Today's Headlines and Commentary

The Washington Post and the New York Times both report that the U.S will end combat operations in Afghanistan by mid-2013, more than a year earlier than scheduled. But beware of this brewing storm in the short-term: Reuters tells us that the Obama administration is considering the transfer of five senior Taliban prisoners to Qatar in order to "set the stage for eventual political talks between the Taliban and Afghan government"--a move sure to provoke outrage among many in Congress. Bobby and Ben discussed this here and here. And in related news, Taliban insurgents "remain convinced that they are winning the war," says the Times. Been wondering why you've been on so many empty flights recently? According to the Associated Press, a whopping 21,000 people are on the no-fly list. And just in case you were wondering instead whether President Obama might get in trouble for blowing the nominally covert nature of the drones program, breathe easy. If the President said it, it's not classified. The Post tells us that White House spokesman Jay Carney said in the President's defense: "He's the commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States. He's the president of the United States." The ACLU has sued DOJ, DOD, and CIA in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for "illegally failing to respond to requests made in October under the Freedom of Information Act," says the Post. The lawsuit is available here. The AP reports that "Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terrorist and two other senior militants" were killed in a Pentagon-backed airstrike in the Philippines. Fifteen militants were killed in all. The trial of nine British men accused of plotting such mayhem around London is heating up: The Times informs us that four "admitted involvement on Wednesday in a conspiracy inspired by Al Qaeda to place a bomb in the toilets of the London Stock Exchange...[and] five other men involved in a wider terrorist conspiracy pleaded guilty to lesser charges." In other UK news, "two German men have pled guilty to terrorism charges...[for] possessing information useful for terrorist acts," says the AP. Cullen Murphy of the Atlantic has this bone-chilling piece comparing the "practices of the medieval Roman Catholic Church" and our contemporary enhanced interrogation techniques from his new book, God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World. However, here is Edward Peters' less than enthusiastic review of it in the Post. Brian Michael Jenkins writes in Foreign Affairs about why the "NDAA makes it harder to fight terrorism." And if you've ever had the urge to run off to Afghanistan and impersonate a government operative, an advisor to the Afghan government, a selfless American patriot--or all of the above--you can take inspiration from the late Jonathan Keith Idema, today's Moment of Zen. For more interesting law and security-related articles, follow us on Twitter, visit the Georgetown Center on National Security and the Law’s Security Law Brief, Fordham Law’s Center on National Security’s Morning Brief, and Fordham Law’s new Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and singh.lawfare@gmail.com.