The War on Terror: Where Are We Now? Where Do We Go from Here?

The always fantastic Sentinel, a publication of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center is now available on-line, here. 

There is an interesting line up of articles on al Qaeda specifically, and the jihadist threat more broadly.  Included are:

• The Façade of Allegiance: Bin Ladin’s Dubious Pledge to Mullah Omar by Vahid Brown
• Assessing the Al-Qa`ida Threat to the United States by Martha Crenshaw
• The Pakistan Military’s Adaptation to Counterinsurgency in 2009 by Sameer Lalwani
• Karachi Becoming a Taliban Safe Haven? By Imtiaz Ali
• Uighur Dissent and Militancy in China’s Xinjiang Province by Chris Zambelis
• Ninawa Province: Al-Qa`ida’s Remaining Stronghold by Andrea Plebani
• The French Approach to Counterterrorism by Charles Rault

Exactly one year has passed since President Obama declared he would close Guantanamo.

And today, The Washington Post reports that his Department of Justice Task Force will recommend “that nearly 50 of the 196 detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war.”  How long will we have to wait before human rights groups begin to call President Obama a war criminal?  How long until those who called for President Bush’s indictment by an international tribunal make the same call? 

Don’t hold your breath.  Back in 2005 Amnesty International called Guantanamo “the Gulag of our times”  equating the Bush administration to war criminals.  Now, their tune has moderated –of course in their eyes it is still bad that Guantanamo remains open– but they’ve toned down their Gulag language and now we hear “people around the world who care about human rights and the rule of law will be extremely disheartened” by President Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo.  Disheartened is probably an improvement from the dyspepsia which gripped most of these people during the Bush administration. 

Not to be outdone in moderation, Anthony Romero of the ACLU blandly stated Read the full entry »

This video shows the “rehabilitation” program in Saudi Arabia which former GITMO detainees were sent to.  One program graduate, Said Ali al-Shihiri is second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was a key planner of the christmas bombing plot.  Note how the prison is a palace and the rehabilitation center is akin to a luxury resort.  Between this and Uighurs in Bermuda, it’s no wonder that al Qaeda recruiting is up. 

Thanks to Marc Thiessen for the pointer.

Bobby Chesney at the University of Texas prepared a handy list of National Security Law related events at the AALS conference in New Orleans January 6-10, 2010.  I’ve included the list below. 

Read the full entry »