Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (26 January)

Earlier Updates and Links to Posts: Obama on Top of the World (25 January)

5 p.m. We're off for some downtime. Back in the morning with overnight updates, including the latest of Obama envoy George Mitchell's first trip to the Middle East.

3:30 p.m. Barack, We Have a Problem. Our news this morning (2:45 a.m. and 6 a.m.) was on the emerging "third country" solution for Guantanamo ex-detainees. The meeting of the 27 European Union foreign ministers, however, has failed to agree a unified approach. The French-led proposal to take up to 60 detainees has been blocked or undermined by Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.

The cheekiest excuse of all came from British Foreign Minister David Miliban who said that, as Britain had taken back nine of its citizens and three of its permanent residents, it had already made its "significant contribution".



3:15 p.m. Here's a New Crisis for You. Well, not that new, for anyone paying attention, but one that the Obama Administration can't welcome. Islamic insurgents in Somalia have raided the Parliament building in Baidoa and paraded five lawmakers through the streets. The remainder of the Parliamentarians, meeting in the neighbouring country of Djibouti, are effectively stranded. As one said, "We have nowhere to return to."

The insurgents' takeover in Baidoa occurred only hours after Ethiopian troops completed their withdrawal from the country.

2:55 p.m. Sticking to the Script. The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said today that she looked forward to "vigorous diplomacy that includes direct diplomacy with Iran". This follows the line put out on the Obama White House website --- what we're awaiting is a sign of how the Administration will approach Tehran.

1:45 p.m. Further to our report (5:05 a.m.) of the removal of the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (Mujahedin-e-Khalq) off the European Union's list of terrorist organisations:

Iran has criticised the decision as an "irresponsible move". The European response, anticipated by our readers in the Comments section on this thread, is that European courts left no alternative. The EU's head of foreign policy, Javier Solana, said, "What we are doing today is abiding by the decision of the court. There is nothing we can do about the decision."

The PMOI/MKO's political branch, however, is treating the decision as legal and political vindication and is planning its next activities. Marjam Rajavi, leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, called the removal from the terrorist list "a crushing defeat to Europe's policy of appeasement". A spokesman said the group would now seek to have its funds unfrozen, claiming the NCRI had $9 million in France and tens of millions in other European states.

11:30 a.m. The State Department Twitterers are offering updates from the Department press briefing. Good News: unlike the Bushmen, who saw any expression of local independence as a threat to Washington's control, Department spokesman has welcomed the outcome of Bolivia's constitutional referendum.

The Not-so-Good (Technical) News: We excitedly clinked on the link, expecting Wood's briefing or a detailed statement of the new Latin American policy and got...a map of Bolivia.

Bless.

10:30 a.m. Oh, No. Last week we reported, when George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke were named as Obama envoys, that US foreign policy and the world had dodged a bullet because Dennis Ross had unexpectedly not been unveiled as envoy on Iranian matters.

We celebrated too soon. According to the Foreign Policy blog "The Cable", "State Department sources...[say] that former Middle East peace negotiator Dennis Ross has indeed been tapped as the U.S. envoy to Iran, with the possible title 'ambassador at large'."

If Ross is indeed named, we'll roll out the reasons why this could lead to a disastrous US approach towards Tehran. For now, have a look at Ross' November 2008 opinion piece that insists, despite US intelligence estimates that say otherwise, "Iran has continued to pursue nuclear weapons", and suggests tougher sanctions, "Hitting the [Iranian] economy more directly would force the mullahs to make a choice."

10 a.m. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to name Todd Stern as "climate change envoy" today.

Stern was a staff member in the Bill Clinton White House, coordinating the Initiative on Global Climate Change from 1997 to 1999 before becoming an advisor to the US Treasury. He is now senior partner in a law firm and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, focusing on climate change and environmental issues.

6:45 a.m. Pressure to the Left of Me, Pressure to the Right. Last week it became clear that some in the US military, as well as the US ambassador in Iraq, are digging in their heels on the Obama plan to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.

Today Obama is getting a nudge from the other side. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, facing provincial elections, is declaring that that the withdrawal "will be accelerated and occur before the date set in the [Status of Forces] agreement" between the US and Iraq. That agreement, passed in December, promises the withdrawal of US troops by the end of 2011.

6 a.m. Following up our early update (2:45 a.m.) on the "third country" solution for Guantanamo Bay detainees, there is a potentially major meeting in Brussels today. European Union foreign ministers are discussing the proposal to take in the released prisoners. Javier Solana, the EU Secretary-General, suggested, "This is an American problem and they have to solve it but we'll be ready to help if necessary... I think the answer of the EU will be yes."

The number of up to 60 detainees to be accepted by Europe, floated by the French this weekend, may match up to the 50 to 60 "hard cases" identified by the US. These are detainees who face possible human rights abuses if they are returned to home countries.

5:05 a.m. One Man's Terrorist is Another's.....The European Union has taken the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), off a list of banned terrorist groups.

MKO was formed in the 1960s as a "leftist" opposition group against the rule of the Shah of Iran but, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it broke with the new Government. MKO, from bases in France and then Iraq, began a sustained campaign of bombings, sabotage, and assassinations against Iranian targets during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, and operations have continued since then.

In 2003, there was a split in the US Government between those who wanted to use the group against Iran and those who wanted to curb its activities. MKO remained in Iraq, although its members were disarmed and guards were posted on its bases. Last week, the Iraqi Government asked MKO members to leave the country "voluntarily".

5 a.m. Two US military aircraft have crashed in northern Iraq, killing four soldiers.

3:45 a.m. In a major victory for President Evo Morales, Bolivia's new constitution has been approved in a referendum with a "Yes" vote of more than 60 percent.

3:30 a.m. Pakistani insurgents blew up a school this morning in the Swat Valley in the northwest of the country, the 183rd destroyed in six months. Cleric Maulana Fazlullah has presented a list, published in local newspapers, of 50 Government officials ordered to appear before him or face death. A bicycle bomb planted near a women's hostel killed five people.

2:45 a.m. It's becoming clear that the Obama strategy for closing Guantanamo Bay rests upon getting third countries to take detainees. Vice President Joe Biden, in the headline interview on the Sunday talk shows, said, "We won't release people inside the United States. They're either going to be tried in courts, in military courts, or sent back to their own country."

There are major legal difficulties with the courts option, since the Bush Administration's chaotic and tortuous handling of detainees means that evidence may have been perverted beyond repair. So it's over to Europe: Portugal last month said it would consider taking some ex-detainees, and Switzerland followed last week. Ireland has said that it would accept some released prisoners, if it was part of a "European" solution. And that in turn points to reports that France is preparing such an initiative for the European Union.

1:45 a.m. Juan Cole, despite an over-sensational headline ("Obama's Vitenam?"), has an excellent overview of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the likely Obama strategy in Salon.

Overnight Update (1 a.m. Washington time): Two days after US missile strikes in Afghanistan killed 22 "militants" and/or civilians, The New York Times highlights an earlier attack that killed between 22 and 32 people, quoting from survivors:

The American military declared the nighttime raid this month a success, saying it killed 32 people, all Taliban insurgents — the fruit of an emphasis on intelligence-driven use of Special Operations forces.

But the two young men who lay wincing in a hospital ward here told a different story a few days later, one backed up by the pro-American provincial governor and a central government delegation. They agreed that 13 civilians had been killed and 9 wounded when American commandos broke down doors and unleashed dogs without warning on Jan. 7 in the hunt for a known insurgent.

It appears that today's headline Obama orders will take on former President George W. Bush and climate change. White House officials indicate that the moves will be domestic, including steps "to raise fuel efficiency standards and grant states authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars".

There is no indication yet that President Obama will launch a post-Kyoto process on climate change, nor of how he will reverse the Bush Administration's isolation from international discussions.

Post-Inaugural Flashback: 10 Reasons for History to Remember Dubya

In the run-up to the 44th President of the USA, there was a good deal of black comedy in the desperation of some to prevent the 43rd from taking his place in oblivion. From Karl Rove, who may just have been trying to sweep up around his own place in our memories, to Charles Krauthammer, who helped sell the notion of the "unipolar moment" that assisted the Bush Administration in its failed ambitions, to Andrew Roberts, who clung to dreams of American Empire, to Bruce Anderson, who bellowed, "History Will Vindicate Bush", to former Dubya speechwriters, the chant went up: One Day You'll Be Grateful for All He Did.

So, in that spirit, we're pleased to re-print, from AlterNet, Bernie Horn's Top10 Reasons to Remember Dubya.

So Long Worst President Ever; 10 Reasons History Will Hang You



George W. Bush presented his valedictory last night, desperately seeking thanks and congratulations. So here goes: Thanks and congratulations, W, for showing the world that today's conservatism is an abject failure.

Thanks to Bush, we know that conservatives are not fiscally responsible, they are not for small government, they don't stand up for moral values and they won't make Americans one bit safer. Conservatives aren't even true defenders of "free markets" -- having presided over the biggest market bailout in the world.

After eight long years, Bush can no longer fool the public. Polls show that he is the most unpopular president in the history of survey research. When the 2006 and 2008 elections are considered together, Bush policies resulted in the landslide rejection of his party at both the federal and state levels. There are probably a hundred examples where Bush conservatism failed, but let's stick with the top 10.

1. The worst recession since the 1930s. The current recession will be the deepest and longest downturn since the Great Depression. And unlike other recessions, this one was directly caused by conservative anti-regulatory policy. In fact, recent evaluations show that Bush policies never created any real growth -- the ephemeral financial upswings of the past eight years were based on market bubbles and economic Band-Aids.

2. The worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The Bush administration, flacking an "ownership society," helped manufacture the housing bubble. When it burst, Americans lost $6 trillion in housing wealth (so far), fueling a market crash that has cost Americans $8 trillion of stock wealth, according to economist Dean Baker. On a grand scale, we've been mugged.

3. The worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. That's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., correctly called the Iraq war. This pre-emptive war -- based on phony pretenses -- is now the second longest in our nation's history (after Vietnam). Some 35,000 Americans are dead or wounded, as well as an enormous number of innocent Iraqis. And even today, more than five years later, can anyone explain why Bush marched us into this quagmire?

4. Unprecedented rejection of human rights. Recently, a Bush administration official finally admitted that the U.S. government engaged in torture at Guantanamo Bay detention center. Bush admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding. While these clear violations of the Geneva Conventions would have been unthinkable a few years ago, today we're not surprised. From Abu Ghraib and extraordinary rendition, to years-long detention of innocents and the unrestrained killing of civilians by U.S.-paid mercenaries, this administration has systematically squandered our nation's moral standing in the world, making us less able to protect Americans and American interests worldwide.

5. Watergate-style abuses of power. As the House Judiciary Committee staff has documented, Bush used the politics of fear and division to justify warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans (including U.S. soldiers fighting overseas), spying on peaceful domestic groups and the use of national security letters to pry into the private records of millions of Americans. He also presided over illegal politicization of the Justice Department and retribution against critics. In fact, Bush claimed the authority to disobey hundreds of laws -- as if Richard Nixon were right when he famously said: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

6. Unprecedented increases in inequality. The Economic Policy Institute reports, "For the first time since the Census Bureau began tracking such data back in the mid-1940s, the real incomes of middle-class families are lower at the end of this business cycle than they were when it started." That's because Bush policy was designed to increase economic inequality. The richest 1 percent of the population received 36 percent of the Bush tax cuts; the least-affluent 40 percent received only 9 percent. While the rich got exponentially richer, the poverty rate and the percentage of uninsured dramatically increased.

7. A culture of sleaze. This was an administration without shame. Kicked off by Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy task force, the administration fostered a "greed is good" culture. The subsequent conservative money scandals (Jack Abramoff; White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian;  Republicans Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Rep. Duke Cunningham of California and Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska) and other lawlessness (Cheney's Chief of Staff O. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho) have toppled the conservative "moral values" façade into the gutter, where it belongs.

8. Blind rejection of science. The Bush administration thumbed its nose at scientific evidence that contradicted conservative political goals. The resulting lies about global warming, endangered species, toxic chemicals and consumer products threaten the health and safety of every American. And the virtual outlawing of stem cell research has delayed important medical advances by years, causing immeasurable suffering and loss of life.

9. Utter refusal to protect the health, safety and legal rights of Americans. Following the conservative business-is-always-right philosophy, Bush dismantled the agencies and rules designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous businesses, workers from reckless employers and small companies from anti-competitive large companies. If conservatives didn't like a federal law, they blocked, hindered or defunded agency enforcement.

10. Presiding over our nation's worst natural disaster, and not caring. Hurricane Katrina was transformed from a calamity into a national disgrace by the sheer incompetence and indifference of the Bush administration. Before the hurricane struck, Bush had downsized the Federal Emergency Management Agency and placed in charge a political crony with no relevant experience. When Katrina ripped through Mississippi and Louisiana and inflicted nearly $100 billion in damages in New Orleans to become the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, FEMA was unprepared to help, and thousands of Americans suffered the consequences. More than three years later, New Orleans still has not recovered.

So, congratulations for being the worst president in American history. That's not just my personal opinion; that's the opinion of 109 historians polled by the History News Network. Fully 61 percent ranked Bush as the "worst ever;" 98 percent labeled his presidency a "failure." And this poll, taken in early 2008, predated the cataclysmic housing and banking crashes. Bye-bye W -- history will not be kind.

Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (25 January)

Later Updates: Obama on Top of the World (26 January)
Earlier Updates: Obama on Top of the World (24 January)
Latest Post: Obama Keeps (Illegal?) Surveillance Powers
Latest Post: Post-Inauguration 2009: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

2:55 p.m. Get Ready for a Bumpy Ride. Vice President Joe Biden is preparing the US public not only for a surge in US troop levels in Afghanistan but a rise in dead and wounded. Asked this morning on Face the Nation if he thought there would be an increase in casualties, he replied, "I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be. There will be an uptick."

11 a.m. An inadvertent revelation in attempted boosterism by The Sunday Telegraph of London today. The article headlines that 300 British bomb disposal technicians and intelligence staff are going to southern Afghanistan to combat the Taliban's use of improvised explosive devices. The reports adds that this will raise British troop levels to 8600 but it then undermines all the good work: "The size of the force is likely to increase to around 10,000 in the autumn or early next year with the deployment of an additional 1,000 strong battle group into Helmand."



So the total British boost to complement the expected US surge will be 1300 troops, no more. That's out of the more than 4000 UK forces being withdrawn from Iraq by July.

No wonder there's been sniping in the US press about the lack of British commitment to the Afghan effort. And no wonder that "General David Petraeus, the commander of the US's Central Command, is due to visit the UK in the next few weeks", trying to armtwist Prime Minister Gordon Brown into a further British escalation.

10 a.m. Propaganda of the Day. Uzi Mahnaimi, who writes from Tel Aviv for the Sunday Times, trumpets, "An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas."

That's not news --- we posted this days ago --- but then Mahnaimi is not a reporter in any meaningful sense of the day. Instead, he's a channel for Tel Aviv's "information" line, which in this case is ramping up the campaign against Iran.

Thus Mahnaimi states that a US ship intercepted a "former Russian vessel" and held it for two days --- again, not news, as we noted the incident when it occurred earlier this week --- and adds, "According to unconfirmed reports, weapons were found." Very unconfirmed: the former Russian vessel had artillery, which Hamas does not use, and no further arms were found when it was searched in report.

Of course, this doesn't stop Mahnaimi, who tosses in the Israeli suspicion that two Iranian destroyers, sent to help fight piracy off the Somalian coast, are part of a scheme to run weapons to Gaza. And he has more:

Iran plans to ship Fajr rockets with a 50-mile range to Gaza. This would bring Tel Aviv, its international airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor within reach for the first time.

Of course, Iran may be supplying weapons to Hamas but this story is Israeli-inspired misinformation, of value to Tel Aviv's political schemes but worthless for any analysis of the aftermath of the Gaza conflict. (cross-posted from The Latest From Israel-Palestine-Gaza thread)

4:20 a.m. Thousands have marched in Afghanistan on Sunday to protest US airstrikes and civilian deaths.

3:40 a.m. Here's another reason not to close Guantanamo Bay: Bad Paperwork. Since the Bush Administration never had plans for a legal process for the detainees, there was no reason to keep organised files. The Washington Post reports:

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

3:15 a.m. It may be the weekend, but the campaign to limit and possibly undermine the Obama plan to close Guantanamo continues. We noted on Friday and on Saturday that some in the US military and intelligence communities are feeding "exclusives" to The New York Times about ex-detainees who are rejoining Al Qa'eda.

Today Times reporter Robert Worth, who might as well collect his paycheck from the Pentagon, writes a follow-up: "Two former Guantánamo Bay detainees now appear to have joined Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch, which released a video on Friday showing them both and identifying them by their names and Guantánamo detainee numbers." One of the detainees is Said Ali al-Shihri, the featured bad guy in Worth's Friday article.

2:55 a.m. The Daily Telegraph of London has a good article looking at the US detention facility at Camp Bagram in Afghanistan. The prison currently holds 600 detainees, more than twice as many as Guantanamo, and...

Not only are there no plans to close it, but it is in the process of being expanded to hold 1,100 illegal enemy combatants; prisoners who cannot see lawyers, have no trials and never see any evidence there may be against them.

2:50 a.m. We've posted a separate entry on a little-noticed development, in a court case in San Francisco, which indicates the Obama Administration will maintain the Bush executive orders sanctioning wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping at home as well as abroad.



Overnight update (2 a.m. Washington time): Friday's US missile strikes in Pakistan, which killed 22 people, may escalate into a political test for both the Obama Administration and Pakistan Government of Asif Zardari. In comments and a wordy statement, Zardari and the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said --- at least publicly --- Back Off:

With the advent of the new US administration, it is Pakistan's sincere hope that the United States will review its policy and adopt a more holistic and integrated approach toward dealing with the issue of terrorism and extremism. We maintain that these strikes are counterproductive and should be discontinued.

Obama has not commented on the strikes, but US officials have been spinning the line that the attacks show his commitment to former President Bush's policy of unilateral American military action in northwest Pakistan.

Elsewhere, some news outlets are paying attention to yesterday's suicide bombing in Somalia, which killed 15 people and illustrated the growing turmoil in the country.

Obama, the Pentagon, and the "Willy-Nilly" Battle Over Guantanamo Bay

Morning update (2:55 a.m. Washington time): Yesterday we spent some time on the dramatic New York Times story on the "emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee [Said Ali al-Shihri] as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch", noting that it appeared to be part of an effort by some military and Pentagon officials to undermine President Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Today CNN has returned to an earlier Pentagon report that "18 former detainees are confirmed to have participated in attacks, and 43 are suspected to have been involved in attacks". Peter Bergen, who has written extensively on Al Qa'eda, takes on the report:

1. "Of the 18 people the Pentagon says are confirmed to have engaged in terrorism, only a handful of names have been released."



2. Even if all 18 "confirmed" returned to association with illegal organisations, that is a recidivism rate of 4 percent, comparred with 65 percent for offenders released from US prisons.

3. Some Guantanamo detainees were not terrorists or involved with the Taliban but "were singled out by vengeful villagers who told U.S. authorities they were al Qaeda".

The Pentagon's response to a request for details that would verify their report? The classic intelligence response that "we could tell you but then we would have to shoot you". A spokesman snapped, ""We don't make these figures up -- they're not done willy-nilly."

Obama on Top of the World: The Latest in US Foreign Policy (23 January)

Latest Post: US Finally Joins Convention on Conventional Weapons
Latest Post: The Afghanistan Muddle
Latest Post: The President Bans Torture

Text of Order Closing Guantanamo Bay
President Obama’s Remarks to State Department Staff (22 January)

6:45 p.m. An intriguing development, but one which will need some detective work to assess its significance. President Obama "asked Saudi King Abdullah for support in halting weapons smuggling into Gaza and underscored the importance of U.S.-Saudi ties" in a Friday phone call.

The call takes on added significance because an influential member of the Saudi Royal Family, Prince Turki al-Feisal, launched an attack against the Bush Administration's "poisonous legacy" in a newspaper article on Friday morning, warning, "If the U.S. wants to continue playing a leadership role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact -- especially its 'special relationship' with Saudi Arabia -- it will have to drastically revise its policies vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine."

So the first message in Obama's call was not to get active Saudi participation in the naval blockade of Gaza but assurances that Riyadh would not try to undermine it by moving cash and material to Palestinian groups in the area. The second message, however, is more important and hard to decipher:

Do those US-Saudi ties mean that Obama will accept Saudi ideas for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, for example, a revival of the 2002 Mecca proposals that the Bush Administration flagrantly rebuffed? Or is Washington expecting the Saudis to follow the lead of a yet-seen approach that will be unveiled in the visit of George Mitchell to the region? (cross-posted from Israel-Palestine-Gaza Updates)



3:40 p.m. White House announces that President Obama has reversed Ronald Reagan's ban on funding of federally-supported groups who carry out abortions overseas.

3:30 p.m. Not So Fast, General Petraeus. Here's a curious story, unlike you're a fan of Kirghiz politics, that you might have missed. On Wednesday, General David Petraeus and the US military were telling anyone who would listen of their great triumph in securing land and air supply routes into Afghanistan (and trying to cover up the inconvenience that the main supply route over the Khyber Pass has been closed down).

Well, on Thursday the Government of Kyrgyzstan, where a major US airbase is located, decided that it wasn't ready to play the good guy quite yet: "Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev will make a decision on the future of a U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan by next month, an official said Thursday."

Is Russia, which also has an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, having a bit of competitive fun with Washington? Or has the Kirghiz Government decided to get a higher price for their cooperation?

3:15 p.m. The Netherlands won't be joining the next US adventure in Afghanistan: "Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende ruled out on Friday the possibility of the Netherlands keeping its troops in Afghanistan past 2010 with a force comparable to its current deployment."

2:55 p.m. The Marines Show Their Hand. Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway says that up to 20,000 Marines could be deployed as part of the US military "surge" in Afghanistan. While Conway capped the number at 20,000, that indicates that an overall increase of 30,000 troops, which would include Army units, is still the military's preferred option.

At the same time, Conway seemed to offer support for President Obama's plans for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq: "The time is right for Marines in general terms to leave Iraq. It's very much a nation-building kind of environment that's taking place there."

2:25 p.m. Facebook Message of the Day:

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located. Replacement components were ordered Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, and have begun arriving. Early test of the new equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly and we expect it to be fully operational by mid-January.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage and we look forward to resuming full service and hopefully even improving it in years to come. Thank you for your patience and understanding,

The USA

2 p.m. On his blog, CNN's Anderson Cooper posts a guest article by former interrogator Ken Robinson: "The truth is --- torture doesn't work."

Nice job, Anderson. Just one question: why didn't you put up such comments in 2003? 2004? 2005? At any point during the Bush Administration?

12:35 p.m. Al Jazeera: 19 killed in northwest Pakistan in two US missile strikes.

12:05 p.m. CNN website reporting 10 killed in US strike on northwest Pakistan, but CNN television is reporting two attacks.

10:10 a.m. The State Department's Twitterers pass on news of a US interception and two-day search of an Iranian-owned ship in the Red Sea.

No jackpot this time, however, in the quest to link Tehran and Hamas. The ship was carrying artillery shells, but the Gazan organisation doesn't use artillery.

9:30 a.m. White House officials are briefing that Obama later today will reverse Ronald Reagan's "Mexico City" order, which banned federally-funded non-government organizations from performing abortions overseas. Bill Clinton lifted the ban in his first week in office, only for George W. Bush to reinstate it in his first Presidential order.

8:20 a.m. The first application of Obama tough love in Pakistan. Reports are coming through that US missiles have killed five people in the northwest of the country. (9:45 a.m.: Death toll is now 9. Six members of a family are among the dead; intelligence officials claim "some foreign militants were also killed".)

6:35 a.m. For those watching the Obama rollback of the Bush War on Terror, some interesting signals from Dennis Blair, Obama's nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in his confirmation hearings yesterday.

Blair backed up the President's headline actions, telling Senators that torture "is not moral, legal or effective" and that "there will not be any waterboarding on my watch". However, the nominee also indicated that Obama might not hand back other executive orders resting on dubious legal ground, as he "hesitated to directly challenge as illegal the Bush administration's approach to interrogations and surveillance".

6:25 a.m. And, Barack, We've Been Talking to the Washington Post. Those waging the counter-offensive against the Obama plan for a 16-month withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq have gotten the ear of the editors of The Post. Their call in their lead editorial today for a slower withdrawal, bizarrely, rests on the argument that Iraq is rapidly becoming more secure:

Iraq's continuing improvement and the low and declining rate of U.S. casualties -- four soldiers have been killed in hostile action so far this month -- ought to decrease the urgency of a quick pullout. Pragmatism calls for working within the agreed U.S.-Iraqi plan, and for allowing adjustments based on positive and negative developments in Iraq, rather than on any fixed and arbitrary timetable.

6:10 a.m. The "New Diplomacy" of the Obama Administration? On Thursday, "the chargé d’affaires at the American Embassy, Krishna Urs, walked out of a speech in Bolivia’s Congress by President Evo Morales."

5;55 a.m. One Dissent is Annoying, Two is a Rebellion. Meanwhile, on the Iraq front, departing US Ambassador Ryan Crocker has also gone public to put brakes --- albeit in diplomatic phrasing on Obama's plan for withdrawal of combat troops in 16 months. Citing "a continuing need for our security support" despite the "enormous progress" of Iraqi security forces, Crocker asserted, “If it were to be a precipitous withdrawal, that could be very dangerous, but it’s clear that’s not the direction in which this is trending.”

Far from incidentally, Crocker was also involved in Wednesday's National Security meeting with military commanders, speaking by videophone from Baghdad.

5:30 a.m. Naughty, Naughty Pentagon. Do you recall that less than 24 hours ago the military started spinning against the President's plans for withdrawal from Iraq? Well, now they're taking aim at his intention to close Guantamo. Officials have fed the following story to Robert Worth of The New York Times:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

And it should be noted that this is not a sudden leak. The amount of information on the released detainee, Said Ali al-Shihri, and the contribution by four Times reporters to the story indicated that this "exclusive" was fed to them well before Obama became President.

Moreover, this is only the latest salvo in the campaign to undermine Obama's plans. Last month "Pentagon officials" began spreading the story that dozens of released detainees were rejoining Al Qa'eda and other terrorist organisations. The supposed information was discredited quickly by journalists who followed up the details --- as the New York Times notes, albeit well below its dramatic headline:

Although the Pentagon has said that dozens of released Guantánamo detainees have “returned to the fight,” its claim is difficult to document, and has been met with skepticism. In any case, few of the former detainees, if any, are thought to have become leaders of a major terrorist organization like Al Qaeda in Yemen, a mostly homegrown group that experts say has been reinforced by foreign fighters.

4:10 a.m. The excellent analyst Jim Lobe finds grounds for optimism both in the appointment of George Mitchell as President Obama's envoy to the Middle East and in Obama's statement yesterday.

3:15 a.m. We've posted separate blogs on Obama's order banning torture and on an apparent muddle over Afghanistan policy, highlighted by Administration statements yesterday.

2:30 a.m. The Guantanamo Bay Effect Reaches Afghanistan. An intriguing statement by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was quick off the mark to welcome President Barack Obama's order closing Camp X-Ray: "Closing this will have a good impact, a significant impact on the minds of Afghans here in Afghanistan. We see it as extremely important and timely and we appreciate the decision taken by the new administration."

Why pay special attention to Karzai's statement beyond the welcomes coming from around the world? Well, there's the small matter of more than 600 detainees, as compared to 245 at Guantanamo, in the US military's Camp Bagram in southern Afghanistan. Karzai is being pressed by Afghan campaigners to do something about unlimited detentions closer to home, so his statement on matters far away is a symbolic nod in their direction.

But will it mean the Afghan Government presses the Americans to bring the rule of law into Bagram? Karzai's spokesman was suitably cautious: "As we rebuild our justice system, as we rebuild our law enforcement capabilities and can ensure there will be due process provided, we do expect the detainees to be gradually and slowly transferred to Afghan custody by mutual agreement,"