“
Terrorism is an extreme form of political communication,” he said. “You want to be sure that, in your response, you don’t end up amplifying the messages that terrorists are trying to convey,” he told his audience. The former British spy chief told the conference that it was a “strategic necessity” that the US held to its “best traditions” because it was easier to recruit agents if they believed they were acting in a “good cause”. “We need to think very carefully about long-term strategy. If we don’t hold to the moral high ground in the medium to long term it will much more difficult to conduct a successful counter-terrorist strategy. “The general approach of the “war on terror” made sense for a while after 9/11 but as time passes it may well need adjustment,” he told Guardian Unlimited in his first on-the-record comments to a British news organisation since leaving MI6. He insisted that he wasn’t critical of “day-to-day” operational necessities but wanted the wider strategy of the “war-on-terror” to be reconfigured.
Rethink ‘war on terror’ strategy, says former MI6 head | Politics | guardian.co.uk
MI6 rolled the pitch for Tony Blair’s bizarre 2004 hug-in with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi by apparently arranging for the CIA to kidnap Gaddafi’s opponent in exile, Abdel Hakim Belhaj. He was seized in Bangkok, where he and his wife were en route to Britain. It’s been suggested they were “rendered” via the British colony of Diego Garcia to Tajoura jail in Tripoli. Belhaj spent six years, and his wife four and a half months, at the tender mercies of Gaddafi’s security boss, Moussa Koussa. Belhaj’s pregnant wife was taped like a mummy on a stretcher, and he was systematically tortured. Koussa himself denies any involvement in torture. With this gift came a covering letter from MI6’s Mark Allen, offering Koussa congratulations on the “safe arrival” of the “air cargo [Belhaj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years.” Within two weeks Gaddafi was welcoming a fawning Blair in his famous desert tent, and announcing that he would abjure terrorism and set aside his “planned” weapons of mass destruction. The plans were spurious, but the deal allowed Blair to walk tall in Washington at a time when the Iraq invasion was turning sour. (via The war on terror is corrupting all it touches | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian)

MI6 rolled the pitch for Tony Blair’s bizarre 2004 hug-in with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi by apparently arranging for the CIA to kidnap Gaddafi’s opponent in exile, Abdel Hakim Belhaj. He was seized in Bangkok, where he and his wife were en route to Britain. It’s been suggested they were “rendered” via the British colony of Diego Garcia to Tajoura jail in Tripoli. Belhaj spent six years, and his wife four and a half months, at the tender mercies of Gaddafi’s security boss, Moussa Koussa. Belhaj’s pregnant wife was taped like a mummy on a stretcher, and he was systematically tortured. Koussa himself denies any involvement in torture. With this gift came a covering letter from MI6’s Mark Allen, offering Koussa congratulations on the “safe arrival” of the “air cargo [Belhaj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years.” Within two weeks Gaddafi was welcoming a fawning Blair in his famous desert tent, and announcing that he would abjure terrorism and set aside his “planned” weapons of mass destruction. The plans were spurious, but the deal allowed Blair to walk tall in Washington at a time when the Iraq invasion was turning sour. (via The war on terror is corrupting all it touches | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian)

The search for Mr. Awlaki, the American-born cleric whose fiery sermons made him a larger-than-life figure in the shadowy world of jihad, finally ended on Friday. After several days of surveillance of Mr. Awlaki, armed drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency took off from a new, secret American base in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed into northern Yemen and unleashed a barrage of Hellfire missiles at a car carrying him and other top operatives from Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, including another American militant who had run the group’s English-language Internet magazine. The strike was the culmination of a desperate manhunt marked not only by near misses and dead ends, but also by a wrenching legal debate in Washington about the legality — and morality — of putting an American citizen on a list of top militants marked for death. It also represented the latest killing of a senior terrorist figure in an escalated campaign by the Obama administration. (via American-Born Qaeda Leader Is Killed by U.S. Missile in Yemen - NYTimes.com) View high resolution

The search for Mr. Awlaki, the American-born cleric whose fiery sermons made him a larger-than-life figure in the shadowy world of jihad, finally ended on Friday. After several days of surveillance of Mr. Awlaki, armed drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency took off from a new, secret American base in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed into northern Yemen and unleashed a barrage of Hellfire missiles at a car carrying him and other top operatives from Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, including another American militant who had run the group’s English-language Internet magazine. The strike was the culmination of a desperate manhunt marked not only by near misses and dead ends, but also by a wrenching legal debate in Washington about the legality — and morality — of putting an American citizen on a list of top militants marked for death. It also represented the latest killing of a senior terrorist figure in an escalated campaign by the Obama administration. (via American-Born Qaeda Leader Is Killed by U.S. Missile in Yemen - NYTimes.com)

“
Obama has now had a full two years in office, and the possibility of keeping this extremely difficult promise seems even more remote now than when his presidency began. Some argue that Congress is largely to blame, while others say Obama simply made a political calculation not to expend too much political capital on it. But blame is not the final arbiter of whether a promise is kept or broken. The administration has clearly not backed off claims that it continues to pursue this promise. But even those who think this promise is merely stalled instead of broken acknowledge that it’s unlikely Guantanamo will be closed by the end of Obama’s four-year term. We’re not inclined to extend the timeline for this promise into a second term when resolution between now and then seems unlikely. We will revisit our rating should the situation change dramatically, but for now, we are moving this to a Promise Broken.
PolitiFact | The Obameter: Close the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
Promising to return America to the “moral high ground” in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year. (via Obama signs order to close Guantanamo Bay facility - CNN)

Promising to return America to the “moral high ground” in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year. (via Obama signs order to close Guantanamo Bay facility - CNN)

“
EXECUTIVE ORDER — REVIEW AND DISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT THE GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE AND CLOSURE OF DETENTION FACILITIES By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to effect the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained by the Department of Defense at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base (Guantánamo) and promptly to close detention facilities at Guantánamo, consistent with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States and the interests of justice, I hereby order as follows:
Closure Of Guantanamo Detention Facilities | The White House
President Obama yesterday signed an Executive Order which, as The Washington Post described it, “will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay” and “all but cements Guantanamo Bay’s continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.” The Order — which codifies a system of charge-free indefinite detention and military commissions once ostensibly scorned by Democrats (via Obama’s new executive order on Guantanamo - Guantanamo - Salon.com)

President Obama yesterday signed an Executive Order which, as The Washington Post described it, “will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay” and “all but cements Guantanamo Bay’s continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy.” The Order — which codifies a system of charge-free indefinite detention and military commissions once ostensibly scorned by Democrats (via Obama’s new executive order on Guantanamo - Guantanamo - Salon.com)

The Foreign Office is fighting to overturn an order to disclose the transcript of what has been described as a key conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush, days before the invasion of Iraq. It is appealing against an order by Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, to disclose records of the conversation between the two leaders in March 2003. The appeal is being heard by the information tribunal which adjudicates on disputes over disclosure orders. (via Foreign Office fights order to disclose ‘key phone call’ between Bush and Blair | UK news | The Guardian)

The Foreign Office is fighting to overturn an order to disclose the transcript of what has been described as a key conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush, days before the invasion of Iraq. It is appealing against an order by Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, to disclose records of the conversation between the two leaders in March 2003. The appeal is being heard by the information tribunal which adjudicates on disputes over disclosure orders. (via Foreign Office fights order to disclose ‘key phone call’ between Bush and Blair | UK news | The Guardian)

“
A wave of CIA drone strikes targeting al-Qaeda figures in Yemen is stoking widespread anger there that U.S. policy is cruel and misguided, prioritizing counterterrorism over a genuine solution to the country’s raging political crisis. Politics has never been a concern to Sam al-Homiganyi and his fellow teenagers. This month, though, they were shocked by the sudden death of a friend and are struggling to understand why. Fighting back tears, his gaze fixed downward, al-Homiganyi, a lean-looking 15-year-old from the outskirts of Sana’a, told TIME, “He was my best friend, we played football together everyday.” Another of his friends spoke up, gesturing to the gloomy group of jeans-clad boys around him: “He was the same as us. He liked swimming, playing computer games, watching movies … you know, normal stuff.
Yemen: Death of a U.S.-Born Teen by a Drone Stokes Anger - TIME

Club Iraq (by wreckandsalvage)