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Sarah Palin can take down the fence. Palin’s neighbor of three months on Wasilla’s Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss, is packing his bags and notebooks and leaving Sunday for his home in Massachusetts to write the book he has been researching on the former governor and GOP vice presidential candidate. His arrival in May made

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US President Barack Obama’s revamped military commissions start work Monday at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, focusing on the cases of two men facing terrorism charges. One has pleaded guilty and the other was 15 at the time of his arrest. Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, 50, pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to provide material support to terrorism. The former bodyguard of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden will appear before a commission on Monday to hear his sentence. A spokesman for the prosecution, David Iglesias, refused to tell reporters if Qosi’s sentence will be made public or remain confidential. Asked if convicted Guantanamo prisoners would be kept at the prison even after their sentences had run out, as happened under former US president George W. Bush, Iglesias said he was “not aware of any controlling direction from Washington, DC, on that.” Story continues below… Also Monday, in a second courtroom at the naval base, Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured at age 15 by US troops in Afghanistan and the last Westerner at the naval base, will appear at the last preliminary hearing before his trial, due to start on Tuesday. The trial will begin with the selection of a 15-member jury, at least five of whom will be military officers. Khadr, now 23, is accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 that killed a US soldier. He also is alleged to have been trained by Al-Qaeda and joined a network organized by Osama bin Laden to make bombs. “It’s very clear that the government of the US and the government of Canada have decided not to intervene in this case and therefore we are going to see the first case of a child soldier in modern history,” said his military lawyer Jon Jackson. “When President Obama was elected, I believed that we were going to close the book on Guantanamo and the military commissions. And instead President Obama has decided to write the next sad, pathetic chapter in the book of the military commissions,” he added. “Forever, Obama’s military commission will be remembered as the trial of a child soldier,” Jackson said. Iglesias had a different view on Khadr’s case. “There is no legal prohibition in the US to try underage” people, he said, adding that the prosecution would have no trouble asking that he be put away for life if he is found guilty of the charges. In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has not requested the return of Khadr, preferring to allow the US trial to run its course. Khadr has so far refused a plea deal. In a letter to his Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, published in newspapers in Canada and the United States, Khadr said the trial may show the world how unfair the process is. “The world doesn’t get it, so it might work if the world sees the US sentencing a child to life in prison, it might show the world how unfair and sham this process is,” he said. Since 2001, four men have been convicted of terrorism-related charges in Guantanamo military trials, two of whom pleaded guilty, while US federal courts have sentenced some 200 extremists over the same period. The first, so-called “Australian Taliban” David Hicks, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to material support for terrorism in exchange for a reduced sentence of nine months in prison to be served in his native Australia. On Friday, the US Supreme Court declined to block Khadr’s prosecution at Guantanamo. Jackson had sought the injunction in order to force a lower court to examine the constitutionality of the military tribunal set to try the Canadian.

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US President Barack Obama’s revamped military commissions start work Monday at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, focusing on the cases of two men facing terrorism charges. One has pleaded guilty and the other was 15 at the time of his arrest. Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, 50, pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to provide material support to terrorism. The former bodyguard of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden will appear before a commission on Monday to hear his sentence. A spokesman for the prosecution, David Iglesias, refused to tell reporters if Qosi’s sentence will be made public or remain confidential. Asked if convicted Guantanamo prisoners would be kept at the prison even after their sentences had run out, as happened under former US president George W. Bush, Iglesias said he was “not aware of any controlling direction from Washington, DC, on that.” Story continues below… Also Monday, in a second courtroom at the naval base, Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured at age 15 by US troops in Afghanistan and the last Westerner at the naval base, will appear at the last preliminary hearing before his trial, due to start on Tuesday. The trial will begin with the selection of a 15-member jury, at least five of whom will be military officers. Khadr, now 23, is accused of throwing a grenade in 2002 that killed a US soldier. He also is alleged to have been trained by Al-Qaeda and joined a network organized by Osama bin Laden to make bombs. “It’s very clear that the government of the US and the government of Canada have decided not to intervene in this case and therefore we are going to see the first case of a child soldier in modern history,” said his military lawyer Jon Jackson. “When President Obama was elected, I believed that we were going to close the book on Guantanamo and the military commissions. And instead President Obama has decided to write the next sad, pathetic chapter in the book of the military commissions,” he added. “Forever, Obama’s military commission will be remembered as the trial of a child soldier,” Jackson said. Iglesias had a different view on Khadr’s case. “There is no legal prohibition in the US to try underage” people, he said, adding that the prosecution would have no trouble asking that he be put away for life if he is found guilty of the charges. In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has not requested the return of Khadr, preferring to allow the US trial to run its course. Khadr has so far refused a plea deal. In a letter to his Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney, published in newspapers in Canada and the United States, Khadr said the trial may show the world how unfair the process is. “The world doesn’t get it, so it might work if the world sees the US sentencing a child to life in prison, it might show the world how unfair and sham this process is,” he said. Since 2001, four men have been convicted of terrorism-related charges in Guantanamo military trials, two of whom pleaded guilty, while US federal courts have sentenced some 200 extremists over the same period. The first, so-called “Australian Taliban” David Hicks, pleaded guilty in May 2007 to material support for terrorism in exchange for a reduced sentence of nine months in prison to be served in his native Australia. On Friday, the US Supreme Court declined to block Khadr’s prosecution at Guantanamo. Jackson had sought the injunction in order to force a lower court to examine the constitutionality of the military tribunal set to try the Canadian.

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Fox News’ senior judicial analyst made some surprising remarks Saturday that may go against the grain at his conservative network. In a interview with Ralph Nader on C-SPAN’s Book TV to promote his book Lies the Government Told You , Judge Andrew Napolitano said that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should have been indicted for “torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant.” The judge believes that it is a fallacy to say that the US treats suspects as innocent until proven guilty. “The government acts as if a defendant is guilty merely on the basis of an accusation,” said Napolitano. Nader was curious about how this applied to the Bush administration. “What about the more serious violations of habeas corpus,” wondered Nader. “You know after 9/11 Bush rounded up thousands of them, Americans, many of them Muslim Americans or Arabic Americans and they were thrown in jail without charges. They didn’t have lawyers. Some of them were pretty mistreated in New York City. You know they were all released eventually.” “Well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you,” answered Napolitano. Story continues below… “So what President Bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of Guantanamo Bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the Constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal,” he continued. “What should be the sanctions [for Bush and Cheney]?” asked Nader. “They should have been indicted. They absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant,” said Napolitano. “I’d like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you’re under oath, lying is not a crime. At least not an indictable crime. It’s a moral crime,” he said. This isn’t the first time that Napolitano’s comments have veered away from the standard talking points at Fox News. He has predicted that Arizona’s controversial immigration law will be blocked by the court . Napolitano also said Arizona’s governor would ” bankrupt the Republican Party ” fighting for the law. The liberal blog Crooks and Liars has more details on the Nader/Napolitano inteview. This video is from C-SPAN’s Book TV , broadcast July 10, 2010.

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WASHINGTON — General David Petraeus faces worried lawmakers Tuesday for a near-certain confirmation as the head of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan amid growing doubts the US strategy will succeed. The hearing comes just a day after General Stanley McChrystal, who was promptly removed from the post last week after scathing remarks he and his aides made to a magazine about top Obama administration officials, told the US Army he would retire. Petraeus, who many in Washington credit as having almost single-handedly turned around the Iraq war, is not expected to face much opposition to his nomination when he goes before the Senate Armed Services Committee. But a growing debate over the chances of US success in Afghanistan; this was a war already going badly before McChrystal’s derisive remarks to Rolling Stone were made public. Recurrent hiccups in US strategy, violence at an all-time high and a weak Afghan government all will likely complicate his task. Officials and lawmakers alike are hoping Petraeus can replicate his success as architect of the 2007 Iraq troop “surge” almost six months after President Barack Obama escalated the nearly nine-year-old war in Afghanistan by dispatching 30,000 more US troops. Story continues below… But Afghanistan is no Iraq, where many Sunni insurgents switched sides to support US efforts to fight Al-Qaeda, the fledgling Iraqi democracy slowly progressed and the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia, laid down its arms. Four months after McChrystal’s first major offensive in the Marjah area of Helmand province, the Kabul government is still rife with corruption. The Taliban are returning and a much-touted operation in the militants’ spiritual homeland of Kandahar has been delayed. And divisions within the Obama war team, put under a spotlight by McChrystal’s now-public remarks, remain. Already in November 2009, a pair of forcefully worded memos by US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry showed the retired lieutenant general had serious misgivings about the US counterinsurgency strategy unless the Afghan government cleans up chronic corruption. Democrats and Republicans on the Senate panel are expected to press Petraeus on the merits of Obama’s July 2011 start date for withdrawing US forces and any possible changes in troop levels. Petraeus told them last week that he viewed the date as “etched in stone.” But he also carefully stressed it was “a date at which a process begins that is based on conditions” in the strife-torn country, and one that would not prompt the United States to “race for the exits.” Lawmakers are also due to ask Petraeus for his assessment of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s fitness as a partner, amid widespread charges of corruption and polls showing he lacks popular support at home. “At the end of the day, his success is our success,” said Petraeus, who until last week oversaw McChrystal as the head of all US troops in the Middle East and Central Asia. The panel’s top Republican and a longtime Petraeus supporter, Arizona Senator John McCain, predicted the confirmation hearing “will probably be the fastest in the history of the Armed Services Committee.” Committee Chairman Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, said Petraeus “knows counterinsurgency strategy better than anybody. He wrote the book on it.” You can follow the live confirmation hearings at the following video, courtesy of MSNBC : Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy

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Even though the changing of the top guard might bring an enormous shift to Afghanistan war policies, lawmakers are rushing to confirm the new commander of the war effort chosen by President Obama to replace his “runaway general.” US General David Petraeus will appear early next week before a key US Senate panel in a hearing on his confirmation to lead the flagging Afghan war effort, the committee announced Thursday. Petraeus was to come before the US Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday at 9:30 am (1330 GMT) for what lawmakers were predicting would be the quickest, easiest confirmation process in a long time. Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the panel, said Wednesday he had a “high degree of confidence” that it could refer the nomination “the same day that we have the hearing” to the full Senate for a final confirmation vote. “The hearing for General Petraeus’s confirmation will probably be the fastest in the history of the Armed Services Committee,” agreed the panel’s top Republican, Senator John McCain. Story continues below… But Petraeus could face tough questioning from lawmakers, including McCain, uneasy or outright irate about President Barack Obama’s July 2011 date for beginning the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Petraeus told the committee last week that he viewed the date as “etched in stone” but carefully described it as “a date at which a process begins that is based on conditions” in the strife-torn country. “That is not the date when we look for the door and try to turn off the light, but rather a date at which a process begins,” he said. And Petraeus, hailed in Washington as the hero of the Iraq “surge” strategy widely credited here as pulling that country back from the brink of civil war, refused to rule out calling for an increase in US forces in Afghanistan. “As a commander, as a military commander who owes the commander in chief and our troops in the field my best, I owe the president my best professional military advice,” he said. “I would never rule out coming back and asking for something more. I think that would be irresponsible,” the general said. “Gen. David Petraeus told CNN on Thursday that he supports President Barack Obama’s July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a key point of contention between the president and many of his Republican critics in Congress,” CNN reports . The decision to replace McChrystal with Petraeus was hotly debated by top administration officials. Defense Secretary Robert Gates backed keeping McChrystal on the job because he was vital to the war effort in Afghanistan, but he was overruled, a senior Pentagon official told CNN. The official has direct knowledge of the events but declined to be identified because of the internal administration discussions. The country’s top U.S. military official – Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen – said Thursday he backs the president’s decision to remove McChrystal from the Afghan command post. “I’m very supportive of the president’s decision,” he said. Military officers on the ground in Afghanistan, meanwhile, are stressing Obama’s assertion that the switch in leadership does not represent a change in policy. “We remain absolutely focused on our tasks and the operational tempo will not miss a beat,” Lt. Gen. Sir Nick Parker said Thursday. Parker, who is British, has assumed command pending approval of Petraeus’ nomination by Congress. At Wired’s Danger Room, Noah Shachtman writes , General David Petraeus may have been the editor-in-chief of the military’s counterinsurgency manual. But it was General Stanley McChrystal who put in place some of the book’s most radical precepts about limiting the use of force. Now that Petraeus has replaced McChrystal as the front-line commander in Afghanistan, we’ll see if he rolls back McChrystal-style counterinsurgency in favor of something more like what Petraeus practiced in Iraq. When McChrystal took over as Afghanistan’s top general, he put limits on night raids, and curbed pursuits into populated villages. Most famously and dramatically, McChrystal severely restricted the use of air power — America’s biggest technological advantage in the war. …. McChrystal’s strict guidelines triggered all kinds of grumbling from frontline troops, who felt hampered in their ability to fight the Taliban. Whether or not Petraeus eases those restrictions is one of many questions to be answered, as McChrystal’s version of COIN gives way to the Petraeus practice. Journalist/author Gareth Porter argues , Despite President Barack Obama’s denial that his decision to fire Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan and replace him with Gen. David Petraeus signified any differences with McChrystal over war strategy, the decision obviously reflects a desire by Obama to find a way out of a deepening policy crisis in Afghanistan. Although the ostensible reason was indiscreet comments by McChrystal and his aides reported in Rolling Stone, the switch from McChrystal to Petraeus was clearly the result of White House unhappiness with McChrystal’s handling of the war. It had become evident in recent weeks that McChrystal’s strategy is not working as he had promised, and Congress and the U.S. political elite had already become very uneasy about whether the war was on the wrong track. In calling on Petraeus, the Obama administration appears to be taking a page from the George W. Bush administration’s late 2006 decision to rescue a war in Iraq which was generally perceived in Washington as having become an embarrassing failure. But both Obama and Petraeus are acutely aware of the differences between the situation in Iraq at that moment and the situation in Afghanistan today. (with AFP report)

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The Obama administration reaffirmed Sunday that it will begin pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan next summer, despite reservations among top generals that absolute deadlines are a mistake. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff said an announced plan to begin bringing forces home in July 2011 still holds. “That’s not changing. Everybody agreed on that date,” Rahm Emanuel said, adding by name the top three officials overseeing the policy girding the war: Gen. David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. Petraeus, the war’s top military boss, said last week that he would recommend delaying the pullout if conditions in Afghanistan warranted it. Days after the date was announced in December, Gates pointedly said it was not a deadline. Emanuel’s remarks reflect the White House view that Obama must offer a war-weary American public and Congress a promise that the nearly nine-year war is not open-ended. The problem, congressional Republicans and some military leaders say, is that a fixed date encourages the Taliban-led insurgency and undermines U.S. leverage with Afghan leaders. Story continues below… Gates pledged Sunday that some troops would begin to leave in 13 months, but he was more cautious. “We clearly understand that in July of 2011, we begin to draw down our forces,” Gates said. “The pace with which we draw down and how many we draw down is going to be conditions-based.” Uniformed and civilian defense leaders accepted the announcement of a date to begin leaving as a condition of Obama’s major expansion of the war. Obama ordered an additional 30,000 troops, the last of whom are arriving now, with a mission to squeeze the Taliban on its home ground, build up Afghan security forces and improve chances that local people would swing behind the U.S.-backed central government. With little progress apparent in the critical Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan, the split between politics and tactics is again on display. As Gates acknowledged Sunday, it is taking longer than he hoped to gain an enduring edge over the Taliban in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Gates asked for time and patience to demonstrate that the new strategy is working. He lamented that Americans are too quick to write off the war when Obama’s revamped strategy has only just begun to take hold. “It is a tough pull,” Gates said. “We are suffering significant casualties. We expected that; we warned everybody that would be the case last winter.” At least 34 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan this month, making June among the deadliest months of the war. Casualties are expected to rise through the summer and fall as fighting expands in Helmand and Kandahar. Earlier this month, Gates said the United States and its partners must demonstrate progress this year or risk the collapse of already dwindling public support for the war. Petraeus told Congress last week that he would recommend postponing the start of the withdrawal if security conditions and the capability of the Afghan government could not support it. That does not mean Petraeus is opposed to bringing some troops home, and he said repeatedly that he supports Obama’s strategy. His caution, however, is rooted in the fact that the uniformed military — and counterinsurgency specialists in particular — have always been uncomfortable with fixed parameters for an inexact process of persuasion. The war strategy Obama adopted is based on the success of Petraeus’ counterinsurgency tactics in the Iraq war. It combines a short-term “surge” of forces to blunt rising violence and a longer-term project to persuade locals to help uproot a homegrown insurgency. Emanuel did not dispute quoted remarks from Vice President Joe Biden that “a whole lot” of forces would come home in July 2011. Biden, who argued within the administration for a narrower mission in Afghanistan involving fewer troops, was interviewed for the book “The Promise,” by Jonathan Alter. Gates, however, said he had never heard Biden say such a thing, and that the evaluation by the on-the-ground war commander will largely determine the scope of the withdrawal. “That absolutely has not been decided,” Gates said. “I’m not accepting, at face value, that … he said those words.” Emanuel spoke on ABC’s “This Week.” Gates appeared on “Fox News Sunday.” Powered by Mochila

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