Honduras institutes ICJ proceedings against Brazil

This article originally appeared in the online digest of the Harvard International Law Journal.

The interim government of Honduras has filed a complaint against Brazil in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Court announced on October 29. The complaint arises from events surrounding the surprise return to Honduras of Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, who entered the country on September 21 and took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. Specifically, Honduras charges that Mr. Zelaya and an unknown number of other Honduran citizens have been using the Embassy as a “platform for political propaganda” with the complicity of Embassy staff and thereby “threatening the peace and internal public order of Honduras.” Honduras has requested declaratory and injunctive relief from the ICJ.

The legal bases of Honduras’s complaint are Article 2 (7) of the UN Charter, which reserves to member states matters which are “essentially within [their] domestic jurisdiction,” and the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. As a practical matter, Honduras’s complaint is only one element of a broader political and diplomatic offensive aimed at preventing Mr. Zelaya from returning to power before the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for November 29. It is unclear whether the ICJ will agree to hear the complaint, which was filed by an interim administration that many international observers consider illegitimate. Current efforts toward national reconciliation may also determine whether the case goes forward.

For more information, please click here.

Demise of American grand strategy

I'd like to point out that I haven't been linking to NYT as much now that I started using Google Reader (don't worry NYT, I still love you). This is from James Goldgeier, writing in CFR about American "strategic drift" since the fall of the Berlin Wall:

"What became clear by the time Bill Clinton became president was that formulating a simple and relevant new strategic purpose for the United States was no easy task. Clinton often harangued his aides for failing to come up with a Kennanesque vision, believing that he needed a replacement for containment to explain his foreign policy to the American people. His top State Department advisers even arranged a dinner in 1994 with Kennan, who was still going strong at age 90. The old master's response to their quest? Forget the bumper sticker, he said, the world was now too complex. Try, instead, he suggested, "for a thoughtful paragraph or two."

Kennan had hit upon a central truth of the post-Cold War world: with no single enemy and a range of diverse challenges--including proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, climate change, pandemics, terrorism, the rise of new great powers, and globalization--there would be no bumper sticker."

Climate change and human rights law

From Opinio Juris:

"I argue that the solution is to look to the duty of international cooperation, which requires states to try to act as a single global polity to address the global threat of climate change. By providing a basis for the application of the environmental human rights jurisprudence, this approach would allow states some flexibility as to the substance of their joint decisions, but only if they follow procedures designed to ensure full, well-informed participation by those most affected. Moreover, the substance of decisions that result from such processes would not be entitled to complete deference: under no conditions could states allow climate change to destroy the human rights of the most vulnerable."

U.N. Rapporteur questions legal basis of U.S. Predator program

This article originally appeared in the online digest of the Harvard International Law Journal.

The legality of the U.S. Government’s use of unmanned Predator drones to target militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan has recently come under increasing scrutiny, as a prominent U.N. representative called the American refusal to discuss the program “untenable”. Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, made his remarks while reiterating requests for the U.S. to provide information on the legal rationale for its use of the drones, the mechanisms it uses to review the program, and the precautions it takes to make sure its air strikes conform with international law.

The debate over the legality of remote-controlled air strikes turns largely on the question of whether the American pursuit of terrorists represents an active armed conflict analogous to a conventional war between nations. As such, the debate over the drones is one example of the broader disagreement which has resulted from the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) to the “war on terror.” IHL, which regulates armed conflict between states, requires the existence of an active conflict, and only applies within the geographic limits of that conflict. Within these limits, IHL authorizes the killing of enemy combatants, including remotely, subject to limitations meant to assure that the use of force is necessary, minimally injurious to civilians, and proportional to expected military gains. Outside a zone of active conflict, however, IHL does not apply, and the U.S. ability to kill individuals without according them due process of law is restrained by a 1976 executive order against assassinations and, arguably, by international human rights law.

While some observers would call Afghanistan a zone of active conflict, far fewer would apply that description to Pakistan, and drones operated by the C.I.A. have been active in targeting militants there, including Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in August. American drones have also targeted militants in Yemen. In extending IHL to cover these strikes, supporters of the program have argued for the application of IHL wherever terrorists are found, not merely within geographically bounded zones of conflict. This is a novel argument, and as such, the use of Predators to target individuals outside the “war zones” of Afghanistan and Iraq arguably represents a violation of international law. It also represents a sharp departure from pre-9/11 U.S. policy, when C.I.A. drones were limited to conducting surveillance and the U.S. Government criticized Israel for conducting targeted killings of Palestinian militants.

Supporters of the C.I.A. program have argued that, whether or not IHL applies to the air strikes, they are lawful under both the UN Charter and the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) as a form of “anticipatory self-defense.” But opponents point to the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention in the affairs of other states, arguing that individuals outside active war zones should be brought to justice through domestic processes of law. The question of whether the air strikes are proportional under IHL is also debated; the New Yorker reports that the effort to kill Baitullah Mehsud involved a series of 15 air strikes killing more than 200 other people. Finally, the loosening of geographic restrictions on state-sanctioned lethal force raises the uncomfortable prospect of an amorphous, global definition of conflict, which other states or non-state actors could potentially use to target Americans.

The practical value of the C.I.A. program is also debated. While the use of Predators has been credited with eliminating numerous Al Qaeda leaders and sowing confusion within the organization, it has also led to many civilian casualties, which has rallied anti-American sentiment in the very places where the U.S. is trying hardest to win “hearts and minds.” Another criticism of the program is that electing to kill terrorists rather than capture and interrogate them reduces the intelligence the U.S. can gather on its enemies; proponents of this argument point to the potential information value of Saad bin Laden, one of Osama’s sons, who was killed by a Predator strike in Pakistan. Finally, the recent inclusion of prominent Afghan drug traffickers on the list of acceptable targets has led critics to wonder whether there is any coherent policy limiting the use of the drones to individuals who pose a direct threat to the United States.

Whatever the legal and practical arguments for or against the use of unmanned air strikes against non-state actors, they are unlikely to end in the near future. In the rugged, inaccessible areas where many militants operate, the U.S. Government often believes that it has no good alternatives to the drones. Facing resistance to its plans to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, the Obama administration may make remote-controlled warfare an ever more central part of its counterterrorism strategy.

For more information, please click here and here.

Abdullah defends decision to withdraw from election

In this video from the BBC. Analysis from NYT is here.

HuffPo: Abdullah to boycott runoff

"Karzai rejected Abdullah Abdullah's conditions for next Saturday's vote, including removing top election officials whom the challenger accused of involvement in cheating in the first-round balloting in August. Abdullah has called a press conference for 10 a.m. Sunday to announce his final decision after Afghans and Westerners close to the challenger said he would withdraw. His campaign manager Satar Murad said the candidate might still change his mind, but that "as of now" he planned to call for a boycott. A clouded electoral picture would further complicate the Obama administration's efforts to decide whether to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies." Full story is here.

Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission finds need for runoff

The NYT is reporting that Karzai is resisting the Commission's report, deepening Afghanistan's ongoing constitutional crisis. Certification of the results by the Independent Election Commission is expected to lead either to a runoff or to a power-sharing agreement between Karzai and Dr. Abdullah, his closest challenger.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: Say what?

The announcement that a person whom I greatly respect and admire has won a Nobel Peace Prize, you might think, would fill me with a sense of satisfaction. Not so the announcement, on Friday, that President Obama had won this prestigious accolade less than nine months into his first term. Don't get me wrong: I, like many other people who are scratching their heads over this unexpected turn of events, remain a staunch Obama supporter. I believe that, in both foreign and domestic policy, he has been making sensible decisions, setting the right tone, and generally doing as well as can be expected under the (very challenging) circumstances. But let's be honest: Obama's accomplishments to date have consisted of staffing up executive agencies, putting out a few of the many fires left by the Bush administration, and taking preliminary steps toward his other policy objectives. While very arguably the right moves to be making at this time, these are hardly the stuff of Nobel Peace Prizes, and the major challenges of the Obama administration are not only unresolved, but perhaps even unknown.

The Nobel Committee's reasoning in awarding the prize more or less acknowledged the above:

"Announcing the award, the Nobel committee cited Mr. Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and said that he had "created a new climate in international politics." In a four-paragraph statement, it praised Mr. Obama for his tone, his preference for negotiation and multilateral diplomacy and his vision of a cooperative world of shared values, shorn of nuclear weapons. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population."

The suspicion on most sides seems to be that the Committe's decision is less a reflection of the young administration's accomplishments than of Europe's relief to have a new face in the White House:

"For a world that at times felt pushed around by a more unilateralist Bush administration, the prize for Mr. Obama seemed wrapped in gratitude for his willingness to listen and negotiate, as well as for his positions on climate change and nuclear disarmament."

Um, right. As numerous commentators have noted, the prize is likely to represent more of a liability than a benefit for the president as he tries to move forward with his agenda; the perception that he is playing better in Europe than at home will feed right into the Republicans' stock arguments. Having heard so much about the potential for outside intervention in other countries to create political backlash, we may be getting a taste of it ourselves.

Map of Afghan election results

The Afghan Independent Election Commission's map of preliminary results by province is here. The counting is progressing more slowly than expected; preliminary nationwide results were expected two days ago. Instead, only 17% of the vote has been counted. Within that 17%, Karzai leads Abdullah by 44% to 35%. Thanks to Paul Hamill.

Breaking news: Pajhwok calling election for Karzai

This doesn't seem to have been picked up by major news services, but Afghan independent news agency Pajhwok is reporting that, with approximately two thirds of the votes counted, Karzai is heading toward an outright victory with 70% of the vote. Official preliminary results are not expected until Tuesday. In the contest between election-rigging and voter intimidation, rigging may have won.

Abdullah for Afghanistan

For whatever it's worth, I want to go on record as endorsing Dr. Abdullah Abdullah for president of Afghanistan. Elections are scheduled for tomorrow and the BBC is reporting that voter registration cards are on sale in Kabul for $10. Compare that, by the way, to the Lebanese elections, where political parties were offering expats round trip airfare in return for their votes.

As a foreigner, I'm not sure whether I'm formally entitled to an opinion, but I have one. As my friend Graeme said, if you approve of the way things are going in your country, vote for the incumbent. If you don't, vote for someone in the opposition who isn't crazy. I think both Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani fit this bill, and Abdullah seems to be the only opposition candidate who is polling well enough to potentially send the election to a runoff.

Elizabeth Rubin's recent NYT piece offered a revealing glimpse of Karzai's descent into cronyism, remoteness, and the politics of self-preservation:

"Other close friends of Karzai describe his leadership style as a kind of three-card monte where you never know which card will appear. One card is tribal. “His father was head of the tribe, and in tribal culture you depend on loyalty of individuals rather than institutions,” said Ali Jalali, his former interior minister and a friend from refugee days in Pakistan. “You always try to be a patron to people close and loyal to you.” The second is the factional politics of resistance in Peshawar, where mujahedin leaders organized their resistance to the Soviet occupation. “Jihadi politics is mostly wheeling, dealing, no strategy, all tactical,” Jalali continued. “Please people here. Break promises there.” And the third is democracy. He cherishes the values of democracy but has no faith in its institutions. “How he reconciles these competing demands creates his style of leadership,” Jalali said. In reality, said another friend, “he sees human rights, freedom of the press, the law, the constitution as chains around his hands and legs.”"

Against this backdrop, Abdullah has been running on a platform of change which has borrowed rhetorically from the Obama campaign:

"I'm asking you to believe not only in my ability to bring about necessary change and hope in our beloved country, Afghanistan, but I'm also asking you to believe in your own potential to change the course of our history."

Specifically, Abdullah advocates devolution of power from the imperial presidency crafted by Karzai and his international backers, including through the direct election of provincial governors and a greater role for the parliament. He also advocates national reconciliation through a more meaningful dialogue with the Talibs and other extremist elements, although as numerous observers have pointed out, that is likely to be easier said than done.

While fake voter registration cards proliferate, the Taliban has stepped up violence in the lead-up to the election and plans to attack polling stations, which is likely to disproportionately affect the Pashtun south (see here for discussion of recent polling). Under these circumstances, not only the outcome but also the legitimacy of the election and its chance of producing a result which will be broadly credible to the Afghan people all seem to be anyone's guess.

Countdown to the Afghan elections

Presidential elections in Afghanistan are now only a few weeks away, scheduled to take place on August 20. Within the past few weeks, a challenger to the deeply unpopular president, Hamid Karzai, has emerged in Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, an optometrist and former foreign minister. As the NYT is reporting, Abdullah has been drawing crowds across the country by giving voice to widespread discontent over corruption and incompetence within the Karzai administration. Most interesting to me are Abdullah's policy positions on parliamentary and local governance, which match my observations and also parallel some of Thomas Barfield's recommendations:

"Today, Dr. Abdullah, with a diplomat and a surgeon as his running mates, is seen as part of a younger generation of Afghans keen to move away from the nation’s reliance on warlords and older mujahedeen leaders and to clean up and recast the practice of governing. To do that, he advocates the devolution of power from the strong presidency built up under Mr. Karzai to a parliamentary system that he says will be more representative. He is also calling for a system of electing officials for Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and nearly 400 districts as a way to build support for the government."

The significant power built up by Karzai, reflected in the constitution and implemented in cooperation with then-ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, has come at the price of both the Afghan parliament and local governance. The parliament, to which my friend Michael Metrinko served as a liaison, has been largely marginalized, including in the lawmaking process, while Afghanistan's 34 provincial governors, appointed directly by the president with no direct accountability to their constituents, represent a constant source of corruption and mismanagement.

Although Karzai's popularity has been hovering around a dismal 30%, he is still seen as the most likely winner of the upcoming election. This is partly because of the widespread fraud which is expected to accompany the process; in combination with security concerns, this will likely serve to keep people away from the polls. Karzai also benefits from his ability, as the recipient of international aid money, to strike alliances with influential power-brokers, to campaign on the international dime, and to control state-run media. Interestingly, he ducked out of a recent debate with Dr. Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani on Tolo TV, an independent station, leaving an empty lectern as a telling symbol of his administration.

Although Karzai looks likely to win, some factors may play to his disadvantage. The most important of these is the deep-seated dissatisfaction of ordinary Afghans, who have seen growth stagnate and security deteriorate in spite of the billions of dollars that have poured into the country. Karzai may also be hurt by the security situation in the heavily-Pashtun south, which may disproportionately affect members of his ethnic group. The Obama administration, while ramping up military assistance to Afghanistan (as it should), has taken steps to distance itself from the Karzai administration. Under the circumstances, the best outcome may be a runoff, which will result if no candidate captures a majority of the vote.

Conflicts in cyberspace

At the risk of becoming a blog that does nothing but comment on New York Times stories, the NYT is reporting that the US and Russia are expected to continue discussions, during President Obama's visit to Russia this week, on Russia's proposal for an international treaty to limit offensive cyberwarfare capabilities. The US, which has so far opposed calls for such a treaty, instead favors a defensive approach which focuses on better security and increased cooperation between law enforcement agencies, which it hopes will reduce network vulnerability to attacks from both rogue operators and governments.

This discussion comes in the wake of an upsurge of interest in cybersecurity and online warfare; the Obama administration recently undertook a review of USG cybersecurity coordination, resulting in the creation of a White House coordinator for cybersecurity, while the US Military is in the process of creating Cybercom, a new command for offensive and defensive cyberwarfare. The UK and Russia, among other countries, have also stepped up their efforts. This is from President Obama's remarks on the review, in which he revealed, among other things, that his presidential campaign had been hacked:

"This new approach starts at the top, with this commitment from me: From now on, our digital infrastructure -- the networks and computers we depend on every day -- will be treated as they should be: as a strategic national asset. Protecting this infrastructure will be a national security priority. We will ensure that these networks are secure, trustworthy and resilient. We will deter, prevent, detect, and defend against attacks and recover quickly from any disruptions or damage."

The administration's interest in cybersecurity, while forward-thinking and reflective of Candidate Obama's commitment to addressing unconventional threats, also responds to a number of recent incidents. In 2007, in what has been described as the first war in cyberspace, hackers (believed to be Russians or Russian Estonians) shut down much of Estonia's online infrastructure for several days in response to the Estonian government's removal of a monument to Russian soldiers. This sophisticated attack (the article is well worth reading) used a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) mechanism, launched from both dedicated and rented botnets, to cyber-pwn the offices of the president and prime minister, parliament, and Estonia's largest bank. In 2008, as Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, hackers took down Georgian government and military networks (see here for a list of suggested targets). In 2001, after a US Navy surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter, hackers launched coordinated attacks on USG networks; malware has reportedly been found on computers at the Pentagon and NASA. Israeli networks regularly block attacks believed to come from Palestinian groups, and Danish servers were targeted after the 2005 publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Like conventional terrorism, cyberwarfare presents an opportunity for states, and their sympathizers (known in this case as "hacktivists"), to advance their interests while maintaining plausible deniability; although the Estonian government claims that Russian government IP addresses were involved in the 2007 incident, and both Russia and China are believed to have developed offensive capabilities, the use of botnets makes it difficult to trace responsibility (at least without active cooperation from the countries in which the attacks originated), and perpetrators of online attacks are rarely caught. Or, to quote the New Yorker cartoon where two dogs are sitting at a computer, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog." This is from Global Dashboard's Peter Hodge:

"The Russians and the Chinese appear to run a decentralized model, outsourcing cyber-war to shadowy civilian groups. The advantages of this approach include deniability, flexibility, access to the latest tactics and weapons, and being able to draw on the best talent available (hackers, IT workers, online gamers)."

For example, security pundit John Robb blames the Russian Business Network (RBN), an online crime syndicate, for the attack on Estonia and foresees a growing strategic advantage for countries that are willing to operate cyberwarfare through third parties. Evgeny Morozov, writing in Slate, describes how easy it is to become one of those third parties, using readily downloadable applications to flood servers with information (click here for cool movies of malicious activity). Hodge's conclusion is that the best response to outsourced attacks may be an outsourced defense:

"So, rather than set-up a hierarchical government unit, a better strategy for countering cyber-attack could be to form a flat network of experts, set a general operational framework, give people the resources they need, then let them to go for it. And keep the managers and the HR people well away."

The implications of all this span defense, international relations, and trade. Interestingly, they also raise complex legal issues ranging from privacy to intellectual property to NATO's commitment to collective defense. The Berkman Center at HLS is doing interesting work in this area, especially (in the form of the OpenNet Initiative) in tracing government filtering of internet content. On that topic, Slate ran a piece on the Iranian government's success in controlling information, which has launched the logical equivalent of a DDoS attack on my previous post about how Twitter has facilitated the Tehran protests. Perhaps most interesting are the article's assertions that the Iranian government is using crowdsourcing to identify protesters and that Nokia and Siemens built the system the government is using to stifle dissent.

On the topic of corporate complicity with filtering, and last but not least in this international technology roundup, China has delayed the enforcement of its new rule, set to enter into effect today, that all computers sold in the country be equipped with "Green Dam" software, which allows the government to block "objectionable content," supposedly restricted to pornography but, according to leaked documents, also including numerous political buzzwords. According to the WSJ, China and Iran use different approaches to filter information:

"China's vaunted "Great Firewall," which is widely considered the most advanced and extensive Internet censoring in the world, is believed also to involve deep packet inspection. But China appears to be developing this capability in a more decentralized manner, at the level of its Internet service providers rather than through a single hub, according to experts. That suggests its implementation might not be as uniform as that in Iran, they said, as the arrangement depends on the cooperation of all the service providers."

The delay, which seems motivated partly the logistical impossibility of implementing the rule on the government's timeline, also reflects US objections regarding possible violation of free trade agreements and concern from computer manufacturers that the software may compromise the security of computers on which it's installed, which sort of brings us back to the beginning of this post. If you are keeping score, which someone should be, Sony, Lenovo, and Acer are reported to be making attempts to comply with the order; HP and Dell have been quiet about their plans.

US to halt Afghan poppy eradication

The NYT is reporting that Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has announced a major shift in US counter-narcotics policy in Afghanistan. The shift, which will align US policy more closely with the approach favored by the UN and European countries, will phase out eradication in favor of support for legitimate agriculture, interdiction, and rule of law.

This announcement represents a major change in US drug policy. It recognizes the fact that eradication efforts have largely failed in the face of resistance from the Afghan government, elements of which are widely acknowledged to be in on the drug trade, and lack of support from UN and NATO allies. It also recognizes a central paradox of supply reduction efforts: where eradication has been successful, it has driven up the price of opium, leading to the cultivation of new areas (see the balloon effect). Indeed, the international approach to drugs in Afghanistan has been such a disaster that some observers, notably the Senlis Council, have suggested legalizing production and selling the opium to the global pharmaceutical industry (this approach is not without its critcs). For more on all things drug-related, see my friend Nina's blog.

Although the shift away from eradication probably makes sense, the systems which the US will rely upon to fill the gap (legitimate agriculture, interdiction, the justice system, and the borders) are not exactly "ready for prime time." Legitimate agriculture has been destroyed by years of war and neglect, law enforcement is incompetent and corrupt, and both the formal justice system and the borders (both of which I worked on to some extent) are pretty nascent. Another piece of this puzzle is cooperation with Afghanistan's neighbors, especially Pakistan and Iran; Iran had originally been invited to the G8 meeting but, what with ruthlessly crushing dissent and everything, wasn't able to make it.

Afghanistan now produces 93% of the world's opium. If you ask me, the issue will only be addressed when the country is administered by a national government that legitimately wants to address it, and is willing to remove corrupt officials and confront local warlords in order to do so. That government is not the Karzai government, and Karzai looks set, despite massive unpopularity, to win another term in August.

New trial in Politkovskaya murder

The NYT is reporting that Russia's supreme court has ordered a new trial for four people who had been accused, and found not guilty, of complicity in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist and human rights advocate who had been a vocal critic of the Kremlin's wars in Chechnya:

"In ordering the retrial, the court sided with the prosecution, which argued that there had been procedural violations by the judges and the defense during the original trial, a court spokesman, Pavel Odintsov, said. Other critics, however, including President Dmitri A. Medvedev, cited the prosecution’s errors and unfamiliarity with the jury system, which is relatively new in Russia, in the acquittal."

I wrote an article in Gelf Magazine in 2006, in response to the killing, which argued that journalists should respond to the strategic murder of a journalist anywhere by descending en masse and conducting a thorough, long-term investigation:

"Each future killing of a journalist, when there is any suspicion that it may have been a deliberate attempt to thwart an investigation or silence a critic, should be met with a coordinated, world-wide, well-resourced, intensely publicized investigation that does not conclude, nor leave the front pages, until something like the truth has come out. Like most other decisions, the decision to kill a journalist must involve a calculation of risk and reward. I believe that a more deliberate response from the press, in the form of a predictably well-funded and determined investigation, could alter this calculation."

It's not clear why the Russian government has chosen to reopen the Politkovskaya case; if previous experience is any guide, it's as likely to be for political reasons as it is to be motivated by a desire for justice. In terms of my suggestion for a more coordinated response to the targeted killing of journalists, the progressive magazine In These Times, which still gets delivered to my ex-roommate Reihan, ran an interesting article on the decline of substantive news reporting in the United States:

"It is hardly surprising to learn that the U.S. news media ranked last in its coverage of international hard news, with only 15 percent of stories devoted to international affairs (nearly half of which were about Iraq). Finland’s international coverage is double. Thus, you’ll be even less surprised that the study found Americans are “especially uninformed about international public affairs,” while the Scandinavians emerged as the best informed. What do we excel at? Knowledge of soft news and its stars, like Britney Spears and Mel Gibson. Of those surveyed, 90 percent could identify them, whereas 62 percent didn’t know what the Kyoto Accords are. Americans know less about the world than the Finns, Danes or British because we “consume relatively little news in comparison to populations elsewhere.”"

If major news outlets are finding it difficult to devote space to, say, climate change, I guess sustained reporting on the murder of obscure journalists in dangerous places is going to be a hard sell. Maybe if each major celebrity in the US started dating a reporter from a repressive country?

As the Iran protests have shown, it's often not necessary to kill journalists in order to keep them from reporting on the news; threats and expulsion will usually do quite nicely. But then, with much of the news from Iran now being provided by ordinary people, the definition of "journalist" may be getting more difficult. In These Times had something to say about that too, arguing in the same issue that "citizen reporting" is no substitute for investigations by trained, experienced, full-time journalists. Ironically, the article is not yet available online.

Man, this is a long post! I can't wait until Boris reads it!

Tweeting the revolution

The NYT has an interesting article on the use of Twitter in the ongoing protests in Tehran over the Iranian presidential election. While acknowledging that other forms of communication, including websites and regular text messages, have played an arguably more important role than Twitter, the article points out several aspects of the new technology which have made it particularly useful. Most important is the fact that, as a tool rather than a website, Twitter has been essentially impossible to shut down:

"You do not have to visit the home site to send a message, or tweet. Tweets can originate from text-messaging on a cellphone or even blogging software. Likewise, tweets can be read remotely, whether as text messages or, say, “status updates” on a friend’s Facebook page. Unlike Facebook, which operates solely as a Web site that can be, in a sense, impounded, shutting down Twitter.com does little to stop the offending Twittering. You’d have to shut down the entire service, which is done occasionally for maintenance."

The article also quotes HLS cyberspace guru Jonathan Zittrain; I saw him give an awesome, hilarious presentation on internet law a few months ago. In addition to connecting the Tehran protesters with each other, social media technologies like Facebook and Twitter have been critical in getting information to international news outlets, which have been essentially blocked from sending reporters to the protests. For example, the mobile phone video of protester Neda Soltan bleeding to death after allegedly being shot by the Basij has been picked up by international news sources including CNN, provoking outrage both domestically and around the world.

Not coincidentally, the NYT is also reporting that Jared Cohen, a 27-year-old member of the State Department's policy planning staff, contacted Twitter last week to request a delay of scheduled maintenance which would have interrupted service during the protests. It seems that the State Department's use of communications technology, which previously focused on distributing books about Abraham Lincoln, may be catching up with the times.

Palau to accept Guantánamo Uighurs

News on Guantánamo is coming fast and furious; today the island nation of Palau announced that it would accept up to 17 Uighurs who are being held at Guantánamo. The case of the Uighurs (Chinese Muslims) has represented a particularly egregious stain on US detainee policy; the Bush Administration declined to classify them as enemy combatants, essentially admitting that it had no case against them, and a US federal district court ordered last fall that they should be released into the United States. As the NYT points out, the administration hopes to begin cutting down the numbers at Guantánamo by releasing prisoners which it doesn't believe to be a threat to the United States, and by trying in civilian courts the prisoners it thinks it can convict there:

"The Obama administration has been negotiating actively with European and other governments to resettle 50 detainees, who it says are cleared for transfer. Since Mr. Obama took office, the United States has transferred one detainee to France and one to Britain. On Tuesday, it sent the first detainee to the United States to face charges in federal court."

In a sense, these two categories of detainees are the "easy part;" the third group of prisoners, those whom the administration believes are a threat to the United States but, for various reasons, it cannot convict in civilian courts, will represent the most thorny challenge in the effort to close Guantánamo.

Guantánamo detainee on trial in New York

More news on Guantánamo: a former detainee has been arraigned in US civilian court in Manhattan. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, pleaded not guilty to charges that he abetted the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam. His appearance in civilian court seems to provide further evidence of the Obama Administration's willingness to seek the most expedient solution to the Guantánamo detainees on a case-by-case basis, and specifically to use civilian courts to try everyone it deems convictable there; we previously reported that the Justice Department was working up analysis on this. The NYT reports:

"Mr. Ghailani’s appearance in the packed courtroom on Tuesday came after President Obama’s announcement last month that he would be transferred to civilian court as part of the effort to close Guantánamo. The president said the plan was to try terrorism suspects in federal courts “whenever feasible.”"

Closing Guantánamo was a central promise of Candidate Obama's national security platform, but it has so far proved easier said than done, partly because of significant push-back from Congress on the idea of transferring detainees to the United States. Nevertheless, the fact that some movement is happening represents a profound change from the approach of the previous administration, which seemed content to leave hundreds of prisoners, some of whom it had essentially admitted to be innocent of any crime, in a perpetual legal black hole.

Spain opens inquiry on Guantánamo

The NYT is reporting that Spain has opened a judicial inquiry into the question of whether USG officials committed torture in their interrogations of Guantánamo detainees.

Wait, what? How does a Spanish court have any claim to jurisdiction over the actions of Americans in Cuba? It's not, as would make slightly more sense, because one of the detainees in question is a Spanish citizen. No, it's because of "Spain's observance of the principle of universal justice."

"Garzon said he was acting under Spain's observance of the principle of universal justice, which allows crimes allegedly committed in other countries to be prosecuted in Spain."

Ouch! So now Spain can prosecute me for offenses supposedly committed anywhere in the world? I'm as much against torture as the next guy, but isn't that a significant expansion of jurisdiction? Can Spain prosecute me for breaking the laws of my own country in my own country? For breaking Spanish laws in my own country? For breaking "international laws?" I feel like I need an informational brochure on this.

"Garzon cited media accounts of the documents and said he would ask the U.S. to send the documents to him."

Ooh, so sorry, national secrets and all...sure you understand.

Bagram detainees gain access to U.S. courts

A U.S. District Court judge ruled today that three non-Afghan detainees who are currently being held at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. This ruling extends the Supreme Court's ruling, in Boumediene v. Bush, that detainees at Guantánamo could do the same thing (see this post for a discussion of who remains at Guantánamo).

In related news, I attended a talk a few days ago by NYU Law professor Stephen Schulhofer, who argued that the U.S. civilian criminal justice system is flexible enough to try the Guantánamo detainees, even accounting for questions of classified evidence, hearsay, and possibly torture. In contrast to the opinion, expressed elsewhere, that the Bush administration rendered dangerous people unprosecutable in civilian courts through the use of "enhanced interrogation methods," Schulhofer believes that any detainee who is unconvictable in U.S. civilian courts is probably not a danger to the United States. The Justice Department is reportedly in the process of analyzing the prosecutability of the remaining Guantánamo detainees.

Karzai seeks to move elections forward

The US presidential transition has not been easy for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has seen his status in Washington downgraded from untouchable golden boy to semi-legitimate leader of a narco-state. While Bush used to hold weekly video conferences with the dashing Pashtun, then-Senator Joe Biden famously walked out in the middle of a dinner with Karzai after the Afghan leader had stated that there was no corruption in his administration. Now the NYT and other sources are reporting that Karzai has decreed that the upcoming presidential elections, which had been scheduled for August, will be moved forward to April or May.

While this appears, in one sense, to be an attempt to avert a constitutional crisis stemming from the fact that Karzai is required by law to step down when his term ends on May 21, many commentators suspect darker motives. These include the possibilities that Karzai (1) wants to use US and NATO logistics and support for his campaign, as he did last time, and (2) wants to take his opponents by surprise by holding the election before they are prepared to mount an effective challenge:

"Snap elections might favor Mr. Karzai, as his opponents would probably be unprepared for such a short campaign. The earlier elections also would keep him from having to run a campaign while under a cloud of accusations that he had overstayed his term and was no longer a legitimate president."

Karzai's opponents, by the way, include former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani (a long-time power broker), recently-former Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi (slick but maybe competent), and First Vice President Ahmad Zia Massood (brother of the assasinated leader of the Northern Alliance and "Lion of the Panjsher," Ahmad Shah Massood).

You may remember from a previous post that BU anthropologist Thomas Barfield predicted that Karzai, whose popularity hovers around 20%, might try to steal this election. Stay tuned for more devilry!

Back from Algeria

Hey all (er...that's all of you who read this blog, which I think at this point is Boris), I'm back from almost two months in Algeria. I decided not to post anything while I was there, not because I was specifically advised not to, but because I wanted to avoid any possibility of causing problems for my hosts and the people I was working with. As I mentioned in the previous post, this threw something of a wrench into my plans to launch this blog on Inauguration Day, although you can rest assured that I watched the whole thing from my hotel room on the BBC. Anyway, I had a good time, did some technical work which is not hugely relevant to this blog, rocked the cash bar, and am raring to go with some new posts about that rascally Hamid Karzai. So thanks for bearing with me (Boris) and expect more content in the next few days.

Going to Algeria

I'm leaving tomorrow for Algeria and Morocco, where I expect to be working for the next few weeks. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post things there, which could interfere with my plans to "launch" this thing on Inauguration Day. Stay tuned...

NYT calls out the Karzai family

The NYT's Dexter Filkins has said, more clearly than I have seen before, what Afghans have long understood and the international community has gradually come to appreciate: the Afghan government is deeply corrupt and the Karzai family is in on the game:

"Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.

A raft of investigations has concluded that people at the highest levels of the Karzai administration, including President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, are cooperating in the country’s opium trade, now the world’s largest. In the streets and government offices, hardly a public transaction seems to unfold here that does not carry with it the requirement of a bribe, a gift, or, in case you are a beggar, “harchee” — whatever you have in your pocket."

Most surprising to me was the article's suggestion that Dr. Abdul Jabbar Sabit, until recently the Attorney General, was himself a part of the corruption he gained considerable fame for combating; I met Dr. Sabit in Kabul and heard a great deal from others about his honesty. In any case, the dysfunctionality of the Karzai government will pose a major challenge to the incoming administration; until aid money starts making it past bureaucrats' pockets, it will not start to rebuild the country.