US War on Terror Feature: Obama Continues Bush's "Extraordinary Renditions" (Whitlock)

The three European men with Somali roots were arrested on a murky pretext in August as they passed through the small African country of Djibouti. But the reason soon became clear when they were visited in their jail cells by a succession of American interrogators.

U.S. agents accused the men — two of them Swedes, the other a longtime resident of Britain — of supporting al-Shabab, an Islamist militia in Somalia that Washington considers a terrorist group. Two months after their arrest, the prisoners were secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in New York, then clandestinely taken into custody by the FBI and flown to the United States to face trial.

The secret arrests and detentions came to light Dec. 21 when the suspects made a brief appearance in a Brooklyn courtroom.

The men are the latest example of how the Obama administration has embraced rendition — the practice of holding and interrogating terrorism suspects in other countries without due process — despite widespread condemnation of the tactic in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

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2012 in Review: How Did EA's Predictions Turn Out?

The Question We Asked Last Year: A Reliable Prediction? --- Right to Left: Tunisia's Ben Ali, Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Qaddafi, Yemen's Saleh, Syria's Assad, Iran's Khamenei

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On 1 January, I offered some predictions about the year ahead. How did they turn out?...

4. Speaking of Syria, things will get worse before they get better. The Arab League observers will produce a middling report, one that speaks of a crisis that needs fixing but will be slow to blame the highest levels of the Assad regime. International outcry will be loud. Eventually, someone will crack, and there will be intervention.

However, I would be shocked if this happened before April, and absolutely bewildered if it happened before March. The opposition is still, in the eyes of the world, not organised enough to serve as a skeleton upon which the international community can build a mission.

In the meantime, the protests will not go away, and more and more people will defect. Those defections, however, will not reach a tipping point for a long time for the regime, unless that international intervention happens.

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Syria Live Coverage: Uncertainty Over the Mass Killing in Aqrab

1946 GMT: Syrian Media, SANA, now reports that three different explosions resulted in "martyring of a number of people and the injuring of others" at the Interior Ministry in Damascus. SANA does not say whether any officials have been injured, though rumors are flying, rumors which State TV has already denied. They have posted several pictures, two of which we post here (click for full size):

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: While US Warns About Chemical Weapons, 239 Die

As a motorcade apparently carrying Egyptian President Morsi exits the Presidential Palace, protesters chant "Leave!"

See also Monday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: The Death Toll Rises Again

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2142 GMT: Kuwait. More protests, sparked by the Emir's changes to the electoral laws last month, and encounters with security forces tonight:

Happening now - Clashes in Sabah al-Nasser area #Kuwait twitter.com/Q8Ping/status/… v @assafsalem

— Hamad Al-Sabah (@hmalsabah) December 4, 2012

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EA Video Analysis: Mr Obama, Why Should We Trust You With Drones?

Last week the Obama Administration said that rules for drone attacks had been drawn up this autumn. The reason? Because of the prospect that Mitt Romney, not Barack Obama, would be President from January 2013.

So a question to President Obama: "If you didn't trust Mitt with drones, why should anyone trust you?"

EA Opinion: Why Foreign Policy's "Global Thinker" List Is, Like, Really Brilliant

President Obama (left) is Really Brilliant. So is Dick Cheney (right). Not sure about that lady in the middle....

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I mean, it's not like being the President of the US is the reason why Mr. Obama would influence our lives. Any time he thinks something quite smart --- "Hey, another drone strike will solve the world's problems!" --- that's the reason he is Number One rather than, say, the power that he holds.

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US War on Terror Feature: Obama Seeks a "Formal Rule Book" for Drone Attacks

Aftermath of US Drone Strike in AfghanistanFacing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.

The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.

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US Politics Opinion: Lessons from the Campaign and the Election

Anti-Obama billboard in Missouri

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The Republicans are between a rock and a hard place. Because of that, there is a possibility that business can actually be done in Congress, especially if Obama takes a leaf from Lyndon Johnson’s book in how to deal with legislators --- studying, for example, the passing of Civil Rights legislation in the mid-1960s. Indeed, the bigger risk for the President may be that his own party’s legislators will try to exact revenge for the past two years of gridlock, ruining the chances of good governance by the Executive and Congress.

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US Politics Analysis: Pushing Obama and Congress Towards the "Fiscal Cliff"

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke talks on Tuesday about the "fiscal cliff"

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America's politicians are wrestling with a basic problem --- raise taxes or cut welfare spending --- and the interested and influential advocacy groups are unlikely to be accommodating. Thought organisations supporting Obama are shouting loudest now there is little doubt that, once Republicans have come to terms with their electoral defeat, conservatives will push back hard. This is a game which is only beginning and in which the President and members of Congress are far from the only players.

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Gaza Analysis: Why Netanyahu's Rejection of A Ceasefire is Bad News for the US

Statements by Hillary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday night

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The US once more returned itself to the margins. For many international actors, Washington is now no more than the backer of West Jerusalem. That leaves the diplomatic space for others --- notably the Egyptians and the Turks --- to try and occupy.

And that in turn not only affects the US position over the Israel-Palestine issue. It will have immediate effects for situations such as the handling of the Syrian crisis and the approach to Iran. And the longer that the fighting and death continues in Gaza, the greater the effect on the Obama Administration's long-term capital --- if it has any --- in the region and beyond.

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