DTN News: War On Terror TODAY September 11, 2009 ~ Photos Released Of Terrorist Mastermind At Gitmo

DTN News: War On Terror TODAY September 11, 2009 ~ Photos Released Of Terrorist Mastermind At Gitmo

*Source: DTN News / AP By Mike Melia

(NSI News Source Info) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - September 11, 2009: The first photographs of the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind at Guantanamo Bay have cropped up on the Internet, and experts say the images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are being used by terrorist groups to inspire attacks against the United States. This photo downloaded from the Arabic language Internet site www.muslm.net and purporting to show a man identified by the Internet site as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sep. 11 attacks, is seen in detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The picture was allegedly taken in July 2009 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and released only to the detainee's family under a new policy allowing the ICRC to photograph Guantanamo inmates, ICRC spokesman Bernard Barrett said Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2009. (AP Photo/www.muslm.net) The photographs, taken in July by the Red Cross at the detention center on a U.S. naval base in Cuba, show Mohammed sitting serenely wearing a white robe, a red-patterned headdress and a long salt-and-pepper beard. They are the first known images of Mohammed since a widely distributed shot taken upon his capture in Pakistan in March 2003 showing him in a stretched white T-shirt, with disheveled hair and a mustache. Since then, only courtroom sketches from his war-crimes trial have been available. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which photographs Guantanamo prisoners as part of its mission to monitor their treatment, confirmed on Wednesday that it took the images in July and sent them to his family. Spokesman Bernard Barrett did not identify the location of the family or specify their relationship. Barrett said the photos were given only to the family and were not intended for public release, but the organization does not impose conditions on detainee families. The military began to allow the Red Cross to photograph Guantanamo detainees in February and the group has taken pictures of 107 inmates. Detainees are allowed to select two shots and the ICRC sends five prints to their families, along with personal messages. Mohammed's photos began appearing in recent days on Internet sites that have previously been used by al-Qaida and sympathizers to communicate with each other, said Jarret Brachman, the former research director at the Combating Terrorism Center of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Brachman, now an independent terrorism researcher based in Fargo, North Dakota, said he fears the photos could breed sympathy for a man who has proudly proclaimed his role in the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as other incidents of terrorism, while also alleging he has been tortured by the U.S. "What's problematic for me is it really humanizes the guy," Brachman said. "I understand the value of these photos for family members, but at the same time this is the guy who planned 9-11." An Australian counter-terrorism expert, Leah Farrall, said she first noticed one of the photographs on Sept. 3 on an Internet forum that al-Qaida has used to communicate messages. She said it has since "gone viral," with some users posting online statements of support for Mohammed. "'We'll come and get you' is one message that I saw," said Farrall, a former terrorism analyst with the Australian federal police. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt, a spokesman for the prison where the U.S. holds about 225 men, said the military is not concerned with distribution of the images and takes no position on how families of prisoners handle their photos. Mohammed faces the death penalty if convicted by the military tribunal at Guantanamo. But his trial has been suspended as President Barack Obama, who said he wants to close Guantanamo in January, decides how to proceed with the war crimes prosecutions begun under his predecessor. The terrorist leader, who is from Pakistan and believed to be in his mid-40s, is held in Camp 7, an ultrahigh security section of Guantanamo reserved for "high value detainees." Even the location of the unit on the base in Cuba is classified and not publicly known.

Related articles Photos of '9/11 plotter' hit web BBC News - 8 hours ago Guantánamo photos of accused 9/11 mastermind posted on Web MiamiHerald.com - 1 day ago Photos released of terrorist mastermind at Gitmo WLOS - 10 hours ago

DTN News: Junior Jihadist Or Senior al-Qaeda Leader?

DTN News: Junior Jihadist Or Senior al-Qaeda Leader?

*Abu Zubaydah has been connected to three Canadians, including Mohamed Harkat. Determining Zubaydah's real place in the world of terrorism holds important consequences, Andrew Duffy writes.

*Source: DTN News / The Ottawa Citizen By Andrew Duffy (NSI News Source Info) OTTAWA, Canada - July 18, 2009: When the public phase of the Mohamed Harkat case begins, the epic saga of another accused terrorist -- Guantanamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah -- is likely to unfold as well. Zubaydah promises to be a central figure because the Canadian government says it has evidence that Harkat associated with him since the early 1990s. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has already presented evidence in secret to Federal Court Judge Simon Noël that allegedly ties Harkat to Zubaydah. According to a summary of that evidence, made public for the first time earlier this year, Harkat admitted in a March 1997 conversation that he knew Zubaydah personally and did not fear being contacted by him at home. In court filings, CSIS describes Zubaydah as "one of (Osama) bin Laden's top lieutenants" -- a reflection of the status accorded Zubaydah by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. But that intelligence assessment of Zubaydah is now, increasingly, under assault. Zubaydah's U.S. lawyers have launched what they call a "reclamation process" to separate fact from the dangerous fiction they say has been authored by the Bush administration to justify their client's torture. Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times by U.S. agents and subjected to other harsh interrogation methods, according to recently released U.S. Justice Department memos. "He was not -- and never has been -- a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban," Zubaydah's lawyer, Brent Mickum, told the Citizen in a recent interview. "Those facts are really not in doubt anymore." George Tenet, the former director of the CIA, however, has forcefully rejected the suggestion that U.S. officials overstated Zubaydah's importance. "Baloney," Tenet wrote in his 2007 memoir. "Abu Zubaydah had been at the crossroads of many al-Qaeda operations and was in position to -- and did -- share critical information with his interrogators." The 9/11 Commission Report refers to Zubaydah as "a sympathetic peer" to al-Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden and leader of a foiled millennial plot to blow up tourist sites in Amman, Jordan. Former U.S. President George Bush has called Zubaydah "one of bin Laden's top leaders." Mickum, however, said the truth is more complicated and much less sensational. To support his contention that Zubaydah was a minor player in jihadist circles, Mickum points to the fact that his client has not been charged with any crime and does not face a military commission trial. Zubaydah is being held without charge as an enemy combatant in Guantanamo prison. Five other "high value" detainees who played roles in the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now face criminal charges and the death penalty. Recent reports in the Washington Post and New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. government officials, have also cast doubt on the CIA's intelligence assessment of Zubaydah. Sources told the Times that Zubaydah was not an al-Qaeda leader but rather "a helpful training camp personnel clerk who would arrange false documents and travel for jihadists, including al-Qaeda members." The Post called him a jihadist "fixer" who worked for al-Qaeda only after Sept. 11. The reports all suggest he played no role in the operational planning of al-Qaeda. Zubaydah was the victim, Mickum charges, of the same thing that led the U.S. into Iraq: rotten intelligence. "The bottom line is people have to come to realize that just as Maher Arar was a mistake, so too was Zubaydah. That's not to say that there may not be any baggage in his closet. But, I mean, he's really more akin to Bin Laden's driver (former Guantanamo detainee Salim Hamdan, of Yemen), who is free." Zubaydah is now one of the most debated figures in the intelligence world: Is he a junior jihadist tortured for his limited information? Or a senior al-Qaeda lieutenant reinventing himself as a victim to fashion an escape from prison? Determining the real meaning of Abu Zubaydah holds important consequences, both in the U.S. and Canada. Zubaydah, 38, a Saudi-born Palestinian, has been connected in court documents to dozens of terror suspects, including three Canadians: Harkat, Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik. The security certificates initially filed against Harkat, in 2002, and Charkaoui, in 2003, included evidence supplied by Zubaydah. Both security certificates were reissued last year without that evidence. Abdelrazik, meanwhile, was returned to Canada last month after six years of detention and exile in Sudan. He was initially detained in Sudan at the request of CSIS, but the Canadian spy agency cleared him of any criminal activity; he remains on a United Nations terrorism blacklist, however, because of U.S. intelligence. Mickum says the cases highlight a larger trend: that Zubaydah's name is being purged from many prosecutions while other cases connected to him collapse. Mickum listed 21 former Guantanamo detainees who have been released in recent years despite being publicly linked to his client. It suggests, he says, that being associated with Zubaydah is no longer considered a serious offence. In the Harkat case, the federal government has expunged any evidence from Zubaydah himself -- the new security certificate law prohibits the use of evidence when it's reasonable to believe it flows from torture -- but continues to allege that Harkat associated with "the top al-Qaeda lieutenant" since the early 1990s. Harkat has previously denied any association with Zubaydah. Harkat's lawyer, Matthew Webber, has asked Judge Noël to order Canadian officials to update its intelligence assessment of Zubaydah, but such an order has not been issued. "There's an enormous body of material that leads one to conclude that this characterization of Zubaydah was nothing but a transparent, U.S. administration propaganda device," Webber charged. Mickum told the Citizen that he would be willing to take questions from Harkat's defence team to Zubaydah. He could then provide Federal Court an affidavit, supplying the information offered by his client. Webber said he would pursue Mickum's offer, which could put the controversial Zubaydah front and centre at Harkat's public hearing in January. Abu Zubaydah was born in Saudi Arabia in 1971 as Zayn al Abidin Muhammad Husayn. He moved to the West Bank as a teenager and was educated in India. He embraced Islam, and in 1991 travelled to Afghanistan to fight communist insurgents who continued to wage war after the 1989 withdrawal of Russian forces. On the front lines, he suffered serious head wounds in a mortar attack. He lost the ability to speak for a year and his memory was permanently damaged by shrapnel that remains embedded in his head. (His lawyer says he now suffers blinding headaches and seizures.) Zubaydah told a Guantanamo Bay legal hearing that in 1994 he became Pakistan-based "co-ordinator" for the Khalden camp, which was run by Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi (al-Libi died in Syrian custody earlier this year). The camp, Zubaydah testified, trained jihadists first to fight the Russians, then to defend Muslim lands in Chechnya and Bosnia. "I disagreed," he said, "with the al-Qaeda philosophy of targeting innocent civilians like those in the World Trade Center." As co-ordinator, he said, he managed logistics for jihadists travelling to and from the Khalden camp, and raised money to support its operation. Khalden, he said, was closed by the Taliban in 2000 because bin Laden did not want a rival camp available to jihadists in Afghanistan that was outside of al-Qaeda's control. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Zubaydah said he volunteered to be a soldier for al-Qaeda to defend Afghanistan from a U.S. invasion, but the terrorist group didn't want him. He returned to Pakistan, he said, to raise money for jihadist "brothers" who were not supported by the well-funded al-Qaeda. On March 28, 2002, U.S. and Pakistani forces raided a safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Zubaydah was shot in the abdomen and groin, and within days, was flown to a secret CIA prison in Thailand where FBI agents led questioning of him. Using traditional interview methods, the agents gleaned a vital piece of information: that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the main organizer of the 9/11 plot. Zubaydah also told authorities about José Padilla, a U.S. citizen who was later convicted of plotting to kill people overseas. Some agents believe he gave authorities all of the actionable intelligence to which he had access within months of his arrest. According to the New York Times, by the summer of 2002, interrogators began to surmise that Zubaydah was not a terrorist leader, but a well-connected travel agent for jihadists. But senior CIA officials disagreed. They continued to believe that as an al-Qaeda leader he must know more, and as a result, they sought and received legal authorization from the U.S. Justice Department in August 2002 to use harsh interrogation techniques. Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, confined in a small box for hours at a time, and beaten. There is no evidence that Zubaydah provided his interrogators any significant new intelligence after the harsh methods were introduced -- although some in the CIA dispute that notion. The CIA destroyed 90 videotapes that depicted his interrogations. Curiously, it was a convicted terrorist with Canadian connections, former Montreal resident Ahmed Ressam, who appears to have convinced U.S. officials that Zubaydah played a leadership role in al-Qaeda. Ressam, a failed refugee claimant in Canada, was convicted in April 2001 of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport; he subsequently co-operated with U.S. officials in exchange for a reduced sentence. Ressam told them Zubaydah facilitated terrorist operations, including his own. He described Zubaydah as an associate of bin Laden "equal to and not subordinate to" him. Zubaydah, however, told a Guantanamo hearing that Ressam was only a student who mistakenly believed that he controlled the training camps. "He don't know the big picture," Zubaydah insisted. (Zubaydah also admitted that he counselled Ressam: "He have ideas to make problems against Jew in Canada. I tell him if they are helping Israel, I told him this is good war. But if only Jew, it is not our headache.") Lawyer Brent Mickum contends Zubaydah's version of events has been repeatedly confirmed by the testimony of other Guantanamo detainees. Zubaydah remains one of 229 people detained in Guantanamo Bay. U.S. President Barack Obama has signed an executive order to close the prison in January, 2010, but administration officials have said some detainees could still be held indefinitely in the U.S. if they pose a threat. It's still unclear what will happen to Zubaydah, but it's possible that he could be tried in the U.S. on terrorist conspiracy charges or else sent to Jordan to be tried in connection with the Millennium bomb plot. His lawyers believe Zubaydah, who has spent seven years in U.S. custody, should be released in Saudi Arabia, where he has relatives. Argues Mickum: "Like the weapons of mass destruction and the need for war in Iraq, it is no longer shocking to find that the Bush Administration got it all wrong. Abu Zubaydah's supposed relationship with al-Qaeda is a complete myth. "In an ever-growing litany of horrors, the Bush administration simply tortured the wrong guy."

DTN News: US Resettles Four Uighur Guantanamo Detainees In Bermuda

DTN News: US Resettles Four Uighur Guantanamo Detainees In Bermuda

*Sources: Int'l Media / AFP

(NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON - June 16, 2009: The United States has sent to Bermuda four Uighur men who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba despite having been declared no threat to US national security, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. Former Guantanamo detainees, left to right, Abdulla Abdulqadir, Ablakim Turahun, and Salahidin Abdulahat pray in the courtyard of the the cottage where they are staying, in a suburb of Hamilton, on the island of Bermuda, Monday, June 15, 2009. The three are among four Chinese ethnic Uighurs who have just been released from U.S. military custody after nearly seven years in Guantanamo, and are being resettled in Bermuda. "These detainees, who were subject to release as a result of court orders, had been cleared for release by the prior administration, which determined they would no longer treat them as enemy combatants," the department said. "The detainees left Guantanamo Bay today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and the government of Bermuda." They are the first Uighur detainees cleared of wrongdoing to be resettled since 2006, when five others were sent to Albania. "By helping accomplish the president's objective of closing Guantanamo, the transfer of these detainees will make America safer," said Attorney General Eric Holder. "We are extremely grateful to the government of Bermuda for its assistance in the successful resettlement of these four detainees, and we commend the leadership they have demonstrated on this important issue." The move came the same day China again demanded all 17 Uighurs being held in Guantanamo Bay, who it calls terror suspects, be returned to China. The United States should "stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters, adding the Uighurs should be sent back to China "at an early date." "China urges the US to implement the UN Security Council's relevant resolutions and its international obligations on counter-terrorism," he said. The men were living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks. They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution in their home region of Xinjiang in western China. The United States cleared the men of wrongdoing four years ago but they remained at the controversial US-run prison camp in Cuba due to fears they would be persecuted if handed to China. The United States had tried in vain to get Canada, Australia and Germany to take in some of the remaining 17 Uighurs. On Wednesday, the tiny archipelago of Palau announced it had agreed to take them. Qin said the Uighur detainees were "members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement" -- a group listed by the United Nations and the United States as a terrorist organization. "East Turkestan" is what many Muslims call Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia and is home to about 8.3 million Uighurs. Many members of the mainly Muslim community say they have suffered under Chinese political and religious persecution for decades. In October 2008, a federal judge had ordered the Uighurs released in the United States, but that ruling was overturned on appeal in February. Obama has promised to close down the detention center by January 2010, and hopes to convince other countries to take in some of the 50 detainees cleared for release.

DTN News: Pacific State Palau To Take Uighur Detainees From Guantanamo

DTN News: Pacific State Palau To Take Uighur Detainees From Guantanamo

*Sources: DTN News & Int'l Media

(NSI News Source Info) WELLINGTON, New Zealand - June 10, 2009: The Pacific nation of Palau says it has agreed to a US request to temporarily resettle up to 17 Chinese Muslims. The 17 men are ethnic Uighurs, now being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Cuba, and the US has asked for help to re-settle them. In this image reviewed by the U.S. Military, a Guantanamo detainee is escorted by guards at Camp 4 detention facility, at the U.S. Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nov. 18, 2008. A former Bush administration official said Thursday, March 19, 2009 that many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants. Their fate was problematic due to fears for their safety if they were repatriated to China. Palau, a former US trust territory, grants diplomatic recognition to Taiwan, not China. Palau President Johnson Toribiong said his government had "agreed to accommodate the United States of America's request to temporarily resettle in Palau up to 17 ethnic Uighur detainees ... subject to periodic review." 'Humanitarian' In a statement, he said his tiny country is "honoured and proud" to resettle the detainees, who have been found not to be "enemy combatants." He said the agreement was a "humanitarian gesture", which had nothing to do with the upcoming review of the Compact of Free Association under which the US gives large sums to Palau. US officials asked Mr Toribiong on 4 June to accept some or all of the 17 Uighur detainees due to strong US congressional opposition to releasing them on US soil. Guantanamo Bay officials have been attempting to fulfill US President Barack Obama's order to close the detention facility by early next year. Palau, with a population of about 20,000, is an archipelago of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets that is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 800 km (500 miles) east of the Philippines in the Pacific Ocean. The US will not send the Uighurs back to China for fear they will be tortured or executed. Beijing says Uighur insurgents are leading an Islamic separatist movement in China's far west and wants those held at Guantanamo to be returned to China. Analysts said the fact that Palau is an ally of Taiwan, not China, could have helped the negotiations. In 2006, Albania accepted five Uighur detainees from Guantanamo but has since balked at taking others, partly for fear of diplomatic repercussions from China. Australia has already twice rejected US appeals to resettle the Uighurs. Palau has retained close ties with the United States since independence in 1994 when it signed a Free Compact of Association with the US. It relies heavily on the US for aid and defence.

President Barack Obama Marks 100 Days With Trip To The Heartland

President Barack Obama Marks 100 Days With Trip To The Heartland

(NSI News Source Info) ARNOLD, Missouri - April 29, 2009: Barack Obama marked 100 days as president Wednesday with a trip to the US heartland, claiming his ambitious agenda of "remaking America" had begun to take hold but warning of much more work ahead to pull the nation out of recession. US President Barack Obama speaks as Senator Arlen Specter and Vice President Joe Biden looks on, April 29, 2009 in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, DC. Specter, a veteran Republican senator from Pennsylvania, announced April 28, 2009 that he was switching to the Democratic party. Since taking office January 20, Obama has battled the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, shifted the US military posture in Iraq and Afghanistan, and shown the world a different face of America as the first African-American US president.

As if that were not enough, he now faces a deadly new challenge in the form of a swine flu outbreak that health authorities fear could explode into a global pandemic. Against that backdrop, Obama set out from the White House Wednesday morning for the central state of Missouri for a town hall meeting where he put his own perspective on his first 100 days, a traditional milestone for gauging US presidents' debuts. "We have begun to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off and we have begun the work of remaking America," Obama told a raucous crowd in opening remarks at a town hall meeting in this St Louis suburb. "Now, after 100 days, I'm pleased with the progress we've made, but I'm not satisfied," an upbeat Obama said. "I'm confident in the future, but I'm not content with the present," he added. "Not when there are workers that are still out of jobs, families who still can't pay their bills." Obama's debut -- seen as a success by the majority of Americans, according to several polls released just ahead of the 100-day milestone -- has been marked by the worst economic crisis since the 1930s Great Depression, and what Obama described Wednesday as the administration's "bold and sustained" steps to rein it in. The president unleashed a huge government intervention in the economy with a historic 787-billion-dollar stimulus bill and now has high-stakes environmental and healthcare reforms on the launchpad. Abroad, Obama hit the "reset button" on US foreign policy, reaching out to Muslims and vowing to end decades of enmity with foes Cuba and Iran. He mandated the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison camp, outlawed torture and set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. He also doubled down in Afghanistan and Pakistan and reversed US denial on climate change. "We've come a long way, we can see the light on the horizon, but we've got a much longer journey ahead," Obama said. Many of the new policies have not sat well with Republicans, who for the first time in eight years control neither the White House nor either chamber of Congress. "We don't have a majority. It's very difficult to pass legislation," Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lamented. Compounding their woes, senior Republican Senator Arlen Specter announced Tuesday that he was becoming a Democrat, boosting Obama's ability to drive his agenda through the US Congress. Obama's Democratic allies hailed his first months in office, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said followed the "misguided policies and misplaced priorities" of the Bush administration. "I am encouraged that in the brief time we have had so effective a partner in the White House as President Obama, we have taken so many strong steps, so swiftly, in the right direction and for the right reasons," Reid said. Obama returns to Washington for a nationally televised press conference Wednesday evening when he is certain to be grilled about huge challenges that face the country on many fronts. "I think the American people are less likely to spend a lot of time sitting around Wednesday judging what we've done in our first 100 days, and are more concerned with what we're going to do each and every day going forward," said Obama's spokesman Robert Gibbs, who gave his boss a report card grade of "B plus." But Americans have looked back at Obama's debut, and polls show he still enjoys strong backing among a wide swath of US voters. A survey published Wednesday by Quinnipiac University found that 58 percent of those polled approve of his performance as president, compared to 30 percent who disapprove. That was similar to the 59 percent approval rating Obama garnered in a Quinnipiac survey in early March. Meanwhile, Obama faced the first health crisis of his term, with the country experiencing its first swine flu death since the disease's outbreak in Mexico. At least 91 infections were confirmed across 10 US states as of Wednesday, and after declaring a public health emergency at the weekend Obama pressed Congress to release 1.5 billion dollars in emergency funding. On Tuesday the Senate confirmed Kathleen Sebelius as health and human services secretary, rounding out the president's cabinet amid concerns that many other senior positions remain vacant.

War on Terrorism Over?

War on Terrorism Over?

Author: John Feffer

(NSI News Source Info) January 31, 2009: Last week, shortly after being inaugurated, President Barack Obama ended the "global war on terror" (GWOT). Or so The Washington Post reported. The new president countermanded the Bush administration's extralegal approaches by mandating the closure of Guantánamo within a year, outlawing the use of torture in interrogations, and putting the CIA out of the secret prisons business. Obama announced that he wanted to "send an unmistakable signal that our actions in defense of liberty will be as just as our cause." Sounds good. But the Post's declaration might be just as premature as President George W. Bush's infamous "mission accomplished" speech on the USS Lincoln that signaled the "end" of the Iraq War. On the civil liberties front, for instance, the administration retains the right to use renditions, by which the CIA secretly abducted suspects and transferred them to third countries without trial. "I think it's a glaring hole," Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights said last week on Democracy Now! "I think that one way that the Obama administration could have dealt a more decisive blow to the illegal Bush policies and even the rendition policy, which originated under Bill Clinton, is to specifically reference this and to say that we are going to disavow this." Also, the inmates at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, which holds more prisoners than Gitmo, and the thousands held in Iraq won't get the case-by-case review accorded to their counterparts in Cuba. Non-military agencies like the CIA, after a six-month review, might get "additional or different guidance" on interrogations -- and who knows what that means.

And, as Politico points out, the guy in charge of the 30-day review of Gitmo is the same fellow who was in charge for the last two years -- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. That's not exactly a recipe for reform. But even if Obama holds to his word on torture, closes Guantánamo within the year, applies the same yardstick to detainees at Bagram and in Iraq, and eliminates the Clinton-era policy on extraordinary rendition, the death of the "global war on terror," as Mark Twain once said of his own prematurely published obituary, is greatly exaggerated.

Indeed, on the day after it published GWOT's obituary, The Washington Post reported on two U.S. unilateral air strikes in Pakistan that killed 20 suspected terrorists. Although it observed an uncharacteristic silence over these strikes, the Pakistani government has previously expressed outrage at these violations of its sovereignty. Then there's Afghanistan, which will be the new epicenter of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. Here's the relevant excerpt from the official White House statement on foreign policy: "Obama and Biden will refocus American resources on the greatest threat to our security -- the resurgence of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

They will increase our troop levels in Afghanistan, press our allies in NATO to do the same, and dedicate more resources to revitalize Afghanistan's economic development." Why does Obama believe that he can escape the same outcome in Afghanistan that Bush faced in Iraq? As former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern argued in a recent appeal for a five-year "time-out" on war, "In 2003, the Bush administration ordered an invasion of Iraq, supposedly to reduce terrorism.

But six years later, there is more terrorism and civil strife in Iraq, not less. The same outcome may occur in Afghanistan if we make it the next American military conflict." So, is this a kinder, gentler GWOT? Certainly the new Obama administration is more concerned about observing international law. It's more prudent in its willingness to use diplomacy over force. But so far at least, the new president still treats terrorism as a war to be won rather than an endemic problem to be dealt with patiently and largely by law enforcement agencies. We're still at war in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and for the time being in Iraq.

We're still selling arms to Indonesia, Israel, and Colombia as part of an overall counterterrorism approach. The Pentagon's new Africa Command (AFRICOM) still looks at counter-terrorism through a military lens.