Weekend Stories!

I thought I'd share a couple of stories that caught my eye this weekend.

1. http://lat.ms/alfJIW In this story, the LA Times reports on a US Army return to massive combat training in lieu of counterinsurgency. To quote from the piece:

"Writing recently in Foreign Affairs magazine, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said, "The United States is unlikely to repeat a mission on the scale of those in Afghanistan or Iraq anytime soon — that is, forced regime change followed by nation building under fire." Instead, U.S. forces will probably be called on to help other countries' armies defend themselves, particularly against terrorist attacks but also against conventional armies"

Seems to me to be a pretty big snub of the Bush-era nation building strategy evident in their post-invasion operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/25/local/la-me-gays-military-20100925 . This article discusses a district court's recent overturning of the discharge of Maj. Margaret Whit under DADT. Interestingly, the case was remanded to the District Court by the 9th District Court of Appeals after they said that the judge had to look at whether Whit individually endangered her unit and the army's cohesion and security interests. Judge Leighton found she did not. Alarmingly, the Obama administration argues that the ruling overturning DADT should only apply to Maj. Whit. This seems backwards from a history legal jurisprudence perspective (e.g. Brown vs. Board of Education)

FOIA Limited Once Again

It appears unfortunately that the DOD can now exempt torture testimony from FOIA requests. The testimonies that Gitmo inmates gave before the military tribunals is being guarded on the grounds that it protects “intelligence sources and methods” and might aid enemy "propaganda". I, like the ACLU, call BS on that one. The most important eyewitnesses of the US torture program, the torturees themselves, are still being censored by the DOD and the CIA.

September Torture News Round-Up

1. Legal News: Spanish Court asking US DOJ for info on Bush-era Torture Practices: The Spanish Court, which announced its intent to investigate Bush administration officials on their role in the US torture program, is now officially requesting new information from the Holder DOJ.Though many cry foul at the Spanish investigating the US, the "Audiencia Nacional", or Spanish National Security Court maintains jurisdiction because Spanish citizens were some of the victims of the torture program. How the Holder DOJ responds is anybody's guess (mine is they won't), but this is the story to watch as an indicator of international legal momentum on the US torture program.

On a more frustrating domestic note, GOP senators have pulled out of the inquiry into the CIA torture plan. Apparently they are so outraged by Holder's decision to investigate the torture program that they refuse to take part in the Senate's effort to investigate the torture program. Huh?

2. Bagram News: The US has issued new guidelines granting significantly more rights to prisoners being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Each detainee is being assigned one military official who will gather witnesses and evidence. They still don't get Geneva rights, lawyers or habeus corpus, but it's a step in the right direction.

3. Gitmo News: Some huge news on the Gitmo front. Apparently the January deadline that Obama set for closing Gitmo in the beginning of his presidency is no longer hard. Obama says he's committed to closing the prison, but that more time will be needed to process all the cases. According to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the deadline was good politics but "it's going to be tough" to meet the January deadline. As much of a blow as this is to those of us who think that the time to close Guantanamo for Obama was when he took office, he's at least releasing 75 of the 223 prisoners still in Gitmo. Though the prisoners still are being denied their basic rights, it's a relief to see that steps are being taken towards their release.