Better late than never. I have been meaning to report for some time Secretary Kerry’s announcement earlier this month — via an op-ed in the Huffington Post – that the State Department is now offering a $5 million reward for … Read more »
Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham held a press conference, in which he unsurprisingly lamented the White House’s decision not to treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an “enemy combatant.”
A transcript is below.
GRAHAM:
Thank you for coming.
I understand at 2:50, we’re
Without wanting to shoehorn my way into Ben’s invaluable service in keeping the country safe from errors in New York Times editorials, I too wanted to raise something about today’s editorial, “Repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” Midway … Read more »
Over at Politico, Ginger Gibson is reporting that:
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) criticized the Obama administration on Thursday over reports that an al-Qaeda leader had been brought to New York.
According to The New
So reports the Wall Street Journal:
A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and longtime suspected member of al Qaeda has been captured by U.S. officials, who are preparing to bring him to the U.S. to face charges, according to three
Tuesday, Ben bemoaned the state of drone-themed humor in the New York Times, and followed it up yesterday morning with a tale of national security parody gone awry. Lawfare is not above the occasionally-off-color sense of humor in … Read more »
I want to highlight these upcoming events at Brookings of potential interest to our readers in the D.C. area:
Is there a Widening Sunni-Shia Schism?
February 22, 2013, 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EST, Saul/Zilkha Rooms
An upswing in sectarian
My colleague at Brookings, Daniel Byman, and I have written a lengthy paper on the different tools the United States uses in going after citizens abroad believed to have allied themselves with the enemy. The paper is still a draft, … Read more »
The American Enterprise Institute held an event yesterday entitled “Watching ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ with the CIA: Separating fact from fiction.” According to the event description, the discussion centered around some of the following questions:
Just how accurate is Bigelow’s depiction
The Brookings Institution has released the following video, in which I offer some thoughts on the accuracies and inaccuracies of Zero Dark Thirty. I will be treating this subject in more depth in a review I am writing on … Read more »
This should pique the interest of our local readers:
Killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and His Legacy: A Discussion with General Stanley A. McChrystal
Monday, January 28, 2012, 10:00 — 11:30 am
The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW,
Remember the Chief Prosecutor’s tactical recommendation to pull standalone conspiracy charges in the 9/11 case—in light of the D.C. Circuit’s analysis in Hamdan II, and the strong likelihood that the same court (or the Supreme Court) would follow … Read more »
Last week saw several new developments in the Bradley Manning case. Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they intend to offer evidence that Osama bin Laden received some of the classified information that Manning allegedly provided to WikiLeaks. The government, relying … Read more »
(Note from the Review Editor: We’re pleased to welcome this film review by Lawfare’s own Alan Rozenshtein; the Book Review also handles occasional reviews of media other than books. Other Lawfare contributors will likely weigh in on different matters raised … Read more »
At this hour, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson is giving the following speech at the Oxford Union in England:
“The Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?”
Jeh Charles Johnson
General Counsel of the U.S. Department
These were just too good not to post immediately.
As Raffaela mentioned in this morning’s news roundup, a Navy SEAL is publishing a book about the Osama bin Laden raid. But did you know that, according to The Onion, … Read more »
President Obama, today, on the possibility of leaks from the White House:
The notion that the White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive, it’s wrong, and people, I think, need to have a better sense
Earlier this week, Kevin Jon Heller and I had an exchange over what the Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA, Akhil Afridi, was actually charged with and convicted of. Writing at Opinio Juris, Kevin dismissed suggestions by Secretary of … Read more »
Over at Opinio Juris, Kevin Jon Heller has a post complaining about Leon Panetta’s recent lament that “[i]t is so difficult to understand and it’s so disturbing that [Pakistan] would sentence this doctor to 33 years for helping in … Read more »
In preparing Wednesday’s news roundup, I came upon this story in The Express Tribune, a Pakistani English-language newspaper, about an interview that BBC Urdu did with Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar. Mr. Mukhtar asserted, according to the … Read more »
The one-year anniversary last week of Osama bin Laden’s death generated enough stories of interest that I thought the occasion deserves its own post, separate from Today’s Headlines and Commentary.
President Obama and Hilary Clinton relive the experience of watching … Read more »
The New York Times has an interesting story today about a police report summarizing interviews of Amal Ahmad Abdul Fateh, one of Osama Bin Laden’s wives, who was living with him in the Abbottabad compound. I’m not sure I learned … Read more »
I had no idea when I wrote this post last night about ConText that I would awaken this morning to this incredible story by my former colleague David Ignatius about a cache of soon-to-be-released communications from Osama Bin Laden. Ignatius … Read more »
The Washington Post leads this morning with a story headlined “Secret U.S. Memo Sanctioned Killing of Aulaqi,” which opens:
The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric
A divided 11th Circuit panel has issued a lengthy opinion (112 pages in pdf, with the dissent) affirming the conviction of Jose Padilla, Adham Hassoun, and Kifah Jayyousi, and granting the government’s cross-appeal challenging the adequacy of Padilla’s sentence. Chief … Read more »
Business Insider is reporting:
According to Twitter users set a record on Sunday night when Beyonce revealed her baby bump to the record-breaking VMA audience.
From @twitterglobalpr: “Last night at 10:35pm ET, Beyonce’s big MTV #VMA moment gave Twitter
Mark Mazzetti had a piece yesterday in the Times covering the important news that CIA once again has located and killed al Qaeda’s top officer for operational planning (Atiyah abd al-Rahman, who took over that position after a drone killed … Read more »
When the Secretary of Defense declares, as Leon Panetta recently did, that the strategic defeat of Al Qaeda is “within reach,” it is probably time to start thinking about the termination of hostilities for purposes of AUMF detention authority. … Read more »
Isn’t this interesting…. In a case titled United States v. Kaziu (E.D.N.Y. July 7, 2011), a jury in Brooklyn today returned a guilty verdict against Betim Kaziu. He was convicted on counts including conspiracy to kill overseas (18 USC 956(a)), … Read more »
[UPDATE: See here for a clarification; contrary to my original read below, it appears Admiral McRaven did not mean for the list of disposition options to refer to non-AUMF scenarios] While many eyes were on Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s WPR … Read more »
The Washington Post and NPR report that the 13-year old case against Osama bin Laden has been dismissed.
The Post says that:
The government filing lists bin Laden’s alleged crimes, and then states: “On or about May 1, 2011, while
Mark Mazzetti has a very important story in the Times noting that, far from backing away from using lethal force against AQAP targets in Yemen during this time of political instability, the US has stepped up its operations over the … Read more »
Writing at Foreign Policy, Charli Carpenter and Lina Shaikhouni present a series of arguments challenging the legality of the U.S. use of lethal force–whether from drones or special forces–in Pakistan. First there is this:
Military operations inside Pakistan do pose
I join Ben in welcoming Marty Lederman back to blogging. His initial post–parsing both international and domestic legal issues relating to the UBL operation–is typically thorough and insightful (not to mention generally correct). Because it is a long post, … Read more »
Over at Opinio Juris, State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh has posted a brief statement on “The Lawfulness of the U.S. Operation Against Osama bin Laden.” The key passage reads:
Given bin Laden’s unquestioned leadership position within al Qaeda and
Over at Opinio Juris, State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh has issued an official statement regarding the legality of the UBL operation. No surprises here. Harold quotes at length from his ASIL statement, and then offers what appear to … Read more »
Ross Douthat, a columnist for the New York Times, has an interesting op-ed today in which he notes that President Obama’s foreign policy is similar to that of President Bush’s but is subject to less of an institutional check, see … Read more »
Benjamin Kleinerman, author of The Discretionary President: The Promise and Peril of Executive Power (a truly excellent book, by the way, about which I have been meaning to post thoughts), wrote in over the weekend to take issue with my … Read more »
Ken and Ben have noted the Administration’s continuing and puzzling failure to explain the legal justifications for the killing of Bin Laden.
As someone who was in the Situation Room on 9-11, I have special reasons to agree that justice … Read more »
Michael Montgomery, an active duty Navy Judge Advocate commenting in his personal capacity, writes in the following thoughts regarding my post earlier today about Harold Koh’s absence from the public debate over the legality of the Bin Laden killing:
I
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Lawfare book review editor Ken Anderson makes this point about State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh’s absence from the current public discussions of the legality of the Bin Laden operation:
has the administration regained its
CNN has posted the English text of the Al Qaeda statement on Osama Bin Laden’s death. It’s worth a read. The Arabic original is available here. The statement reads:
Al-Qaeda statement calls the day “a historic day of the
Ashley Deeks (formerly from State Department L (political-military affairs), currently a fellow at Columbia) has posted “Pakistan’s Sovereignty and the Killing of Osama bin Laden.” Ashley is as sharp as they come, and as readers of this blog … Read more »
Gabor Rona of Human Rights first has this piece on the legality of the Bin Laden operation. While Gabor is more tentative in his conclusion than I am, I largely agree with this analysis, including his analysis of the obligation … Read more »
Analysis of the legality of the UBL operation continues to proliferate. Among the many I’ve seen today, I would recommend Gabor Rona’s fine piece defending the legality of the attack from the point of view of the “organized armed group/continuous … Read more »
Ken Anderson (Lawfare’s intrepid book review editor, among many other titles) has been kind enough to permit me to post this passage from an email exchange we had earlier today. It makes a point that I think is … Read more »
Eric Holder, the Politico is reporting, has now said that it would have been lawful to shoot Bin Laden even if he had tried to surrender:
Holder initially said the U.S. team “obviously” should have accepted if bin Laden
Director Panetta appeared on PBS Newshour yesterday, and spoke to the question of whether this was a situation in which SEAL Team Six was merely to use force as a last resort in self-defense. As Ben notes below, Panetta … Read more »
Martin Scheinin, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, also says the Bin Laden killing was legal–and also hinges this judgment on the opportunity given him to surrender. I think this is … Read more »
Jessica Stern has this article over at Daily Beast describing her reactions to Usama bin Laden’s death. My sincere apologies for posting this a day late, but it’s very much still worth a read. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:… Read more »
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Carol Rosenberg wrote about yesterday’s arguments in the 9/11 hearings on defense counsel’s request for access to the Red Cross’s reports of its interviews with the five accused. That’s in the Miami Herald.
Yesterday’s House intelligence committee hearing with top intelligence agency and DOJ officials drew a big crowd and much news: Wired explains the DOJ’s efforts to conceal the NSA’s role… Read more »
