May 2009 Archives

President Obama wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by next January. He has reversed himself on military commissions, now embracing them as a way to put some detainees on trial, but under new rules. He has said some detainees will be moved to U.S. prisons, and some will be released to other countries. Some, such as the Muslim Uighurs from Western China, may end up in the United States.

Congress, however, has voted to strip money for closing Guantanamo from the supplemental war budget until Obama comes up with a detailed plan for the 240 detainees remaining in Cuba. And Republicans, as well as some Democrats, have said they will not allow detainees to be brought onto U.S. soil.

What is the right path here? Is Guantanamo the moral stain on our values and Constitution, as some on the left would say? Would closing Guantanamo make us safer and remove it as one of the incitements of terrorists around the world, as Obama and others have said? Or should it remain open as an effective holding place for people dedicated to killing Americans but too difficult to put on trial because of national security and secrecy concerns, as former Vice President Dick Cheney says? What should we do about Guantanamo and the detainees held there?

9 responses: Daniel Gouré, Michael F. Scheuer, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Michael Brenner, Ron Marks, Dick Kohn, Brian Michael Jenkins, Joseph J. Collins, Vincent Cannistraro

It is not only Bush administration officials in the hot seat on the question of torture. Top members of Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were briefed on the administration's policies and plans with respect to interrogations of terrorist suspects. Now Pelosi has accused the CIA and the Bush administration of "misleading the Congress," and says that during a briefing she received in September 2002, when she was the House minority leader, the CIA informed her that waterboarding was not being used. In fact, it was.

All of this begs the larger question of what responsibility Congress, as "the people's body," has for supervising the executive branch. As the White House, Justice Department, Pentagon, State Department and CIA establish and implement policies for extracting information from terrorist suspects, what useful roles can members of Congress play in oversight? After all, they are the recipients of top-secret briefings on the matters. Is Congress, given its awareness of the Bush administration's interrogation program, now too compromised to conduct a fair and thorough investigation of the roles played by Bush policymakers?

17 responses: Michael Vlahos, Shane Harris, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Michael Brenner, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., Amy Zegart, Kori Schake, Wayne White, Col. W. Patrick Lang, James Jay Carafano, Joseph J. Collins, Ron Marks, Bing West, Paul R. Pillar, Milt Bearden, Winslow T. Wheeler, Daniel Byman

North Korea is hinting that it might test a second underground nuclear device and test fire another long-range missile if the U.N. doesn't apologize and make amends for its most recent round of sanctions and disapproval of the last North Korean missile test on April 5.

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is making a swing through Asia this week to get input from China, Japan, South Korea and Russia on the future of the six party talks. Overall, however, the Obama administration seems to be playing it cool toward the North, trying to re-engage, but also trying not to be coerced into a kowtow just to get Pyongyang to start talking again. What is the approach President Obama should be taking right now toward the North? Should he pull out all the stops to get the six party talks up and running again, or let North Korea continue its testing and not be swayed by it? Or is there another way to approach the North that might work better?

9 responses: Dov S. Zakheim, Patrick B. Pexton, Michael Vlahos, Joel Wit, James Jay Carafano, Ron Marks, Bonnie Glaser, Joel Wit, Jack Pritchard

Everyone likes to play oddsmaker, and here is your chance. The collapse of Lehman Brothers, the event generally seen as the immediate trigger of the global economic crisis, occurred seven months ago, in September 2008 -- enough time to start drawing some conclusions on how the crisis is reshuffling the global power deck.

We're asking you to think imaginatively and in an unbounded fashion about winners and losers from the crisis. A winner might be a nation-state like India, whose economy has been relatively unscathed. A winner also might be prospects for a Chinese imperium, as China uses its immense financial reserves to extend its influence around the world. A winner might be "the South" -- which stands to increase its clout in institutions like the International Monetary Fund. A loser might be the American model of unfettered capitalism, widely blamed for the debacle. A loser might be globalization, as nation-states retreat behind their borders and thwart efforts by Gordon Brown and others to arrive at a global solution. A petro-punctured Russia also may be a loser, as may be a burst-bubble Dubai.

But these are just starting suggestions. The premise for this exercise is that the crisis is a huge event that will make for lasting effects. How will the world change as a result of the crisis? Predictions, anyone?

13 responses: Dov S. Zakheim, James R. Locher III, Paul Starobin, Hillary Mann Leverett, Daniel Serwer, Joseph J. Collins, Wayne White, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Ron Marks, Michael Brenner, Kellie A. Meiman, Michael Vlahos, Andrew Bacevich