Posts by Spencer Ackerman

Army Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and Arabic translator who famously challenged ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ last year, has been recalled to active duty, according to The Advocate. That’s a strong sign that even ahead of a full repeal of the so-called gay ban, proceeding at a deliberate, year-long pace advocated by the [...]

From Walter Pincus’ piece about how the Obama administration considered and rejected placing Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in military custody:
After Abdulmutallab decided to stop talking, was read his Miranda rights and got lawyers, the FBI devised a complex investigative plan, which was outlined to reporters last week.

D.C. snowpocalypse has closed government buildings for a second day — for those not subject to this winter siege, we’re told to expect another 10 to 20 inches of snowfall imminently — and the closure grinds policymaking to a halt. The Senate Armed Services Committee just canceled a closed-door briefing it was going to get [...]

Mark Hosenball checks facts. After the Obama administration averred that the Justice Department successfully secured the convictions or guilty pleas of about 300 people in terrorism cases during the Bush era, GOP apparatchiks like ex-White House spokeswoman Dana Perino and even Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) called Obama a liar. Oops:

Building off his Sunday retaliation at Republican critics over the Mirandization and (successful!) interrogation of would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan goes much further in a USA Today op-ed.
It begins as an aggressive defense of the utility of law-enforcement approaches to interrogation — alongside an observation of the disutility [...]

Lietzau will be central to decisions about trying the remaining Guantanamo detainees in reformed military commissions or in federal courts, and to the construction of a new terrorism detention policy.

A surprisingly emotional statement from Defense Secretary Robert Gates about Rep. Jack Murtha’s passing.
I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Jack Murtha. America has lost a true patriot who served his country faithfully first in uniform as a decorated combat Marine, and then as an elected representative.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the longtime top Democrat on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, has died at 77 years of age. Murtha, the subject of ethics queries for much of his career, was the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress. A national security hawk, he lit a fire under many of his Democratic colleagues when he [...]

Fresh out:
The United States and the European Union condemn the continuing human rights violations in Iran since the June 12 election. The large scale detentions and mass trials, the threatened execution of protestors, the intimidation of family members of those detained and the continuing denial to its citizens of the right to peaceful expression are [...]

With U.S. and Afghan forces about to attempt to take the Afghan village of Marja in Helmand province away from the Taliban, Gen. Stanley McChrystal records this message about how — speaking mostly generically — he wants to show the Afghan people that the Afghan government is about to come into the area and offer [...]