Today's Headlines and Commentary

At the top of the news today is the report that the U.S. gave $50,000 for each of the villagers killed in the massacre in Afghanistan a few weeks ago, and $11,000 for each person wounded in the rampage. The wife of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales defended her husband on the Today Show. And Rob Nordland over at the New York Times writes on a discrepancy in how the U.S. military and the Afghan government are counting the number killed--with the U.S. saying 17 and the Afghans saying 16. Why, you ask, is there a difference? It seems that one of the dead may have been an unborn fetus, which, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, can be considered a separate murder. Writes Nordland:

The military’s charge sheet against Sergeant Bales lists 17 counts of murder with premeditation, and it lists the names of 16 of the victims--although those names are redacted on copies of the sheet released by the Army. On the fifth count, or specification, of murder, however, there is no name given, and the charge reads that Sergeant Bales murdered “a male of apparent Afghan descent by means of shooting him with a firearm.”

Another incident of an Afghan soldier opening fire on NATO troops: Two soldiers were killed, says Rob Nordland and J. David Goodman at the Times and Ernesto Londono at the Washington Post. Ben posted Greg Miller's latest already--a profile of "Roger," the chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Vicky Divoll, the former general counsel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, had this op-ed in the LA Times over the weekend urging Congress to review the Obama administration's policy on targeted killings. The U.S. Navy is denying involvement in that alleged attack in southern Yemen late last week. Carlo Munoz at The Hill reports. Senator Lindsey Graham, whom we've praised in the past for his expertise in creating sound bites, doesn't seem to like it when other politicians do it. National Journal and The Hill have the take-away on his attack on GOP presidential candidates who try to make sound-bites out of Afghanistan. As Matt Vasilogambros puts it in National Journal:

“We don't need a bunch of politicians trying to create a military exit strategy,” Graham said. “We're withdrawing from Afghanistan. The question is how. Do we listen to General Allen or do we listen to politicians who are trying to get a sound bite?” Graham called for a bipartisan agreement backing Allen’s plan for withdrawal. He said Romney has backed Allen’s plan, and hopes President Obama follows suit. He went further by imploring the president to do an Oval Office address explaining the American policy definitively. “Tell us why Afghanistan is important,” he said. “It is the center of gravity in the battle in the War on Terror. It's the place we're attacked from, where the 9/11 attackers had safe haven. It's important we get it right.”

Pakistan's The Nation, meanwhile, tells us that the opposition parties in Pakistan's parliament plan to unite in an effort to make the ruling coalition demand that the U.S. cease drone attacks and apologize for the strike that killed dozens late last year. The Kuwait Times has this lengthy piece on the two remaining Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo, Fawzi Al Odah and Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed Al Kandari. The story includes interviews with their families and lawyers, as well as a review of the unredacted evidence from their habeas cases. Brendan Sasso at The Hill summarizes a report released by Verizon late last week saying that more than half of all data stolen in 2011 was taken by hacktivists like Anonymous, as opposed to in past years when the primary reason for stealing data was financial. And it looks like Microsoft is working hard to tackle computer crimes, writes the Times' Nick Wingfield and Nicole Perlroth. Prison staff in Iraq have been detained after a jailbreak in Kirkuk on Friday in which 17 prisoners escaped says the AP. On April 3, The Human Security Law Center at William & Mary Law will be having an event focused on military detention, with Charlie Dunlap of Duke Law School, Francis Gilligan from GWU Law, and Sigmund Libowitz, a screenwriter. 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 Cyber Brief. Email us noteworthy articles we may have missed at wakeman.lawfare@gmail.com and  singh.lawfare@gmail.com.