the fact that most of those public servants are gone, with no plan to continue this vital work.
Some may argue that a leaner State Department will lead to greater efficiency, but that view ignores the cost of losing decades of institutional knowledge and the complexity of counterterrorism work. This is not a job that can be quickly learned on the fly — my decade of success was in part due to mentorship early on from more experienced colleagues who bluntly told me when a “great idea” had been tried before with disastrous results.
In the wake of 9/11, for example, the U.S. struggled to find effective, sustainable ways to counter terrorism’s evolving threat. Lacking subject matter experts on the Middle East and Islam, the U.S. government courted “moderate imams,” some of whom later became radicalized. One notable example was Anwar al-Awlaki, a charismatic imam once invited to speak at the Pentagon, who later pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and was ultimately killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
Learning from past missteps, however, our programs became more nuanced, community-focused — and effective. One of our most successful partnerships was an exchange between Vilvoorde, a Belgian municipality north of Brussels, and Columbus, Ohio. Vilvoorde had become an ISIS recruitment hub, with dozens of young people drawn to the group’s propaganda. The Vilvoorde mayor went to Columbus to learn about its youth-focused programs for members of the Somali community who had been targeted by al-Shabab terrorist recruiters. Inspired by Columbus’ approach to youth outreach and integration, the mayor implemented similar programs back home, which effectively ended ISIS recruitment in the municipality.
In Bangladesh, more than 700,000 Rohingya fled genocide in Myanmar and settled in refugee camps near Cox’s Bazar on Bangladesh’s southeast coast. Al Qaeda tried to radicalize these vulnerable communities with its violent, intolerant interpretation of Islam. Recognizing the national security risks, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development worked together to build economic resilience and social cohesion among the refugee population. While Myanmar’s political crisis has prevented the Rohingya’s return, there has been no mass migration to Europe or the U.S. and no evidence of large-scale radicalization among this population.
These are just two successful examples of many — evidence that the work of those counterterrorism officials who were fired had global impact.
At the time my office was closed, we were supporting the rehabilitation of ISIS family members in northeast Syria and developing strategies to counter ISIS-Khorasan, which has proven capable of attacking the United States. Now, it’s unclear how — or whether — the State Department will continue these efforts despite evidence that terrorist radicalization is increasing.
Toward the end of my tenure, even our most promising initiatives were stifled by political leadership. Our bureau became so risk-averse that discussing successful programs, particularly efforts to counter racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE), became taboo. For example, two Biden administration-appointed ambassadors tried to shelve a report we funded last year about the Kremlin’s recruitment of REMVE groups in Europe because it would potentially upset the far-right host governments. After Donald Trump returned to the White House, we were told we were not allowed to use the REMVE term, let alone counter it.
Reducing Counterterrorism Bureau staffing and funding will lead to strategic blindness at a time when this threat poses a grave threat to the homeland. The Trump administration’s oversimplified strategy of eliminating the terrorist threat through military action ignores the very essence of how terrorist ideology spreads across communities around the world and online. We need smart, coordinated counterterrorism policy shaped by people who know the physical and digital terrain.
The Trump administration forced us out because we allegedly had a “radical political ideology,” in the words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But the administration fails to acknowledge the grave risk it just placed on our country and so many of our global allies by exposing innocent people to radical ideology of an entirely different nature.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
