Terrorism

Today, Greg Craig, the White House's top legal advisor, stepped down from the post he once described as his dream job. The speculation over the much-respected lawyer's resignation has been swirling for months, reaching a fever pitch back in October, when the New York Times published a story on the controversy in the White House office of legal counsel.

Craig's resignation comes on the day the administration announced it will    try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- among the tougher Guantanamo cases from a prosecutorial stance, given that he was tortured and that the government hopes to seek the death penalty -- in federal court a few blocks from Ground Zero.

The most obvious reason (Craig gave none specifically in his resignation note) is that he was the person charged with closing the facility at Guantanamo Bay, determining how to relocate and try all of the detainees. When Obama came into office, he promised it would be done by Jan. 22, 2010. It will not, likely costing Craig his job. The October Times story explained:

When an administration stumbles, whispers begin and fingers point in search of someone to blame. At a certain point, assumptions can become self-fulfilling, and an official in the cross hairs finds it harder to do the job. In Mr. Craig’s case, friends said he was unfairly being made a scapegoat for decisions supported across the administration.

It is, of course, not a good thing that the administration has stumbled in its goal of closing Guantanamo. But it is worth considering that it isn't really Craig's fault at all.

Gitmo, ultimately, isn't closed because Craig did not take any of the easy ways out. He could have moved all of the prisoners to Bagram or another overseas military facility. He could have tried all of them in military commissions, the legal process jerry-rigged by the Bush administration. Because, in part, of Craig's insistence on taking each case separately and at least trying to conform to U.S. law, Guantanamo remains open.

It is a much lesser sin than what came before it. Craig is stepping down less due to his own failures than due to the extralegal maneuvering of the Bush administration. Lawyers like John Yoo and David Addington made a mockery of due process back then, and their sins are now being revisited upon members of the Obama administration. If anyone should have to answer for Greg Craig's job, it is John Yoo.

Today, an Italian court convicted 23 U.S. citizens, 22 of them acknowledged as CIA agents, for the daylight abduction and "extraordinary rendition" of cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, better known as Abu Omar.

The CIA snatched Abu Omar off of a street in Milan in 2002, sending him to the U.S. base in Ramstein, Germany, and then to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.

Adam Serwer at the American Prospect asks: "This case has always puzzled me -- Italy is an ally. Why was extraordinary rendition necessary? Such methods are usually reserved for apprehending individuals in countries that are not friendly to the United States precisely because those countries won't cooperate."

It's a good question, with a somewhat queasy answer: the CIA did it, I presume, because it was the most efficient way to do it, and, at the time, the CIA operated in extralegal channels with impunity. (The case that always confused me most was that of Ahmed Agiza -- human-rights respecting U.S. ally Sweden actually participated in that one.)

And it seems the Italian court is ensuring the CIA knows there's no impunity now, even if the only real effect is that former Milan station chief Robert Lady needs to cancel his European vacations. 

When you think about communist propaganda, you might think of Stalin glaring down at you from a wall, happy workers singing in strangely clean factories and well-thumbed copies of Mao's little red book.

But it's the twenty-first century, and even commies must keep up with the times. A dissident faction of Peru's Shining Path -- VRAE -- is now making its case online, with a website and You Tube uploads of revolutionarily inspiring songs. 

The songs performed by a VRAE leader in the Andean musical style of Huayño assure the listener that:

Imperialism will be defeated/socialism will flower the world/ imperialism, mainly genocidal Yankees, sucks the blood of the millions of poor around the world/to combat them, to defeat them, is our task/to annihilate them with our forces is our obligation."

 
But, the political analysis on their website is even better. They tear apart the jailed Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman, labeling him a "revisionist" and a terrorist, and criticize governments such as Nepal, Hamas and Bolivia for practicing pseudo-socialism.

The tract reads like a blast from the past, as if the Amazon fosters active denial of lost battles (many Japanese immigrants in Brazil famously denied their emperor's defeat for nearly a decade). In a shout out to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, they call him the natural leader of socialism, upon whom it is incumbent to lead the armed fight against Yankee imperialism. They urge unity in this:

We must put to one side the narrow nationalism which is very noxious and damaging ... [and which is] parasitically fomented by Yankee imperialism and its lackeys."

Extra points for their genious use of the word lackey together with Yankee imperialism-- when's the last time you heard that one?

While it's all song and talk -- and assurances of democratic intentions -- on the internet, Peruvian authorities are somewhat concerned about the possibility of the narco-terrorist group recruiting more followers. Leaders from the main Shining Path group, which put down arms a decade ago, are contemplating running for office in upcoming Peruvian elections.

Just six months ago, the Kremlin declared "mission accomplished" in settling the restive, largely-Muslim region of Chechnya, and pledged to withdraw at least half its troops stationed there. Russian soldiers have allegedly resorted to brutal tactics in the decade-long effort to subdue the region, including the systematic beating and raping of Chechen civilians, widespread detention and torture, and the murder of human rights and opposition activists.

But the Kremlin has claimed victory in the regional struggle time and time again, and the most recent claims of success seem as wrong as ever; yesterday the Georgian Daily reported that "Moscow is planning to increase the number of units in the North Caucasus military district by a factor of four, according to officers there..." The plans come amidst an escalating Islamic insurgency in Ingushetia, the region bordering Chechnya to the west.  

There's no doubt that the Kremlin is facing a protracted struggle. Doku Umarov, one of the most prominent members of the insurgency (who has been reported dead on a number of occasions) released a lengthy statement in 2007 on the Al-Qaeda affiliated website Kavkaz Center, in which he declared Muslim rule:

 I reject all laws and systems established by infidels in the land of Caucasus.

I reject and declare outlawed all names used by infidels to divide Muslims.

I declare outlawed ethnic, territorial and colonial zones carrying names of "North-Caucasian republics", "Trans-Caucasian republics" and such like.

I am officially declaring of creation of the Caucasus Emirate...

We will relentlessly wage war on everyone who will oppose the establishment of the Sharia, Inshaallah. And those who openly violate that which was established by Allah and scorn the Islamic religion should not think that we will leave it unpunished. That is a serious delusion."

Photo:  KAZBEK BASAYEV/AFP/Getty Images

A large contingent of American bands have joined the Close Gitmo Now campaign in direct protest of the use of their music during torture practices at Guantanamo Bay. The new campaign is led by two retired generals: Lieutenant General Robert Gard and Brigadier General John Johns. Robert Gard has spoken out in defense of the musicians, stating:

"The musicians' music 'was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration's misguided policies'."

Popular artists such as REM, Pearl Jam, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Morello, Billy Bragg, Michelle Branch, Jackson Browne, and The Roots have signed an open letter to Congress requesting the declassification of government records concerning how music was utilized during "futility" interrogation tactics - making the prisoner feel hopeless while exploiting his psychological, moral, and sociological weaknesses.

Tom Morellon of Rage Against the Machine fame has expressed his peronsal rage against Dick Cheney:

"Guantanamo is known around the world as one of the places where human beings have been tortured - from water boarding, to stripping, hooding and forcing detainees into humiliating sexual acts - playing music for 72 hours in a row at volumes just below that to shatter the eardrums. Guantanamo may be Dick Cheney's idea of America, but it's not mine.  The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me - we need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."

But don't except every rock band to jump on board, some view the use of their music at Gitmo as an honor.

Above, Zach de la Rocha of Rage Against The Machine performs during the 2008 Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Target Center September 3, 2008 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Eric Thayer/Stringer/Getty Images

New York Times journalist David Rohde's account of his kidnapping and subsequent escape from Taliban militants affiliated with the Haqqani network in North Waziristan region of Pakistan makes for riveting reading. It's an amazing story, and one has to admire Rohde's fortitude and survival instincts during his seven-month ordeal.

Read all of it, but I just have one comment about this bit from the epilogue:

My suspicions about the relationship between the Haqqanis and the Pakistani military proved to be true. Some American officials told my colleagues at The Times that Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, turns a blind eye to the Haqqanis' activities. Others went further and said the ISI provided money, supplies and strategic planning to the Haqqanis and other Taliban groups.

Pakistani officials told my colleagues that the contacts were part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan to prevent India, Pakistan's archenemy, from gaining a foothold. One Pakistani official called the Taliban "proxy forces to preserve our interests."

Meanwhile, the Haqqanis continue to use North Waziristan to train suicide bombers and bomb makers who kill Afghan and American forces. They also continue to take hostages.

We'll see how long this relationship holds, but if you need any convincing that the ISI at least tacitly allows the Haqqani folks to do their thing unmolested, consider this: To get to South Waziristan, where the Pakistani Army is engaged in a fierce battle with the Pakistani Taliban around the Makin area, which is dominated by the Mehsud tribal grouping, some units had to drive through North Waziristan. In fact, they drove right through the center of Miram Shah, the regional capital and Haqqani stronghold where Rohde made his escape -- and there was just one isolated IED attack along the way.

What does that tell us? At a minimum, it tells us that the powers that be in North Waziristan are being very cooperative and not coming to the Mehsuds' aid. And supposedly, the Haqqanis and their local allies, led by another Pakistani Taliban leader named Hafiz Gul Bahadar, have explicitly pledged not to interfere. The Pakistani military has struck a number of much-criticized peace deals with Bahadar over the last few years, and some say the security establishment in Rawalpindi is all too happy to keep this relationship alive so long as the Haqqanis and Bahadar only launch attacks in Afghanistan, not at home.

American officials have been hinting in recent weeks, however, that the Pakistani military is simply tackling one challenge at a time -- the Mehsuds -- and the Haqqanis may be next on their hit list. That's certainly what AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke and Amb. Ann Patterson seem to be telling Frontline, though one can detect a little daylight between the two U.S. diplomats. In Holbrooke's words, the Pakistanis "are quite clear in their own minds that Haqqani poses a threat to both Afghanistan and Pakistan." Patterson says, "[W]e're working with them on these, and I think they increasingly see these [other] groups as a threat as well" -- but Pakistan is not willing to turn on them yet.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is still conducting airstrikes in North Waziristan, which is still teeming with foreign militants and where it's widely thought that Osama bin Laden has hidden out at one point or another during the last few years. This is definitely a story to watch.

The indisputable logic of the Pakistani Taliban:

Meanwhile, a Taliban group also sent two letters to the Lahore Press Club – one on October 12 and the other on October 14 – warning that if the media “does not stop portraying us as terrorists ... we will blow up offices of journalists and media organisations”.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders won an appeal lifting his travel ban to the United Kingdom. He was barred from entering the country after British officials deemed him a risk to the public order. Wilders, who wants to ban the Koran, called the reversal a victory for free speech.

Depending on who you ask, Wilders is either a hateful Islamophobe who wants to incite violence against Muslims or a  a common sense leader who doesn't want his government's tax money going toward unemployment checks for al-Qaeda bloggers, like it is in Belgium. Either way, he still faces trial in his native Holland for inciting hatred.

After being turned back at Heathrow Airport in February, Wilders appealed the ban, won, and plans to return to the UK next week at the request of Lord Pearson and his conservative UK Independence Party. There he will screen Fitna for the House of Lords. After Wilders was banned from the UK, Pearson said the government was appeasing militant Islam.

British authorities said of the reversal of the ban, "We are disappointed by the court's decision. The government opposes extremism in all of its forms."

Wilders claimed he isn't an extremist.

"I'm not doing anything wrong," he said. "I'm not protesting or running through the streets of London."

Passport reported on Wilders' visit to Washington in February. 

MARCEL ANTONISSE/AFP/Getty Images