Today's Headlines and Commentary

As anti-American violence breaks out all over the world, let’s begin with the latest developments in Libya. CNN reports that four people have been arrested in connection with the attacks on the U.S. consulate. Spencer Ackerman of Wired’s Danger Room blog tells us that the FBI is hunting down those responsible for the attack. Suliman Ali Zway and Rick Gladstone of the New York Times provide us with more details that have come out about what happened during the attack. Kevin Baron of Foreign Policy plays the blame game about the Americans killed in Libya, telling us that Congress had been warned about the country’s tenuous security situation. Mary Habeck of Foreign Policy also writes that Libya should never have left the world’s attention. The Los Angeles Times has this piece describing the latest attacks and protests in other countries worldwide. The Guardian and the Washington Post have similar updates. Brookings scholars Martin Indyk, Daniel Byman, Bruce Riedel and Michael Doran offer their thoughts on the violent demonstrations in the Middle East. Prudence Bushnell, former United States ambassador to Kenya and Guatemala, has an op-ed in the Times arguing that our diplomats deserve to be safer and Americans need to “start demanding leadership.” And Newt Gingrich argues in Politico that the attack in Libya was “act of war.” In other news, the New York Times has this editorial on Judge Katherine Forrest’s ruling in Hedges, which Ben described to me as “uncharacteristically careful and not warranting derision from Lawfare.” It includes the following remarkable concession---which almost suggests that its authors might be reading this blog:

Unfortunately, the ruling does not fully address existing case law on detention authority or an amendment to the 2011 law that should be read to protect Americans and others in the United States from indefinite detention. Those issues, and the breadth of the injunction seem certain to be appealed.

Raven Clabough at the New American has more on the ruling. Agence France Presse tells us that Military Judge James Pohl rejected a request to televise the hearing of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, in addition to making it available at CCTV locations. Lena Groeger and Cora Currier of ProPublica have this handy dandy graphic outlining “four years of statements by current and former officials discussing the CIA's drone program, both on and off the record.” It’s actually very cool and well worth a look. (Next time, though, they should make it embeddable so we can put it on Lawfare.) Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations describes a recently-released GAO report called “Nonproliferation: Agencies Could Improve Information Sharing and End-Use Monitoring on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” It deals with other countries that have drones and what the United States is doing about it. And who cares who will win the election? The real question is who would win in a fistfight between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney---neither of whom, Ben notes, have significant experience in martial arts. Check out today’s Moment of Zen for the answer. 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, and check out the Lawfare Events Calendar for upcoming national security events.