Today's Headlines and Commentary

The AP reports that Barry Walter Bujol Jr., a 30-year old Texan "accused of trying to sneak out of the U.S. to join al-Qaida fighters in the Middle East and provide the group with money, equipment and U.S. military documents," goes on trial today.  The FBI claims he had been emailing Anwar al-Awlaki and Nidal Malik Hasan. He certainly isn't doing that any more. The AP covers ongoing developments in two other homegrown terrorism cases: the defense for Tarek Mehanna, a Massachusetts man accused of conspiring to support al-Qaeda, argues that Mehanna was a scholar devoted to Islam, not a radical devoted to committing jihad; meanwhile, the defense for Rezwan Ferdaus, also of Massachusetts, who is accused of plotting to fly drones into the Pentagon, suggests that “the FBI ignored signs of mental illness while investigating him.” Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the main suspect in the USS Cole bombing--whom Bobby has written about extensively--will be arraigned in a military commission on Wednesday, according to Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. Lawfare will be covering the proceeding. In a testimony before a Congress, TSA chief John Pistole describes the need to overhaul airport security "system to focus on intelligence gathering and [target] those travelers the TSA knows the least about," says Hugo Martin of the Los Angeles Times. Lots of Afghanistan news: Spencer Ackerman of Wired magazine's Danger Room informs us that Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller, the deputy commander of the mission to train Afghan security forces, has been fired after comments he made about Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Afghan generals. Tim Mak of the Politico also has the story. Despite Taliban leader Mullah Omar's holiday message last Friday asking his fighters to stop attacking civilians, the Times reports that a suicide bomber killed eight people in Afghanistan. Reuters declares that there is "little hope" of a settlement with the Taliban before 2014, when U.S. and allied forces plan to withdraw from Afghanistan. The Washington Post reports that American forces handed over a base in one of the country's most volatile areas to Afghan forces, in "the beginning of an experiment to see whether Afghan security forces are ready to fight the Taliban as U.S. troops begin to withdraw." David S. Cloud and David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times discuss the missteps that led to drones accidentally killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan earlier this year. In other news, Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Shmitt of the New York Times describe the growing concern that the U.S. departure from Iraq will lead to al-Qaeda's resurgence. In related news, the Boston Globe reports on the growing Iranian presence in Iraq, another cause for concern as the United States prepares to withdraw its forces by the end of the year. Elections in Pakistan are coming up--as are the number of anti-American politicians running. This leaves the current pro-U.S. government (in a weird manner of speaking) facing possible defeat, says Saeed Shah of the Miami Herald. According to Alan Boswell of the Seattle Times, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) presents a growing threat. The U.S. has increased counterterrrorism support to $150 million annually for poor governments in the region, and France has declared that AQIM is its "No.1 priority on the continent." Sarah Shourd, a political prisoner who was held in solitary confinement in Iran, describes her experience in this op-ed in the Times and argues that solitary confinement--including as practiced in the United States--is a form of torture. And check it out: The New York Times is into our Moment of Zen from two weeks ago. Here, from DARPA and Danger Room, is another Moment of Zen to start off your week. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter and visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief. Feel free to email me noteworthy articles I may have missed at singh.lawfare@gmail.com.