I couldn't wait to report what I think is some very good news, as reported by SCOTUSBlog now:

In the first civilian court ruling giving a Guantanamo Bay detainee a chance to win his release, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled on Friday that Huzaifa Parhat was wrongly designated an enemy combatant by a military panel.

"Senior American officials ought to go to jail for this".

That's what Jerrold Nadler said last week after having heard testimony that US officials deported Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria even though they knew he would be tortured upon his arrival there.

If I had to vote for someone like Jane Harman in order to get Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) into the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs, International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight Committee, where he's currently operating, I'd do it gladly.

In fact, since I saw since I saw part of last week's hearing by that committee on the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, I'm convinced that one Delahunt more than makes up for quite a few Harmans.

Ever heard of Abdullah al-Ajmi?

He was a detainee released from the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2005.  He died last month while carrying out a suicide attack in Iraq.  

Most news reports of this carry without comment the Pentagon's assertion that al-Ajmi is one of a number of former detainees who have "returned to the battlefield" after having been released by the US military.  But the "return to the battlefield" is largely myth, as those pushing the story surely know:  most detainees (al-Ajmi included) were not captured on a "battlefield" and very few who have been released from Guantanamo are known to have "returned" to "battle."¹

Abdullah al-Ajmi, in particular,

1. was not captured on a "battlefield" but was taken by third parties near the Pakistan border and later turned over to the US;

2. was found innocent by a Kuwaiti court of all the US charges against him, the only trial ever conducted in his case; and

3. died in Iraq, which wasn't a "battlefield" when he originally was taken by the US.

Three weeks ago the US administration pushed at the NATO summit to have  Georgia admitted to NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP), "a NATO programme of advice, assistance and practical support tailored to the individual needs of countries wishing to join the Alliance."  Germany, France and the Benelux countries put off the plan because Georgia is unstable and because a Georgian membership would be unnecessarily offensive to Russia.

This is fortunate because Georgia and Russia are now involved in a confrontation which looks a lot like the sequence of events leading to World War I, except that Georgia doesn't yet have a military alliance with a distant, powerful treaty-bound ally to egg it on.

Here's something I've thought about, nibbling around the edges, for a long time, but have never been able to articulate like this:

Dr. King said the movement would liberate not only segregated black people but also the white South. Surely this is true. You never heard of the Sun Belt when the South was segregated. The movement spread prosperity in a region previously unfit even for professional sports teams. My mayor in Atlanta during the civil rights era, Ivan Allen Jr., said that as soon as the civil rights bill was signed in 1964, we built a baseball stadium on land we didn’t own, with money we didn’t have, for a team we hadn’t found, and quickly lured the Milwaukee Braves. Miami organized a football team called the Dolphins.
Taylor Branch, "The Last Wish of Martin Luther King", New York Times, April 6, 2008

A NATO summit started yesterday, April 2, 2008.  

The US agenda for the summit was very aggressive: an increase in NATO troop commitments to Afghanistan, endorsement of the administration missile defense plan for Poland and the Czech Republic, extension of NATO membership to Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, and inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO membership preparation plan.

In meetings yesterday and this morning, NATO has apparently delivered a setback to some of these plans.  According to the New York Times, NATO leaders agreed to endorse the United States missile defense plans for Europe and provide more troops for Afghanistan, but held up Macedonia's full membership (based on objections from Greece) and refused to accept Ukraine and Georgia into the NATO membership prep program.

Although NATO pledged that Ukraine and Georgia "would become members one day and agreed that foreign ministers would review the decision in December", the decision provides an important respite from the administration's continuing attempt to trap US foreign policy in the neocon legacy.

Yesterday, US Senate Republicans agreed to begin debate on the Feingold-Reid anti-war bill because they said the debate would give them time to hail progress in Iraq.  The bill would "provide for the safe redeployment of United States troops from Iraq."

Now, Feingold is asking for help in the anti-war effort.

The 'war on terror' and the Afghanistan/Iraq war, as reflected in the news published six years ago, January 29,2002:

Developments in the 'war on terror' and the then-coming war against Iraq, as reflected in the news published six years ago, January 27,2002.

Late last year, Chris Dodd lead a temporarily successful Senate opposition to telecom immunity without help from the other Democratic presidential candidates.

In the comments related to Smintheus' recent article, "Due process at Guantánamo", another contributor said,

What specific evidence do you have that overwhelming majority of the Guantanamo inmates  weren't 'captured' on the 'battlefield' (they were turned in for a bounty in Pakistan or some other country).
Not just some, mind you, but overwhelming majority.

And even if that were true, I fail to see what difference that makes if the people turned over for bounty were subject to capture and detention.  In other words, if, for instance, al-Zarqawi were turned over for bounty, what difference would that make to his status as unlawful combatant?

Let's discuss the two issues raised: 1) how were the prisoners were detained? and 2) what difference does it make?

Chris Dodd led a (at least temporarily) successful fight against telecom immunity in the Senate yesterday.

He should be rewarded.

Talking about him a majority leader, replacing Harry Reid, is not a reward as long as he continues his campaign for the presidential nomination.

His reward should be support for what he wants for himself as long as he continues to want it.  

The time to talk about the Senate leadership will only come after he withdraws from the current campaign.

One aspect of the problem with telecom immunity and FISA is the abuse of intelligence briefing procedures by the Bush administration.

From 2001 through 2006 the Bush administration gave key intelligence briefings to only selected members of Congress, not to the entire intelligence committees.  This practice may have been illegal.  

Now, Congress should take the initiative to prevent a recurrence of this pratice by outlawing the restricted briefings.

The old fighter wakes up on his stool in the corner.  His trainer is standing in front of him, leaning forward and fanning him with the towel that he had thrown into the ring just moments before.  "Wha happnt?", says the fighter.

That's the story with the Senate Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act which was the subject of an anticipatory article here in September, but which has been abandoned in the House.

The ACLU has organized a call-in/email action in support of effort to prevent telecom immunity.

The action is simple and can be varied from emails to personal phone calls, according to how much time and effort you have available.

Here's a contact for the email campaign at the ACLU: Tell Your Senators: Don't Let Lawbreakers off the Hook

It would be funny, if it weren't more frustrating, that Harry Reid is being vilified in comments to Kagro X's "What's the status of telecom amnesty", at the very same moment that other people (at least I hope it's other people) are extolling him because of his decision to hold the Senate in session over the break, as reported in
Plutonium Page>"'s "Midday Open Thread".

This morning's print version (not yet online as of 11:am CST) of the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, the main daily paper of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, confirms yesterday's diary by bleeding heart that Russ Feingold will oppose the nomination of Michael Mukasey for attorney general.