Today's Headlines and Commentary

Lots of Guantanamo Bay news today: As I write this, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri is being arraigned on capital murder charges. Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald covers the story, and National Public Radio reports on the unprecedented aspects of this trial, which involves the "first high-value, high-profile detainee to go through the [military commissions] process." According to Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times, the situation is a "lose-lose proposition" for al-Nashiri because the detainee may not be released even if acquitted--an issue Ben addressed here. Lawfare will have a dispatch from the hearing as soon as we can. Rosenberg also briefs us on the extraordinary costs of housing a captive at Guantanamo Bay: a whopping $800,000 a year. This is more than 30 times the per annum price of imprisoning someone on U.S. soil. Meanwhile, lawyer David J Cynamon argues against the plight of his two Kuwaiti clients as they enter their tenth year at Guantanamo Bay in this op-ed in Al-Jazeera. Peter Finn of the Washington Post describes the deadlock between the White House and Congress on detainees who have been cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay. And my Davidson of the New Yorker has a piece arguing that we should build on our existing criminal justice framework for handling suspected terrorits, not "hide" at Guantanamo. The Associated Press reports that ten suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed by government forces in Yemen, and Reuters informs us that approximately 60 Taliban fighters were killed by Afghan and NATO troops in a volatile Afghan province. In other news, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has promised to help the United States "eradicate" the Haqqani network--though holding your breath on that one is probably not wise. Arthur Rizer and Joseph Hartman in the Atlantic argue that post-9/11 foreign policy and the War on Terror has "militarized" domestic law enforcement. And for today's Moment of Zen, this forthcoming AQAP documentary is sure to burn up the Oscars. 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.