Today's Headlines and Commentary

Lots of press coverage of Saturday night's GOP debate on national security and foreign policy issues. The Los Angeles Times reports on some of the topics that arose, which include Afghanistan, Pakistan, targeted killing, and of course, the Republican candidates' enthusiasm for waterboarding. The New York Times has more, as does the Associated Press. The Atlantic has some good commentary on the debate, and in case you missed the candidates' riveting performance, here is the video. The AP reports that activists and Muslim community leaders are discouraging Muslims from talking to the NYPD and telling people to lawyer up before speaking with the authorities--furthering the "downward spiral of distrust" between Muslim communities and law enforcement.  In related news, the AP informs us that Detroit police "mistakenly arrested the head of a popular Arab-American cultural center and held him overnight in jail, believing he was a man charged in a conspiracy to funnel money to Hezbollah." That helps. From the department of Rumors of My Death--Or Capture--Have Been Grossly Exaggerated: Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, allegedly captured by Afghan forces, helpfully announced he was, uh, free. According to the Times, a few hours after he was apparently arrested, he--or someone who sounded an awful lot like him--spoke to a reporter on his cell phone, saying that he was alive and well. The conveniently-named Mr. Mujahid was responsible for sending out a mass email of the security plans for an assembly hosted by President Hamid Karzai taking place later this month. The Guardian reports that Afghan officials claim the plan is fake. John Villasenor, non-resident Senior Fellow at Brookings, writing in the Scientific American, has a two-part story on drones--first, he discusses their implications on modern warfare, and second, the threat they pose to privacy. Just what the world needs: more armed Nazis with bags of cash. The AP announces that German authorities are investigating a far-right neo-Nazi group for "a series of bank robberies and at least ten murders." The Times has more on the group, who call themselves the National Socialist Underground. The Massachusetts man accused of plotting to fly a drone into the Pentagon appeared in court today for the second part of a bail hearing, reports the AP.  His defense attorneys claim "he is a 'mentally troubled' man who had a 'completely unrealistic fantasy,'" while prosecutors claim he was "was a 'ticking time bomb' who was caught before he could carry out his plan." Eli Lake at the Daily Beast has more on the Department  of Justice's probe into former CIA lawyer John Rizzo's disclosures to Newsweek about the CIA's drone program. Two injured U.S. airmen testified at the trial of one Arid Uka, a Kosovo Albanian man who confessed to shooting and wounding them and killing two of their colleagues at Frankfurt Airport in March, according to Stars and Stripes. CNN reports that the U.S. is not the only country that has an ongoing beef with Iran. Bahraini authorities--who do not always provide the most balanced accounts of Shiite activity in their country--claim to have discovered a terror cell that has ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Iran, predictably, denies the allegations, says the San Francisco Chronicle. And from the colorful Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor Guantanamo military commissions, comes this account of the President's lost private parts--and your Moment of Zen. 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.