The Nazi legacy is an understandably heavy burden for Germany, even today. This leaves Germans emotionally vulnerable to comparisons to their 20th century forebears. And with the country exercising ever-more influence over its European Union allies, cutting remarks that include such comparisons are blossoming like mushrooms after a spring rain. So how to deal with it? For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd Ulrich writes that in order to operate as the ‘U.S. of Europe,’ Germans will have to grit their teeth until this particular phase of European history passes.

For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd Ulrich writes in small part:

It doesn’t take much to figure out why so many Nazi comparisons are being made right now: For the first time since 1945, Germany is stepping up with all its power, not because it wants to, but because the European debt crisis has made the economically-strongest economy into the most politically powerful. Germany is now profoundly intervening in the domestic affairs of others.

The country is gradually taking on the role in Europe that the U.S. has long played on the global level: As the country that used and occasionally abused its power, was to blame for everything, was supposed to save everyone, and had to endure insults for how it went about doing it. What evil hasn’t been imputed to the Americans? The CIA was behind every evil, and Americans were constantly being accused of imperialism.

But there was one thing the Americans could never be accused of: sending six million Jews to their deaths and plunging half the world into war. In the case of Germany, ranting against the leading power that is at once quite understandable, human and often justified, very often takes on an entirely different pallor, which serves to put an end to any discussion or serious exchange.

For quite a while, Germany’s new role will continue to result in a proliferation of Nazi comparisons. Like it or not, we will have to bear it and wait until it passes. However, in such stoicism there is also a serious problem. That has to do with the German historical paradox, which may be described as follows: The only way Germans can prevent their past from repeating itself is by never being absolutely sure that it won’t.

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Is it possible that American citizens, now under arrest in Cairo, were involved with a plot to partition Egypt into four smaller states? According to columnist Muhammad Dunia of Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram, maps that were discovered during a raid on the Cairo offices of the U.S.-based International Republican Institute prove that at least some of the foreign NGOs operating in Egypt are actively involved with the scheme, which Dunia calls a long-term ‘American-Zionist’ project.

For Al-Ahram, columnist Muhammad Dunia starts off this way:

Over the past few days, some Western media have begun to revisit the old idea of a plan to partition Egypt based on the American-Zionist project to divide the country into four states.

The first would be in the Sinai, east of the Euphrates River delta, under Jewish influence. The second, with Alexandria as its capital and extending South to Asyut, would be Christian. The third would be in the Nubia region, and the fourth would be a Berber state with Cairo as its capital.

Up to now, some thought the ravings about this suspicious plot were for domestic political consumption only. But during the investigation into illegal funding of non-governmental organizations by Egyptian justice, maps were found inside an American non-governmental organization [the International Republican Institute] laying out plans to partition the country.

The subject wasn’t really a secret, as a scheme to divide Egypt into an Islamic State in the North and a Christian one in the South was leaked on the Internet not long ago. This is particularly dangerous because some international media have exploited the protests at the Maspiro TV station [by Coptic Christians - 27 were killed]. Certain analysts and researchers of Middle East affairs sought to revive the notion by posting partition maps on the Web. This demonstrates both foreign and domestic hands behind what is happening now in Egypt.

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UPDATE:

A wave of unusually severe cold is gripping Europe. But the weather is not the only thing that is chilling over there. Under the headline “A Chilling Verdict in Spain,” the New York Times reports that “The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way” as Spain’s Supreme Court has found Judge Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from the courts for 11 years.

The 7-0 ruling flowed out of a 2008 corruption case in which the judge ordered wiretaps of conversations between lawyers and their clients.

According to the Times:

Judge Garzón was not alone in ordering those wiretaps, but he alone was prosecuted, even while the public prosecutor argued that there were no grounds for a criminal proceeding. Convicting a jurist over a court ruling is an appalling attack on judicial independence. Two other cases against him are pending — one involving his inquiry into mass killings during the civil war and the Franco dictatorship, and another concerning allegations of conflict of interest in a tax fraud case.

Judge Garzón is far from perfect, but the decision by the Spanish Supreme Court to remove him from the bench is enormously damaging to the prospects of fair and impartial justice. What investigating magistrate would not now hesitate before pursuing politically sensitive cases? Will the Franco-era crimes that scarred Spain for two generations remain forever uninvestigated?

Apparently, Judge Garzón cannot appeal this decision in the Spanish court system, but he could challenge it in Spain’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Mr. Garzón has already accepted a consulting position at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Perhaps he can continue his pursuit of justice from there.

Read more here.

====

Back in March 2009, a Spanish court took the first steps toward opening a criminal investigation into allegations that six former high-level Bush administration officials violated international law by providing the legal framework to justify the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The case was sent to the prosecutor’s office for review by none other than Judge Baltasar Garzón, Europe’s best-known counter-terrorism magistrate, renowned for his determination and his abilities to bring suspects to justice, no matter how powerful or where they may be—and especially for terrorism and human rights abuses.

His targets have included the al-Qaeda 9/11 and Madrid bombings perpetrators, the infamous Chilean General Pinochet, ETA and related Basque terrorist organizations, Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organizations operating in the Maghreb region, including Spanish enclaves in Morocco, Argentine ex-naval officer Adolfo Scilingo who was convicted of crimes against humanity and others.

I don’t know where the case against Bush administration officials stands right now and, for the sake of letting bygones be bygones, I will not pursue that at the moment — especially since mine would be the proverbial voice in the wilderness.

However, the present government in Spain, by no means a voice in the wilderness, apparently does believe in letting bygones be bygones or, as they say in Spain “lo pasado, pasado está” as, according to the New York Times:

… Judge Garzón is now himself under legal attack for confronting Spain’s own dark history. He is on trial this week before the Spanish Supreme Court for daring to investigate crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the nearly four-decade dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. The case against him is fueled by domestic political vendettas rather than substantive legal arguments and it could dramatically set back international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable for their crimes.

The case stems from Judge Garzón’s edict, in October 2008, ordering the exhumation of 19 mass graves and charging Franco and his accomplices posthumously with the murder and disappearance of more than 114,000 people.

The edict, however, was challenged by Spain’s chief prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, and ruled against by an appellate court — “and the case appeared to be resolved. But several months after the ruling, two tiny far-right groups sued Judge Garzón for ‘prevarication’ — knowingly overstepping his authority — in violating the amnesty law.”

The Times continues:

Criminally charging judges for prevarication is extremely rare in Spain, and a conviction would disbar Judge Garzón for 20 years — effectively ending his career. The Supreme Court’s zeal to try him has little legal basis; rather, it reflects Spanish elites’ widespread unease with applying international legal principles to Spain’s conflicted history and a deep-seated animosity toward Judge Garzón that is as much personal as political.

The prosecution of Judge Garzón is having a “chilling effect” on other international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable, and a conviction would be interpreted as an even stronger warning sign, the Times says, and “[M]ore disturbingly, due to Judge Garzón’s legal woes, the case brought by Franco’s victims and their families is now languishing. (The only exception is in Argentina, where a prominent human-rights lawyer, using universal jurisdiction, recently filed suit charging Franco with crimes against humanity.)”

The Times concludes:

In his 2005 memoir, Judge Garzón wrote, “A system built on the corpses of those who are still awaiting justice so they can rest in peace is an illegitimate system and one that is condemned to eventually suffer the same fate.”

It would send a tragic and telling message to those victims — and others like them around the world — if the one person convicted for Franco’s crimes is the judge who dared to investigate them.

There are some bygones that just cannot be forgotten or swept under the rug of political expedience. Lo pasado, no siempre está pasado.

Read more of the Times’ article here

Image: Shutterstock.com

As the crisis — and brutality — continues to unfold in Syria, keep an eye on Iran, its role and its designs. Michael Youhana has a must read in the NYU Local. Here’s part of it:

The Syrian regime’s appalling crackdown — which has left around 6000 dead — has been one of the most violent government responses to the Arab Spring’s wave of uprisings. On Friday, bad became worse when, according to conservative counts, 181 people were massacred in the Syrian city of Homs by Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

The Syrian military has continued its shelling of Homs into this week, and, on Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported that tanks were entering residential areas within the city. Their presumable target is Bab Amr, “the restive heart of the uprising in Homs.” Reports on Friday claim that tanks have begun massing outside of opposition neighborhoods and that the death toll has reached 300.

While the ongoing bloodshed in Syria is, in large part, a testament to the ruling regime’s brutality, the violent situation there has been exacerbated by the actions of a few key foreign nations. China and Russia have done a great deal to diplomatically shield the beleaguered President of Syria, and Russia continues to sell weapons to his regime.

Iran’s government, which has been eager to prop up a longtime, crucial ally, shares a particularly large portion of blame. Iran has played an especially extensive role in supporting Assad.

In May of last year a ‘senior western diplomat’ noted an increase in Iranian personnel stationed in Syria in the wake of increasing unrest. Reports came out that Iran was providing the Syrian regime with weapons, riot gear, and surveillance assistance.

In August, the Turkish government intercepted an Iranian plane bound for Syria, holding assault rifles, machine guns, and mortars. Western intelligence officials claimed that Iran was providing Assad with $23 million to build a base in Latakia that would facilitate further arms shipments.

An ex-member of Syria’s secret police, now taking refuge in Turkey, allegedly told The Telegraph that snipers from Iran were also sent into Syria to assist with the repression of protestors.The Iranian government has even reportedly reprimanded Hamas for failing to endorse Assad’s regime.

There’s a LOT more – so go to the link to read it in its entirety.

When it comes to the oppression of dissent in Syria, are the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council undermining global peace and security by issuing ‘reckless vetoes’? According to this editorial from Japan’s Kochi Shimbun, by concerning themselves with the interests of their own countries rather than what is best for the world, China, Russia, America, Britain and France are demonstrating an extreme form of irresponsible selfishness.

The Kochi Shimbun editorial says in part:

It is a pity that a U.N. resolution, at a moment in which the international community needs to stand together to put a stop to the violence as quickly as possible, has been vetoed. Coupled with their vetoes of economic sanctions on Syria last October, the attitudes of Russia and China are simply incomprehensible.

With respect to humanity, although we say that such a terrible situation cannot be allowed to continue, if we focus exclusively on pursuing the security and expectations of our own countries, the result is that the U.N. Security Council fails to uphold its responsibility of maintaining global peace and security. If the permanent members of the Security Council continue to issue reckless vetoes, we will see a return to the stalemate of the Cold War era.

The Assad regime must not be permitted to use the China and Russia vetoes as a way to “indulge” itself with more oppression. Sooner or later, the “Arab Spring” will put an end to leaders like this. Meanwhile, we must seek an immediate cessation of the violence.

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Would the United States, utilizing what is known as a ‘false flag’ strategy, sacrifice a nuclear aircraft carrier to persuade the world that a war against Iran must be waged? According to columnist Anna Pinderak of Poland’s Wprost24, a theory is making the rounds that the Pentagon has sent the famed USS Enterprise to the Persian Gulf – to sink it – and then to blame Tehran for the crime.

For Poland’s Wprost24, Anna Pinderak starts out this way:

Is the United States using a “false flag” strategy to justify declaring war on Iran?

What is a “false flag” strategy? As the phrase suggests, it is a covert operation undertaken by governments, corporations or other organizations. The name derives from the military concept of “false colors,” i.e.: an operation conducted under a foreign flag. The goal of these operations is to blame the other side for initiating a conflict, whether it be a hostile country, organization or ethnic group.

Is it possible that the U.S. would go to such ends to find a pretext for open conflict with Iran? We all know that Washington can’t count on the U.N.’s blessing for another Middle East intervention: Russia and China, both equipped with a Security Council veto, wouldn’t consent to it. If the United States wanted to deal with Iran militarily, it would first have to convince them that Iran constitutes a threat to international security. Somehow, Washington would also have to convert international public opinion. After the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, few are convinced of the benefit of sending U.S. Marines into volatile regions. And everyone remembers that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, just like Iran today, possessed, according to American intelligence, weapons of mass destruction. But when the red, white and blue flag fluttered over Baghdad, it became clear that Saddam had no such weapons – and most likely could not have had them. No wonder the public treats all warnings about the Iranian nuclear threat with a healthy dose of skepticism.

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This reality is revealed in an article in a leftist rag called the Air Force Times that says that the government underestimated the terrorist group before the attacks and overestimated it afterward. The Bush-Cheney cabal cannot be forgiven for the former while the latter is understandable considering the pitiful state of the U.S.’s intelligence capabilities and the lack of brain power in the White House.

“Al Qaeda wasn’t as good as we thought they were on 9/11,” says Michael A. Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict. (Do you suppose that his entire title is painted on his Pentagon office door?)

“Quite frankly, we, the American people, we asleep at the switch, the U.S. government prior to 9/11. So an organization that wasn’t that good looked really great on 9/11. Everyone looked to the skies every day after 9/11 and said, ‘When is the next attack?’ And it didn’t come, partly because Al Qaeda wasn’t that capable. They didn’t have other units in the U.S. . . . Really, they didn’t have the capability for a second attack.”

Sheehan said there is a second reason that America has not suffered a major terrorist attack is that the U.S. “crushed Al Qaeda immediately after 9/11, and continually for the last 10 years,” an assertion that does not stand up to scrutiny since the Bush administration had little success against the group after the Taliban was ousted in Afghanistan only to re-emerge.

The further that we get away from those dark days the more the enormity — even criminality, if you will — of the administration’s misdeeds grows.

One reason that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld beat the drum for invading Iraq is there was a belief because of that lack of brain power that the 9/11 attacks had to have been an inside job executed with the assistance of the Saddam Hussein regime.

That lead to eight and a half deeply tragic years highlighted by the deaths of nearly 4,800 U.S. and coalition forces, at least 100,000 Iraqis and millions of people displaced, the starving of boots and resources for the war in Afghanistan, which is only now just winding down after a series of botched strategies, and a body blow to America’s standing in the world because of the Bush administration’s embrace of torture and scuttling of civil liberties.

Way back in 1971 when I was a young Air Force captain I clearly remember a woman in my Service totally outranking me — receiving her first star.

The woman was Brigadier General Jeanne M. Holm and I remember it clearly because Holm was the first female general in the Air Force — a thing unheard of in those days. She would make history again a couple of years later when, in 1973 , she was promoted to the rank of major general, becoming the first woman in all of the Armed Forces to serve in that grade.

General Holm went on to serve as director of the Secretary of the Air Force Personnel Council before she retired from the Air Force in 1975. Holm, a native of Portland Oregon, died in 2010 at the age of 88 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

General Holm was a powerful force behind expanding career opportunities for and roles of women in the Air Force.

Her pioneering efforts have paid off. Today, 41 years after Holms broke through the “star barrier,” we are seeing another first in the history of women in the Air Force as President Barack Obama nominates Air Force Lieutenant General Janet C. Wolfenbarger to become the Service’s first woman four-star general. (The Army has had a female four-star general, Ann Dunwoody, since 2008).

Wolfenbarger presently serves as military deputy to the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisitions where she directs research and development, testing, production and modernization of programs worth more than $40 billion a year. In her new capacity, Wolfenbarger will lead Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio — the largest command in the Air Force with a yearly budget of $60 billion.

According to the Stars and Stripes, Pentagon officials praised Obama’s selection:

“The secretary strongly supports the president’s nomination, and he believes that General Wolfenbarger is an outstanding Air Force officer,” Pentagon press secretary George Little told American Forces Press Service. “The fact that she would be the first woman to wear a fourth star in the Air Force, if confirmed, is a testament to her skills, experience and dedication.”

You Have Come a Long Way, Ladies.

Image: Air Force official photo of General Wolfenbarger

Are young people in America less stridently nationalistic than their predecessors? Columnist Fyodor Lukyanov of Russia’s Gazeta, citing recent Pew Research Center polling data, asserts in this detailed evaluation of U.S. public attitudes, that there is a declining tendency on the part of the U.S. population to believe in American exceptionalism, and concludes that U.S. foreign policy will be increasingly focused inward and toward the “near abroad” of Mexico and Latin America.

For Gazeta, Fyodor Lukyanov writes in part:

The age breakdown of answers to the question of American exceptionalism – measuring the assertion that the United States is the greatest country in the world – is interesting. The largest number of those who share this belief (64 percent) is among the oldest, the “Silent Generation,” (which reaches a height of 72 percent in the 76-83 age range). Baby-Boomers are split precisely in half, and among Generation X, only 48 percent are proponents of American exceptionalism, with the youngest – the Millennial Children, being the most skeptical – 32 percent. A similar pattern can be seen when it comes to the question of patriotism: Seventy percent of Millennium Children answer positively to the question of whether they consider themselves “very patriotic.” The remaining numbers range from 86 percent to 91 percent. Seventy percent is without a doubt high, but that level has fallen consistently since 2003, when 80 percent of young people felt the most patriotic.

In assessing the source of national success, the nation is united. The vast majority of Americans of all ages consider freedom to be the central source of this success, followed by hard work, natural resources, military strength, democratic governance, free markets, and religious and racial/ethnic diversity.

What is telling is the fact that the older groups tend to place more significance on military power than the younger, and the younger groups believe democracy and religion to be relatively less important.

Of course, these statistics don’t allow us to predict U.S. foreign policy for the next ten to twenty years. Especially since foreign policy is formulated by the ruling class, which even in a democracy isn’t guided by the will of the people. And yet, a trend is detectable.

Young people, who are now entering active public life and building careers, are distinguished by a greater openness, tolerance and a positive outlook. But at the same time, they have a declining tendency toward patriotic bravado and perceive the theme of American greatness more calmly and with far less pathos. Furthermore, a more positive attitude toward immigration is evidence of a sober evaluation of necessity.

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How should we characterize the impending end of Western military operations in Afghanistan? Was it a painful defeat, a hard-won success, or something in between? Columnist Danièle Fonck of Luxembourg’s Le Jeudi writes that nothing worthwhile has been gained by the Afghanistan invasion, and the soldiers who died – whether Westerners want to admit it to themselves or not – did so in vain.

For Le Jeudi, Danièle Fonck writes in part:

No war is good, because they transform human beings into professional killers. The one now taking place far out of sight, in Afghanistan, is no exception to this rule.

The initial goal being forgotten, the war is bogged down. Worse, it appears that once Western coalition troops depart, the barbarians will return to power. It is a sad lesson of history. You don’t impose your values on others with goose-down pillows you left behind.

Early on, the Occidental armada lost the battle to win the sympathy of the people. It despised the population. It failed to draw up plans for the future. And it has protected the superbly corrupt leaders in Kabul. It has committed one blunder after another. So now, behind every Afghan, Western troops sense a threat and no longer know who to trust.

Why then prolong the torment? Each passing day brings its own share of misery and death. It is pointless to bury soldiers who fall on the battlefield with all national honors; the fact remains that they will have died for nothing. That is the most terrible of defeats: to come home from war and know that the soldiers sacrificed and died for nothing.

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By now most readers know my (changed) position on the Afghanistan War.

I have expressed concern among other about rampant corruption and backstabbing at the highest levels in the Afghanistan government, incompetence of and disloyalty among its military and police and continuing human rights violations.

I have mourned our casualties and fretted about our huge financial costs.

But — perhaps insensitively so — I have not mentioned much about the suffering of the Afghan people.

A piece in the New York Times today, brought such suffering home in the most poignant way by focusing on the suffering — the dying — of the most vulnerable human beings: the children.

The article starts with the jarring intro: “KABUL, Afghanistan — The following children froze to death in Kabul over the past three weeks after their families had fled war zones in Afghanistan for refugee camps here…”

It then goes on to list the names and ages of four of the “at least 22 [children] who have died in the past month, a time of unseasonably fierce cold and snowstorms.”

Among those 22 children:

¶ Mirwais, son of Hayatullah Haideri. He was 1 ½ years old and had just started to learn how to walk, holding unsteadily to the poles of the family tent before flopping onto the frozen ridges of the muddy floor.

¶ Abdul Hadi, son of Abdul Ghani. He was not even a year old and was already trying to stand, although his father said that during those last few days he seemed more shaky than normal.

¶ Naghma and Nazia, the twin daughters of Musa Jan. They were only 3 months old and just starting to roll over.

¶ Ismail, the son of Juma Gul. “He was never warm in his entire life,” Mr. Gul said. “Not once.”

About Ismail the Times says, “It was a short life, 30 days long.”

According to the United Nations, there are 35,000 people living — barely surviving might be a more accurate term — in Kabul refugee camps, such as Charachi Cambar and Nasaji Bagrami where the children froze to death.

“Both camps are populated largely with refugees who fled the fighting in areas like Helmand Province in the south. Some people have been in the camps for as long as seven years; others arrived in the past year,” says the Times.

Those who claim that we are making progress in Afghanistan generally point to the schools we have built and other “infrastructure projects” (Let’s not forget the $60 million prison we built at Bagram Air Base), at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

That is all good and well. However, Americans need to raise the same question the Times poses:

After 10 years of a large international presence, comprising about 2,000 aid groups, at least $3.5 billion of humanitarian aid and $58 billion of development assistance, how could children be dying of something as predictable — and manageable — as the cold?

If you have the fortitude, you can read the heart-rending stories of how and why these children are dying in these wretched camps here — camps where Solidarités International, a French group that has had a limited program of emergency food aid and sanitation in the camps, surveyed mortality rates in recent months and came to the harrowing conclusion that, among children under 5, the camps’ death rate is 144 per 1,000 children.

According to the Times, this rate is “stunningly high even for Afghanistan, which already has the world’s third highest infant mortality rate” and means “one out of every seven children in the Kabul camps will not survive until his or her sixth birthday.”

For those of us who believe that we should get out of Afghanistan, there is the sad conundrum:

If we stay longer in Afghanistan, will we be able to save these children?

If we leave Afghanistan now, will more children die?

Of course, this is not the only criterion, but it is a very emotive one and one we should include in any decision making process about “the future of Afghanistan.”

The reader can also view a heartbreaking set of photos about this tragedy here.

Image: shutterstock.com

Yesterday, in a YouTube/Google Plus town hall, President Obama finally admitted to what the world has known for years: that the United States has been using drone aircraft to kill militants in among other places, America’s supposed ally, Pakistan. This editorial from Pakistan’s The Nation welcomes this admission of the obvious, but wonders how the president could claim that most of those killed in the strikes were militants, and calls for shooting down the drones whenever they are found in Pakistan air space.

The Nation editorial starts out this way:

President Barack Obama has at last acknowledged what has long been undisputed fact to even the most casual observer: CIA-operated drones have been carrying out missions in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. His claim that they targeted “al-Qaeda and its affiliates” and not civilians, however, raised more than a few eyebrows. After all, if all of the 2,661 people killed in the 303 drone attacks since 2001 were militants and their affiliates, the phenomenon of terrorism would have fizzled out long ago. The fact is that only a small number of those killed were confirmed as militants, while the rest were civilians posing no danger to the “U.S. and its citizens,” which is the cause of the drone strikes according to the American leader. Mr. Obama made his remarks in a discussion with Web users on Google Plus and You Tube. Before that, U.S. officials had refused to talk about the drones in public.

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For those who may have been distracted by the Republican nomination race, the first potentially armed conflict since the Thatcher years between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands – known by Latin Americans as the Malvinas – is brewing. Unfortunately, according to columnist Gilson Caroni Filho of Brazil’s Opera Mundi, the United States, even if it doesn’t recognize British sovereignty over the Falklands, is implicated.

For Opera Mundi, Gilson Caroni Filho writes in part:

The European Union’s decision to recognize the Malvinas Islands as its territory, endorsing the warlike positions of British Prime Minister David Cameron – who approved a plan to increase the military contingents on the islands – serves to rekindle a historical fact that must never be forgotten: the tragedy of the Latin American countries, with their aberrant background of exploitation, misery and de-culturation, has one and only one set of enemies – European neo-colonialism and U.S. imperialism.

The self-determination of the Kelpers [Falkland Islanders], the central argument used by Thatcher and Cameron, encompasses a contradiction that is difficult to overcome. How can they claim British citizenship and the right to self-determination? What we have, in fact, is a permanent colonial occupation dressed up as “independence.” There is no more objective condition for the oppressed to recall a memory that was manufactured by the oppressor.

Remember that if 30 years ago, the countries of Latin American went far beyond the predictable in their support of Argentine rights, not giving one meter of territory for British military aircraft to refuel, now the resistance would be much more intense, with the region structured into communities like UNASUR [Union of South American Nations] and CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States]. A military venture would impose political costs much more profound than its creators can imagine.

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An obvious yet often overlooked persective on the Guantanamo Bay prison is that of Cuba itself – where the prison is located. Will Cuba ever get Guantanamo Bay back from the United States? And what does Havana do with the $4085 Washington sends it every month to lease the land that the base is on? According to Enrique Milanés León of Cuba’s state-run Juventud Rebelde, ending Washington’s 1903 ‘theft’ of Guantanamo Bay is something that has burned in the hearts of Cubans long before 9-11 and the construction of the notorious U.S. prison.

For Juventud Rebelde, Enrique Milanés León writes in part:

Concertina wire divides Guantanamo. And though the world may believe it is new – it is not. Around 1903, Tomás Estrada Palma, inaugurating a long chapter of theft, leased to the Yankees, at a very reasonable price and in perpetuity, something that wasn’t theirs: The best strip of land in that bay.

Ever since then, the “Americans” have robbed us of our sea, obtaining what has long been thought of as a metaphor of dispossession like those dreamed up in the fertile imagination of [Colombian novelist] Garcia Marquez.

Much time has passed and it weighs heavily. Yesterday it was ten years since the United States government, with twenty first-time prisoners dressed on bright orange prison garb, established the most expensive prison in the world there. Each detainee the U.S. tortures there costs $800,000 a year. But the number of tears it has resulted in around the world is incalculable.

Every year, Washington sends payment to Havana in compensation for its presence, but Cuba doesn’t cash those $4,085 checks. Dignity cannot be leased. Cuba keeps the checks to display in a museum that doesn’t yet exist: the one that will open right there when the U.S. liberates that section of sun-drenched bay.

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Arab Spring revolutions created chaos which allowed terrorists organizations to act and obtain heavy weapons. Ironically the UN and NATO’s mission in Libya increased this chaos tremendously and unintentionally strengthened Al Qaeda groups in Africa.

The UN Report explained that “The governments of the countries visited indicated that, in spite of efforts to control their borders, large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region.”

We see the results all over Africa where violence has grown dramatically in the past six months. Various terrorists groups are causing havoc across Africa. While the groups are not directly connected, they all have validated links to Al Qaeda in Yemen.

al-Shabab has been operating in Somalia and crossing over to Kenya and Ethiopia. Forces from the neighboring countries of Kenya and Ethiopia are battling Al Shabab along with Ugandan forces and western help.

The map of Somalia tells the story. The country has been without a functioning government for decades, and the southern and central regions are in the hands of al-Shabab.

Nigeria is caught in a series of terrorists’ bombings which target the Christian community of the country. Boko Haram, another Al Qaeda connected terrorist group, is trying to make its point that it cannot live side by side with people from other religions. In their view, Nigeria must become an Islamic state or else suffer endless terror attacks. Boko Haram killed more than 500 people last year and more than 250 this year in Nigeria.

The U.N. report said Nigeria was not the only country worried about the activities of Boko Haram. It said the group also was in Niger, adding that some governments believed Boko Haram members from Nigeria and Chad had received training at al Qaeda training camps in Mali in 2011.

While Boko Haram is currently focusing on Nigeria, it has documented ties to Al Qaeda according to the report – “Although Boko Haram has concentrated its terrorist acts inside Nigeria, seven of its members were arrested while transiting through the Niger to Mali,” it said, adding that they possessed documents about explosives manufacturing, propaganda leaflets and contact details for known al Qaeda members.

These terror activities are of increasing concern to the Western world. The vast deserts and loose governmental control in Africa makes it a perfect base for Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and Al Shabab. A recent attempt to attack US and European ships on the Mediterranean, foiled by Algeria, demonstrates once again that the goal is global Islamic domination and Africa is just a convenient base.

Western leaders and the UN back Nigeria in its war against Boko Haram. Through the U.S. military’s Africa Command, established in 2007, the Americans are already training and equipping armies in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia. On Oct. 14, U.S. President Obama sent another 100 U.S. troops to Uganda in East Africa. Africa has become the front line of the war against terror. Let’s hope 2012 will be calmer than 2011 as stability is crucial in the war against terror.

David Frum, who had a hand in crafting the speech, writes that it has withstood the criticism it received at the time as well as the scrutiny of 10 years. I happen to believe that Frum is correct, but that belief is tempered by the fact that times have changed, which goes a long way to undercutting his argument.

On a personal level, Frum has been banished from the Republican temple for refusing to hew to the hard right-wing political orthodoxy that has run roughshod through the party formerly known as the Big Tent, producing among other things a litter of presidential wannabes who almost to the last man want to start new wars or revisit old ones.

On a global level, the war in Iraq is over and the war in Afghanistan finally is winding down. Iran and North Korea are still schoolyard bullies, but the Obama administration is looking past their sand kicking while still keeping an eye on them, and has instituted a foreign policy where bellicosity is a last resort that is paying dividends. For this we also can thank Hillary Clinton, the best secretary of state since forever, and Vice President Biden, who unlike his predecessor long ago stopped fighting the Cold War.

Beyond Myanmar acting like it wants to come in from the cold, the ouster of Moammar el-Qaddafri and the nascent Arab Spring movement, all of which the Obama administration can take some credit for, the global playing field has changed substantially and not to the Republican Party’s benefit.

It is ironic (but then is there anything that the GOP does these days that isn’t ironic?) that the Republican Party, tone deaf to the concerns of ordinary Americans when it comes to their health and well-being, remains the War Party at a time when most of us are sick of war.

There is another trap for Republicans in this regard: Obama has made it clear that he supports a vigilant military ready to take up arms in faraway places when the need arises, but he also advocates a leaner Pentagon, which is anathema to the GOP despite its deficit-reduction frenzy.

And should the eventual Republican presidential candidate bring up the tired refrain that Obama is weak on terrorism and foreign policy, which John McCain continues to do when having one of his senior moments, the president can point to an admirable record that has included icing Osama bin Laden and most of his AQ cadre.

This mostly admirable record includes Iran.

The U.S. is leading an effort to restart nucular . . . er, nuclear negotiations by increasing economic sanctions. The E.U. has bucked up and agree to forgo Iranian crude, which represents about a fifth of Iran’s oil exports, by July, while the value of Iran’s currency has dropped dramatically because of sanctions.

The knock against Obama here is that he was not a helpmate during the convulsive student-led “green revolution” of 2009 and had he been more forceful that Amahadinejad and the ayatollahs would have been sent packing. That’s bull bleep because the Iranian opposition didn’t want direct American support knowing that it would have given the regime the ability to wave the Great Satan cudgel.

When the regime recently made noises about shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, the Obama administration was quick to suggest that the consequences of doing so would be regrettable and not to Tehran’s liking. The regime heeded the warning and a crisis was adverted. For the time being. Meanwhile, the Obama-led effort to put the squeeze on

The United States and the European Union are ratcheting up economic sanctions in the hope that they will push Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to re-start serious nuclear negotiations after a year’s hiatus. The E.U.’s twenty-seven member countries, which buy about a fifth of Iran’s oil exports, agreed last week to forgo all Iranian crude by July. Ahmadinejad said soon afterward that he would indeed be willing to talk again. The strategy, led by Obama, appears to be achieving its aim of raising the pressure on the ayatollahs to an unprecedented level. The value of Iran’s currency has fallen sharply. The diplomatic campaign would be stronger if it contained a definite plan to assuage Iran’s fears that the West and Israel ultimately seek regime change in Tehran—fears that presumably inform Iran’s search for a nuclear deterrent.

And so where once advocating war with Iran made Republicans look tough, it now makes them look silly.

Why is Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ proving to be the longest and most deadly battle in the nation’s history? Columnist Luis Javier Garrido of Mexico’s La Jornada outlines in great detail how the companies and government agencies which are supposed to battle narco-trafficking are proving so profitable, neither governments nor the companies they pay wish it to end.

For La Jornada, Luis Javier Garrido writes in small part:

The so called “war on drugs” is, in addition to whatever else it is, a terrific business for a number of huge corporations near and dear to American Democrats, as well as for many businessmen linked to the Felipe Calderón Government. From their point of view, extreme violence is good for business.

From its origins, in addition to a series of imperial political, strategic and military objectives, the notion of a “war on drugs” concealed very clear economic interests on the part of certain business consortia associated with these interests and the federal government, which could count on extraordinary funding approved by Capitol Hill. Experts on Washington drug policy all agree that even after the commotion of Nixon, nothing about broader U.S. policy has changed, which continued to be governed by the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, which was nothing but an expansion of the 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act. And nothing changed, even after the “war” was elevated to the status of law on January 28, 1972.The only novelty is that since then, business has flourished.

Consequently, in the last few years, Washington drug policy has followed this contradictory path. On the one hand, the United States has been engaged in a permanent campaign to fight drugs and provide “aid” to other countries, supposedly to discourage and reduce drug production, which at times has even involved military intervention. On the other, it invariably tended to preserve the drug trade as a great business, overseen and directed from Washington, which has illicitly benefited even senior-level politicians; while on the legal side, it has showered ever-greater state resources on the issue and allowed multiple companies to develop a series of “illegitimate” businesses.

READ ON IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.

Col. Morris Davis (USAF, Ret.) is a professor at the Howard University School of Law. From 2005 until 2007, Col. Davis was the Chief Prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay military commissions. He resigned from that post in 2007 in protest of political interference in prosecutorial functions. He retired from active military service in 2008 and became the head of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division in the Congressional Research Service. He served in that post until January 2010, when he was terminated after publishing op-ed articles critical of Guantanamo and war on terror policies.

On January 12, 2012, I had the privilege of interviewing Col. Davis by telephone. What follows are my interview notes, as corrected by Col. Davis.

The Talking Dog: Where were you on 11 Sept. 2001, and what do you recall of that day?

Morris Davis: I was in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s School, where I was the deputy commandant. We were in the Central time zone, an hour behind the events on the east coast. I was in my office, and directly across the room from my desk was a television that I usually kept on the news with the sound muted. I sat there with my feet up on the desk, drinking a cup of coffee and reading a report, while the news played on the television in the background. As soon as I saw what was happening I called some others into my office. The consensus was that this was some kind of an accident … until the second plane hit. We knew instantly that the world had just changed.

What I recall most, and I’m not sure why it made such a vivid impression, is that on my way home that evening I stopped at a grocery store to pick up something. I was still in uniform, and when I got to the cash register an older lady was about to unload her basket when she saw me and said “You go ahead of me, please; I know this day’s been a lot harder on you than it has on me.” At first I was going to decline, but then I realized that it probably made her feel a little better to think that she was “doing something” when there really wasn’t much she or anyone else could do.

The Talking Dog: My understanding is that the first three commission prosecutions in which charges were put forth were the cases of David Hicks, Omar Khadr, and Salim Hamdan. Can you discuss why these three men in particular, respectively an apparent Taliban foot soldier, a grievously wounded 15-year old kid [who may or may not have thrown a grenade in an apparent combat situation] and a motor-pool driver for OBL (albeit apparently transporting armaments) ended up being the initial poster children for “the New Nuremberg”?

Morris Davis: Traditionally, when you think of war crimes and the types of crimes envisioned by the laws of war, you think of the Herrmann Görings and the big names, and not of common foot soldiers. Some people find it somewhat ironic that there even is a law of war and that there isn’t a doctrine of “win by any means necessary.” But the laws of war have evolved over hundreds of years. And there are unquestionable benefits to a code of conduct for waging wars that include consequences for not complying with the rules, and particularly for accountability for those in command, which is meant to be applied in a top-down manner.

That said, I came into the job of chief prosecutor for the commissions in September of 2005. There were already more than a dozen men subject to charges that had come down under the original Bush military order of November 13, 2001. Under the original Bush order, every one charged had to have an “RTB” [a presidential determination of a "reason to believe" that the individual was a member of Al Qaeda or supported international terrorism] before they were eligible to be charged. The Criminal Investigation Task Force [“CITF”] based in Ft. Belvoir, VA was the military’s law enforcement arm. CITF was tasked with collecting up all of the bits and pieces of information that might constitute the basis for this RTB assessment, and then it would try to put the information into a format so that it was in a coherent and presentable form. If there was an “RTB” for a given defendant, before charges could be preferred, this RTB had to make its way from CITF to the chief prosecutor’s office, and then through DOJ, the Pentagon, the NSC, and ultimately to President Bush for his personal review and signature. And even this was only a preliminary step prior to charges. At the time the Supreme Court struck down the executive-order based commission scheme in June of 2006 in the Hamdan case, around 2 dozen RTB’s had been signed by President Bush.

In 2006, when the Military Commissions Act of that year was passed, and President Bush signed it with great fanfare, and KSM and the other “high value detainees” were transferred from CIA black sites to the military at Guantanamo, in order just to implement the new statute, the Secretary of Defense had to sign off on a new Manual for Military Commissions — the statute was only a bare-bones framework. The manual lays out elaborate details for the actual procedures to be used in commissions. That manual first came out in late January 2007, after the new statute went into effect. The most logical cases to charge under the new system were, of course, those cases that were already prepared under the old system.

DoD General Counsel Jim Haynes called me in early January 2007 and asked how quickly I could charge David Hicks. It was the first time he ever called me to inquire about a specific case. I personally would love to know the real back story on how Hicks became the top priority case. Jim Haynes also asked if I could charge others in addition to Hicks. He didn’t say why, but it was my impression that he wanted me to have “a package” of cases — that he did not want Hicks to be the sole detainee charged – and he wanted others charged so it didn’t appear Hicks was being singled out for special treatment. At that time, we had about six cases that we were looking at as potentials ones we could charge under the newly reformed military commission rules. Hicks was clearly the priority, and out of the five or six other potential cases we picked Khadr and Hamdan because the prosecutors on those cases were prepared and ready to move forward.

The Talking Dog: A complaint regarding the military commissions that I got in my very first Guantanamo-related interview (with Josh Dratel, then a civilian attorney for David Hicks) was that the rules kept changing, constantly. My understanding is that you, as chief prosecutor, had similar complaints… can you comment on that?

Morris Davis: Well, unfortunately, here we are in 2012, and the rules are still changing. Just this week — the current chief prosecutor, Brig. General Mark Martins (the sixth chief prosecutor in ten years) gave a talk at the New York City Bar, in which he talked about what he labeled the “newly reformed military commissions” and not just “the military commissions.”

You have to go back to the start and the November 2001 order by President Bush. It looked an awful lot like FDR’s 1942 order to prosecute the Nazi saboteurs (who were charged, tried, took an appeal to the Supreme Court, executed and buried all within 43 days). The Bush authorization for military commission was in effect for almost five years. In 2006, after the Supreme Court struck down the Bush-ordered commissions in the Hamdan decision, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and new manuals and directives came down, as I noted, beginning in late January 2007. In 2008, then Candidate Barack Obama talked about the gross inequities of the Military Commissions Act of 2006; in fact, he had voted against it in 2006 when he was in the Senate. When he became President Obama, and then did an about-face on the evils of military commissions, he had to get the Military Commissions Act of 2009 passed so he could say what he had so eloquently condemned before was now just fine. That, in turn, required more new manuals, directives and orders in an effort to make it appear that the commissions were somehow reformed and improved. If you want a real-world illustration of the expression “putting lipstick on a pig,” this is it. It was some cosmetic tinkering around the margins to make things politically palatable.

But, as Josh Dratel correctly observed, the rules changed; and they’ve changed more since then and they continue to change.

The Talking Dog: Also, regarding Hicks, my understanding is that notwithstanding that you were the chief prosecutor for the military commissions, neither you nor the line prosecutors were actually involved in plea negotiations, but that the real plea negotiations ultimately took place between Hicks’s lawyers [which included Josh Dratel], Vice President Cheney’s office (and the convening authority Judge Susan Crawford, formerly an assistant to Mr. Cheney) and perhaps the Australian government… can you comment on that?

Morris Davis: Your supposition is probably true; I wish I knew exactly what transpired, and I don’t, but I would certainly bet that the Vice President’s office took up the Hicks case to help Australian Prime Minister John Howard. I don’t know precisely what happened, but I do know that neither I nor anyone in the chief prosecutor’s office was actually involved in the plea negotiations. We thought we were going to Guantanamo to do an arraignment that day. Instead, after we arrived at Gitmo, we learned that Hicks would be entering a guilty plea and the case would be done immediately!

Josh had to sign an agreement that he would be bound by rules that in some parts were a work-in-progress and had not yet even been written. Because he could not agree to sign a document saying he would abide by rules that he hadn’t seen, the judge refused to permit him to continue to represent Hicks in court and he had to leave the defense table. By the way, this same type of thing is still happening. In April 2010, in the Omar Khadr case, something like this happened again. Literally on the eve of Khadr’s trial beginning at Guantanamo, the new Manual for Military Commissions was still a work-in-progress over in the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense signed it in the evening and the nearly 300-page document was handed to Khadr’s defense team just a few hours before the judge banged the gavel. It was like a football game where the teams are on the field, down in their stance and waiting for the ref to blow the whistle for the kickoff, and then the league says “oh, by the way, here’s a new rulebook … now have a good game.” That kind of thing is still happening. The government published another 250 pages of new rules and regulations in November and December. Someone described it quite accurately as trying to lay the tracks in front of the train after it has already the left the station.

The Talking Dog: Let’s talk about Mohammad al-Qahtani, a detainee whom Susan Crawford, in declining to proffer commission charges against because she said he was tortured; can you talk about him? Also, can you assess to what extent “the evidence” you had access to in order to make cases against the presumably several dozen men eligible for military commission trials consisted of coerced statements by themselves or other detainee (you could characterize this as “none,” “a little,” “some,” “a lot” or any other way you’d like to do it)?

Morris Davis: As to the Qahtani part of your question, as the chief prosecutor, my job was generally oversight of all of the prosecutions rather than in-depth knowledge of the specific details of any one of them. The prosecution task force was over 100 people at the time I resigned, including civilians, JAGs, CIA, FBI, and others; in short, it was a large organization and running it did not allow me to spend a great deal of time on all of the cases.

I was, however, going to personally handle the prosecution of Qahtani. I came on about a year before the “high value” detainees arrived, and at that time Qahtani was the “dirtiest” case, from the stand point of how he had been treated. As I was the guy in charge, I felt it was me who should get my hands dirty with it rather than pawning it off on my subordinates, so I decided that I would personally prosecute the case. I didn’t have enough time to devote to preparation of the case to move it up the list of cases we intended to charge, but I believed … and I still believe … there was enough evidence independent of his own statements made in our custody to present a persuasive case; the torture he received would have been “unfortunate and interesting … but irrelevant in his trial.” Qahtani made his way from the Middle East to Orlando where he was to be met by Mohammad Atta who showed up at the airport at the same time his plane landed, following pretty much the same route as the other hijackers before him. I felt there were plenty of “puzzle pieces” to paint a picture sufficient to convict him, even without the coerced statements. At the time I resigned in October 2007, Qahtani was still pretty far down the “batting order” in the list of cases for potential prosecution.

As to the other part of your question, there is a misperception that detainee cases were somehow homogeneous. They were not: each detainee had a different situation. Hamdan was just in it for the money — he drove for Bin Laden for $100; for $150, he’d probably have driven for someone else. Hicks was an adventurer who ended up getting a lot more than he bargained for. Some others were truly dedicated to the cause. Each detainee had a different set of circumstances and the evidence was unique to each case, so I can’t put any kind of a percentage on how much was coerced or anything of that nature. We wanted to proceed in a logical order common to prosecutors — we wanted to work plea deals, like in RICO cases, and start with people willing to make deals, in hopes that we could get people to cooperate as we went after the bigger players.

The one consistent belief among the prosecutors was that the one case we did not want to lead with was David Hicks. We had been telling the world for years that these guys were the “worst of the worst” and we knew the world would be watching when the first trial began. To lead off with a minor player and a complete knucklehead like David Hicks just did not bode well for the military commissions, but it got crammed down our throat by our superiors. As I said, Qahtani was still pretty far down the list when I left.
Before we move on, let me comment on Susan Crawford and her disclosure that Qahtani was tortured. Her public statement on this to Bob Woodward was in January 2009, in the final days of the Bush administration and shortly before President Obama’s inauguration. However, she made her decision not to charge Qahtani because of torture in the spring of 2008. It appears to me that rather than being a “courageous act” as some have suggested she was simply trying to get on the right side of history before it was too late. I am grateful that she recognized torture when she saw it and that she was eventually willing to state publicly that the U.S. engaged in torture, but it would have been courageous had she stood up during the heart of President Bush’s final term rather than staying silent until his final hours in office. It would have been courageous had she stepped up in August and September of 2007 when I was asking her to help me preserve the integrity of the process; instead, she didn’t lift a finger to do anything and I resigned. In any event, Qahtani remains at Guantanamo. I still believe that a case could be made against him that did not rely on his own statements.

The Talking Dog: You have stated that the commissions were neither “military” nor “justice.” Do you believe that the Obama Administration’s later tweaks with the commissions process, applying to those commissions going forward, and to the extent contained in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (recently signed into law remedy) this — in a non-superficial way? Also, Sen. Lindsey Graham of S. Carolina, in support of the NDAA, recently made a number of arguably troubling comments during the NDAA debate (such as Americans accused of betraying their country would have no right to counsel or trial) that seem out of character for a USAF JAG officer such as Sen. Graham (who, at least in the past, has often been, as far as these things go, a comparative voice of reason)… I’m wondering if you can comment on that?

Morris Davis: As to the first part of your question, the answer is “no”: I don’t think the “reformed” military commission process is significantly different from the military commissions as I left them in October 2007.

Candidate Obama was adamant about the gross injustice of the military commissions, until, of course, he flip-flopped and embraced military commissions. He needed something face-saving, so enough “changes” were made to give him some political cover to claim things were different.

The Military Commissions Act of 2009 was just a politically motivated veneer slapped onto the old process to give the administration an excuse for embracing what it had condemned. If you look beneath the veneer you see that the most significant change to what had been the last “reformed” incarnation of the commissions is a slight change to the hearsay rule. Under the old rules, hearsay was presumed reliable and the burden was on the opponent of a hearsay statement — most often the accused — to show by a preponderance of evidence that the statement was unreliable. The “big change” made in 2009 was that the burden shifted to the proponent of hearsay evidence to show, by a preponderance of evidence, that the hearsay evidence is reliable. This change is, basically, a burden shift from the accused to the prosecution, in most instances, of about 1/100th of one percent. A preponderance of evidence is a 50.001 percent versus 49.999 percent standard. If swapping the hearsay burdens around represents a significant change, then there has been a significant change. I don’t think it’s anything more than a little coat of whitewash to give President Obama some political cover.

As to the second part of your question, I joined the Air Force in 1983, right after law school. One of the great things about being a JAG is you get courtroom experience very quickly. My first trial was in the spring of 1984, and one of my opponents was Captain Lindsey Graham. The case involved the Air Force’s urinalysis program. Then Captain Graham appeared on 60 Minutes talking about the flaws in the testing program, which was eventually scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. During the 1984 trial I was involved in — his side won by the way — a number of officers, during a break in the trial one weekend, talked about “what we wanted to do when we grew up.” Captain Graham said “I’m going to finish my service commitment, go home to South Carolina, and someday run for Congress!” You have to admire a man with a plan! He’s stayed in the Air Force Reserves, and has been an extremely dedicated member of the Air Force JAG community.

After the Hamdan case was decided by the Supreme Court invalidating the then-existing version of the military commissions created by President Bush, I was asked to meet with Senators McCain and Graham, in September of 2006, to talk about the proposed Military Commissions Act. Senator Graham’s first question to me was “What do you need to get the job done right?” I personally wrote some parts of that Act — such as, ironically, the part about not permitting undue command influence to effect the prosecution! The MCA involved proceedings similar to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, but there were some differences in the MCA. After the high value detainees showed up in September 2006, things changed. Before their arrival, I was largely autonomous and the prosecution team worked in a fairly unfettered environment where we could exercise our best professional judgment. But afterwards, everybody had an opinion on how I should do my job — especially the Department of Justice. Prosecuting Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in military commissions was something that disappointed some in the Justice Department. Prosecuting his case in federal district court could be a huge career-maker for an aspiring DOJ lawyer, so when President Bush chose the military commission option there were some that were not enthused. They accepted the decision, but rather than let the military handle it they still wanted to pull the strings and tried to run the show. That was why I asked Senator Graham to add the unlawful influence language to the MCA.

In December 2008, shortly after I retired after 25 years of military service, I went to work as the head of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division at the Congressional Research Service in the Library of Congress. On Veterans’ Day 2009, I wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal critical of Attorney General Holder’s proposed double-standard where we’d try some detainees in military commissions and others in federal courts. That same day I also had a letter to editor in the Washington Post critical of former Attorney General Mukasey for fearmongering on the catastrophes awaiting us if detainees ever set foot on U.S. soil. The next day, I was notified the Library of Congress was firing me for expressing my opinions in public.

My own Congressman — alleged Democrat Gerry Connolly of Virginia — was every bit as helpful in standing up for free speech in 2009 as Susan Crawford was in standing up against torture in 2007. The only member out of the 535 members of Congress who stood up for me was none other than Senator Lindsey Graham, who noted that even though he may not agree with my views, I had the right to express them and it was an important perspective for the public to hear. Lindsey Graham was the only one with the guts to take the political risk and speak up for me, which I greatly appreciated. I was not from his state, I was not one of his constituents, I have not donated to his campaigns, and I’m not even a member of his party, so there was nothing in it for him other than just doing what he thought was right.

As to his statements of late, Senator Graham represents South Carolina, which is on the very far right of the political spectrum. His recent statements would appear to be political posturing largely for the benefit of a right wing South Carolina electorate.

The Talking Dog: I understand that, like me, you made some financial contributions and did some work for the campaign to help elect my [Columbia '83] college classmate Barack Obama to the office of President back in 2008 (including have someone burn down a lawn sign you posted at your house!) My own assessment of the President on GTMO/war on terror (or whatever it’s called now) issues is, in a word, “disappointing.” I’m wondering if you could provide your own views on President Obama’s performance in these areas? Do you have any predictions for the future of Guantanamo, Bagram, military commissions, indefinite detention or the like going forward, say, in a second Obama term or perhaps a Romney Administration?

Morris Davis: I retired from the Air Force in October 2008. In the military, service members are encouraged to vote and to be politically informed, but they are absolutely prohibited from active participation in politics. A guy in uniform at a Ron Paul event recently got himself in quite a bit of trouble — there is no gray area, you just don’t participate in partisan politics, especially not in uniform.

So, in October 2008, after I retired, I had my first chance to participate in the political process in 25 years. I live in a rather conservative part of Virginia, but I put up a Barack Obama sign in front of my house, I donated to his campaign, and I was a volunteer who went door-to-door campaigning on his behalf. When someone came into my yard and set my Obama sign on fire, I put up a new one! I bought into the whole “hope and change” B.S. On Barack Obama’s Inauguration Day, I was the most excited guy in town!
And so, “disappointed” is a gross understatement. What we have seen is an extraordinary lack of leadership on these issues. I met with the transition team on Guantanamo in November of 2008, and my first impression was “I don’t think they get it!” They didn’t seem to understand that there weren’t neat cabinets of files pertaining to each individual detainee to conveniently explain everything — the reality was that things were a total mess. The reason, of course, is that Guantanamo was set up as an intelligence gathering operation, and not for the purposes of prosecution; “intelligence” is not the same as “evidence.” They simply did not understand the enormity of the task they had taken on. And so, it seemed, Obama focused on health care and the economy, and without investing the political effort needed on Guantanamo, he thought the right thing would just happen. In the meantime, Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney went on the offensive, and managed to do a very effective job of swaying public opinion and making people fear everyone at Guantanamo. The President didn’t use his bully pulpit, and the public has ended up buying into the whole notion of all detainees being the absolute “worst of the worst.” It has been just a real disappointment after what looked like such an optimistic start.

In the short term, I see no prospect of any change — and certainly not in 2012. It seems somewhat narrow minded to just look at the 171 guys still at Guantanamo and not at the broader situation — we should be asking, what would we accept if one of us was treated this way? Would we be willing to accept the same treatment of Americans and, if not, then why do Americans accept it when we do it to others? We used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we’ve allowed the fearmongers to make us the land of the constrained and the cowardly.

In the long term, there are those who suggest that Obama may have less pressure in his second term as he won’t be running for reelection and, under those circumstances, he may be more inclined to expend some effort to resolve these things, but that would certainly be disappointing if matters of principle can only be pursued when the political calculus is right. If it’s always the right time to do the right thing then it’s always the wrong time to wait until it’s politically convenient.

The Talking Dog: I understand you have worked with a non-governmental organization devoted to educating the public concerning the laws of war; can you talk about its mission? Also, can you describe, overall, how you believe “the Guantanamo experience,” whatever that is, has effected you personally?

Morris Davis: When I resigned as chief prosecutor for the military commissions in 2007, I immediately received an order directing me that I couldn’t talk about why I had resigned. And so, when I spoke out I immediately burned my bridges on the Republican side of the aisle! Then I went to work on Capitol Hill at the Library of Congress where I managed to burn my bridges with Democrats in 2009 with my opinion pieces criticizing President Obama! I have hit that rare sweet spot where I’ve become unemployable on both sides! I found that I had a B.A., a J.D., 2 LL.M.s, and 25 years of experience, and, in a city full of lawyers I was on unemployment for seven months because I was too toxic to hire!

The Crimes of War Project was started by journalists in the aftermath of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, with the idea in mind that maybe we could reduce future tragedies by educating people about the laws of war and the consequences of noncompliance. They brought me on board in August of 2010 to be the executive director. Since 9-11, whole industries have grown up to address the supposed threat of terrorism and politicians fall all over themselves to show how tough they are on terrorism. There is little interest in the Geneva Conventions, and investigating allegations of torture, and respecting treaty obligations and international institutions. Unfortunately, at this point in time, trying to educate people on the laws of war seems to be something few people believe is an effort worth supporting.

And so, I am now teaching at the Howard University School of Law. Dean Kurt Schmoke, the former Mayor of Baltimore and now the head of the law school, was willing to take me aboard and has been very gracious in allowing me to still write and speak on issues like Guantanamo, torture, and targeted assassination. Howard has deep roots in the civil rights movement, so it is appropriate I suppose that it’s a place where an advocate for humanitarian law can find a home.

The last few years have been interesting if nothing else. I got canned and ostracized under both Republican and Democrat administrations, and I find myself somewhere in the middle between the left and right where you won’t find an organized movement or benefactors like the Koch brothers or George Soros. I guess one of the most surprising lessons I’ve learned is that honesty, integrity, courage and principles are virtues society values far more in theory than they do in practice. I think when you’re willing to compromise core principles to protect your own self-interest you’re pathetic and cowardly. I do regret that my wife and my daughter suffer some of the collateral consequences of me expressing my opinions, but I’ve never had any second thought about saying torture is wrong and America can do better than it’s done the past decade. I suppose some people look at Don Quixote and see an idiot who puts himself through a lot of hardship he could easily avoid. I admire him for being willing to suit up and fight.

The Talking Dog: As we come to a point in time ten years after the opening of Guantanamo Bay for military detentions of persons captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is there anything else I should have asked you but didn’t, or anything else you believe that the public needs to know about this?

Morris Davis: One thing comes to mind. We chose Guantanamo a decade ago because some people thought that it was outside the reach of law. And now, we have 171 men stuck in a legal Alice in Wonderland. And so we continue to make bad laws, like the NDAA and the “reformed again and again military commissions” — to continue to try to deal with men we are holding because we took short-cuts and made bad decisions years ago. My hope is that common sense prevails and we can look rationally at the big picture, and we stop trying to make even more bad laws rooted in our prior bad decisions. I hope at some point we remember who we are and what we stand for, we reckon with what we did in the past, and we stop living our lives in fear. I hope we become free and brave again.

The Talking Dog: I join all my readers in thanking Col. Morris Davis for that eye-opening interview.

Readers interested in legal issues and related matters associated with the “war on terror” may also find talking dog blog interviews with former Guantanamo military commissions prosecutor Darrel Vandeveld, with former Guantanamo combatant status review tribunal/”OARDEC” officer Stephen Abraham, with attorneys Kristine Huskey, Ellen Lubell, Ramzi Kassem, George Clarke, Buz Eisenberg, Steven Wax, Wells Dixon, Rebecca Dick, Wesley Powell, Martha Rayner, Angela Campbell, Stephen Truitt and Charles Carpenter, Gaillard Hunt, Robert Rachlin, Tina Foster, Brent Mickum, Marc Falkoff H. Candace Gorman, Eric Freedman, Michael Ratner, Thomas Wilner, Jonathan Hafetz, Joshua Denbeaux, Rick Wilson,
Neal Katyal, Joshua Colangelo Bryan, Baher Azmy, and Joshua Dratel (representing Guantanamo detainees and others held in “the war on terror”), with attorneys Donna Newman and Andrew Patel (representing “unlawful combatant” Jose Padilila), with Dr. David Nicholl, who spearheaded an effort among international physicians protesting force-feeding of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, with physician and bioethicist Dr. Steven Miles on medical complicity in torture, with law professor and former Clinton Administration Ambassador-at-large for war crimes matters David Scheffer, with former Guantanamo detainees Moazzam Begg and Shafiq Rasul , with former Guantanamo Bay Chaplain James Yee, with former Guantanamo Army Arabic linguist Erik Saar, with former Guantanamo military guard Terry Holdbrooks, Jr., with law professor and former Army J.A.G. officer Jeffrey Addicott, with law professor and Coast Guard officer Glenn Sulmasy, with author and geographer Trevor Paglen and with author and journalist Stephen Grey on the subject of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, with journalist and author David Rose on Guantanamo, with journalist Michael Otterman on the subject of American torture and related issues, with author and historian Andy Worthington detailing the capture and provenance of all of the Guantanamo detainees, with law professor Peter Honigsberg on various aspects of detention policy in the war on terror, with Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch, with Almerindo Ojeda of the Guantanamo Testimonials Project, with Karen Greenberg, author of The LeastWorst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days, with Charles Gittings of the Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions, and with Laurel Fletcher, author of “The Guantanamo Effect” documenting the experience of Guantanamo detainees after their release, to be of interest.

Iraqis are reacting with outrage — and appropriately so — that the ringleader of the 2005 Haditha massacre that left 24 of their countrymen dead received no jail time and merely a reduction in rank to private as part of a plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to a single count of dereliction of duty.

“This is not new, and it’s not new for the American courts that already did little about Abu Ghraib and other crimes in Iraq,” said Khalid Salman, 45, whose cousin was killed by the Marines in the November 2005 massacre, which also took the lives of a 76-year-old wheelchair-bound man and women and children.

Although the reduced charge carried a maximum sentence of three months in jail, which the military judge said he would have imposed, The Associated Press reported that as part of the plea deal, prosecutors had agreed that Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich would receive no jail time. He had faced up to 152 years in prison if convicted on the charges of manslaughter and assault on which he stood accused.

“That soldier would be sent to prison for more than three months if he had thrown trash on the streets in America,” Salman said, adding: “We won’t be silent. We will resume the case through all international courts, and we will appeal the American resolution. Injustice has won this round, but there are many more rounds left.”

The dark shadows cast by the Haditha massacre, the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison and the killing of civilians by contractors for Blackwater helped turn Iraqi public opinion against the American troop presence. An agreement to keep American troops in-country past 2011 collapsed when Iraqi officials would not agree to extend their immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

The outcome of the longest-running criminal prosecution to emerge from the Iraq War, a case described as that war’s version of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, was only slightly surprising.

The deck had been stacked in favor of the Marines because of their argument that the rules of engagement regarding when civilians could be fired upon was unclear. While this may have been true to an extent, that does not explain why a 76-year-old wheelchair-bound man and unarmed women and children were mowed down in a horrific incident that took 24 lives.

My surprise concerns the fact that Wuterich, the last Marine to be tried and who once faced possibly 152 years in prison, might have had to do any time at all. He originally had entered a not-guilty pleas to all charges.

Reaction to the plea agreement broke along predictable lines: Supporters of the Marines cheered it while Iraqis and human rights activists said it yet again proved that American soldiers were not accountable. Charges had previously been dropped against six others involved in the massacre. A seventh Marine was acquitted.

Bing West, a combat Marine in Vietnam and former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, called the plea agreement “the right conclusion to a tragedy,” while Gary Solis, a former Marine prosecutor who teaches the law of armed conflict at Georgetown University, said Haditha could become a case study in how not to prosecute suspected war crimes.

My own view is that the deal further reinforces a belief in the international community that the U.S. military has not held its troops accountable nor met the standards of conduct it has attempted to impose far from home.

One Marine, who was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony, told of how he had urinated on a dead civilian’s head, which s reminiscent of a video made public earlier this month in which four Marines are seen urinating on bloodstained corpses of Afghan militants.

“This [plea agreement] has contributed significantly to the cynicism of people in the region about America’s rhetoric — about America standing for principles,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “When push comes to shove, when it comes to looking at the misconduct of [U.S.] . . . soldiers, there is no accountability.”

On a quiet morning in November 2005, Marines from Camp Pendleton’s 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment — nicknamed the “Thundering Third”– were running a supply convoy through Haditha, which was then an insurgent stronghold. A bomb erupted under one vehicle, killing Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas and injuring two others.

The surviving Marines turned their attention to a nearby residential area that some believed was the source of additional small-arms fire. While preparing their assault, five men pulled up in a white car. Wuterich shot them to death.

According to one Marine’s testimony, Wuterich told his comrades that they should tell investigators the men had been running away from the bomb; in fact, the Marine testified, the men were “just standing around,” some with their hands raised and fingers interlocked over their heads.

Wuterich and the others then attacked two homes with M-16s and fragmentation grenades. The situation degenerated into chaos; the homes filled with smoke and debris, and one Marine acknowledged shooting at “silhouettes.” Others said their only indication that the homes were “hostile” was that their fellow Marines were shooting.

A short time later, the Marine Corps released an official version of events: 15 Iraqis had been killed in the bombing, and the others had been killed in an ensuing firefight — none of which was true.

Wuterich said during a brief hearing on the plea agreement that he regretted telling his men to “shoot first, ask questions later.”

Back in September of 2009, I started one of my several articles on the Afghanistan War as follows:

As the fighting in Afghanistan intensifies; as that war claims more and more casualties; and as critical decisions loom on national objectives, strategy and corresponding troop levels and deployments there, the debate also intensifies.

As the war has continued unabated and has indeed claimed more and more young American lives; as critical decisions still needed to be made and as the debate on that war continued to rage, I wrote additional pieces, some questioning the war.

Today — call me a flip-flopper if you wish — as our stay in Afghanistan exceeds a decade and has already surpassed the duration of the Soviet occupation of that country; as our goals become less clear, our strategy (and mission) more muddled, our politics (and policies) more befuddled and our casualties (and financial costs) more intolerable, those questions are turning into concern and doubts.

After taking out Osama Bin Laden, after virtually destroying the al-Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan and many Taliban leaders and after some disturbing developments in that country, I have concerns for our troops, concerns for our success there, and concerns for the economic distress our country finds itself in — in no small measure because of the enormous costs of our military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most recently, I referred to some of those “developments,” including corruption and backstabbing at the highest levels in the Afghanistan government, incompetence of and disloyalty among its military and police and continuing human rights violations.

While examples of corruption among Afghan government officials are numerous, the most recent and most grievous example of backstabbing at the highest levels occurred only three months ago when Afghan President Hamid Karzai said: “God forbid, if ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan.”

Karzai also said:

“Afghanistan will never forget the welcome, the hospitality, the respect, and the brotherhood showed by the Pakistani people towards the Afghan people… Pakistan will never betray their brother.”

There are additional and more recent examples.

Two weeks ago, Karzai denounced alleged abuses at the main American prison in Afghanistan — a prison that, according to the New York Times, “plays a key role in the war effort, housing almost all the detainees that forces from the American-led coalition deem ‘high value,’ including Taliban operatives” — and demanded that Americans cede control of the site within a month. (“The prison, at Bagram Air Base, is one of the few in the country where Afghan and Western rights advocates say that conditions are relatively humane.”)

The Times:

… the Afghan commission that documented the abuses appears to have focused mainly on the side of the prison run by Afghan authorities, not the American-run part, according to interviews with American and Afghan officials.

Mr. Karzai was, in essence, demanding that the Americans cede control of a prison to Afghan authorities to stop abuses being committed by Afghan authorities.

The $60 million prison was built and paid for by the United States to replace an older prison that was “the site of well-documented abuse cases.”

A recent Wall Street Journal article describes how the Afghan “Police Undermine [the] Fight Against [the] Taliban” with the lead-in, “In the American war against the Taliban, on whose side are the Afghan police? For many U.S. soldiers serving in the insurgent heartland, the answer is: both.”

And:

They smile to our face when we’re here, giving them money and building them buildings,” says U.S. Army Capt. Cory Brown, a provost marshal officer helping to oversee Afghan security forces here in volatile Paktika province. “But they’ve given insurgents money, food and even rides in Afghan police cars.

Worse, he says, some policemen are also suspected of selling their U.S.-provided weapons to the Taliban.

More recently and even more insidious, the Salt Lake Tribune reports:

U.S. and other coalition forces [in Afghanistan] are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to U.S. and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report obtained by The New York Times.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

The Tribune continues:

The violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of U.S. efforts to build a functional Afghan army, a pillar of the Obama administration’s strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and experts who helped shape the strategy.

The above attests to the increasingly difficult and dangerous task our brave troops face in Afghanistan.

As a matter of fact, a recently released Marine Corps guidebook, “Afghanistan, Operational Culture for Deploying Personnel,” written for our troops serving or preparing to serve in Afghanistan warns them:

For centuries, this has been the paradox of warfare in Afghanistan: “The more enemies you kill, the faster you lose. Because of badal (revenge), the Pashtun have a saying: ‘Kill one enemy, make ten.’”

According to the Washington Post, “the 112-page, ‘for official use only’ manual gives a clear description of the complicated Taliban enemy against whom U.S. troops have been fighting and the Afghans who are fighting alongside U.S. forces,” and ominously warns “In neither case is the picture reassuring. Nor do the manual’s recollections of the U.S. experience in Vietnam ease current concerns of those who lived through that war, that history may be repeating itself …The Taliban insurgent is certain that it is God’s will that he fight to eliminate the Afghan infidels in Kabul and drive the foreign infidels (you) from Afghanistan.”

The manual also warns of corruption among officers and such being especially “endemic” in the police.

While questions and concerns about our policy and strategy in Afghanistan abound in my mind, there is absolutely no question about the bravery and dedication of our troops serving there — notwithstanding some much-publicized exceptions. More about these heroes, later.

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