Today’s announcement by the Government of Israel helps move forward toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements. Let me say to all the people of the region and world: our commitment to achieving a solution with two states living side by side in peace and security is unwavering.

Clinton created a great deal of outrage in the Arab world after she called a previous offer from Netanyahu that came far short of a total freeze “unprecedented.” This reply is far more restrained.

Today, prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions announced they intend to ask the convening authority to refer new charges under the recently-enacted Military Commissions Act of 2009 against Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al Darbi, in connection with his alleged involvement in an al Qaeda conspiracy to attack military and commercial shipping in the Port of Aden and the Straits of Hormuz.

This announcement follows the attorney general’s determination on Nov. 13, 2009, that a military commission was the appropriate forum for prosecution of al Darbi.

al-Darbi has apparently not actually committed an act of terrorism, but if prosecutors are correct about his attendance at an al-Qaeda training camp, they have more than enough to convict him for conspiracy. So why try him in a military commission and not a civilian court? Even if the Obama administration has a compelling answer, don’t look for an answer today, as it’s right before Thanksgiving, an ideal time to drop a controversial decision without explaining it.

While conceding that “Torture is illegal under federal law, and the United States government repudiates it”, even now the Solicitor General stops short of acknowledging that torture directed, approved and implemented by officials of the United States is so repugnant that it also violates fundamental rights; no less so when hidden from public view at Guantánamo Bay. Respondents appear willing to let the final word on torture and religious abuse at Guantánamo be that government officials can torture and abuse with impunity and will be immune from liability for doing so. Yet whether United States officials are free to engage in despicable acts in a place wholly controlled by the United States is the pre-eminent constitutional issue of our time, and it is squarely presented to this Court for decision in this case.

Rasul v. Rumsfeld, as I’ve explained before, is one of the first lawsuits brought by victims of the Bush administration’s torture and abuse policies. The plaintiffs claim they were in Afghanistan to do humanitarian relief work when they were captured by the Northern Alliance and turned over (or sold for bounty) to U.S. authorities. They were eventually shipped to Guantanamo Bay, where they were imprisoned in cages and, they claim, tortured and humiliated, forced to shave their beards and watch their Korans desecrated. All of these claims are backed up by the legal memos that have since been produced from the Department of Justice that authorized such techniques as part of “enhanced” interrogations. The men were returned home to the UK without charge in 2004.

Many other victims of the Bush administration’s abuse policies have been precluded from suing because in 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction over claims challenging the “detention, transfer, treatment, or conditions of confinement” of detainees who were considered “enemy combatants” by the U.S. military and detained abroad. (That provision of the law is being challenged in another lawsuit filed recently, which I describe here.) The plaintiffs in the Rasul case, however, were never even deemed “enemy combatants” by the U.S. military.

Still, the Obama administration is arguing, as it is in other cases, that it was not clear that foreigners picked up in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay had a right not to be tortured by the U.S. government. But more than that, it’s arguing — as the lawyers in the Rasul case emphasize in the excerpt from their brief I quoted above — that there is no right under the Constitution not to be tortured at Guantanamo Bay, or at any offshore American-run prison.

As the Department of Justice recently wrote in another torture case: The “Fifth and Eighth Amendments do not extend to Guantánamo Bay detainees.”

In other words, it’s not just that former detainees can’t sue Bush administration officials for torture because the law wasn’t clear back in 2002 or 2003, but the Obama administration is arguing also that there is no fundamental right not to be tortured, and therefore any government official in the future could similarly claim to be immune from a lawsuit for torture.

Eric Lewis and the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represent the four British men in the Rasul case, are now pleading with the U.S. Supreme Court to say it isn’t so, and accept their appeal from a D.C. Circuit Court ruling that dismissed the case.

The government seeks “to leave the law unsettled and to pull a cloak of immunity, now and in the future, over government torturers,” they write in their brief.

It is essential that this Court lay down a strong and clear message that officially ordered torture is abhorrent and always a violation of fundamental rights. Without this Court’s guidance, the court of appeals’ studied indifference to the torture of Guantanamo detainees remains the final word on the issue and, indeed, could provide further cover for a claim of qualified immunity in the future in the unfortunate event that the specter of torture recurs.

The first bracket, which covers joint returns with a liability of up to $22,600, roughly corresponds with households earning up to $150,000. In this case a 1 percent surtax is levied so the maximum additional cost would be $226.

The second bracket applied to tax liability between $22,600 and $36,400 or roughly equivalent to joint returns for couples earning between $150,000 to $250,000, The third bracket applies to those earning over $250,000 with a tax liability of $36,400 or higher.

The rates in the second and third brackets would vary depending on how much needs to be raised to cover the prior year’s war expenditures. But as a rule, the added surtax above $250,000 would be twice the percentage added onto taxes incurred between $150,000 and $250,000.

So, basically, upper-middle-class families and more would be asked to pay for the war. Yglesias comments that it’s a “clear signal” from the House Democratic leadership that any “backbencher who feels like jumping on this bandwagon is safe to do so.”

What will the Republicans say? A new loyalty oath for GOP elected officials and candidates demands support for “military-recommended troop surges” but also for, of course, lower taxes, the catechism of the conservative movement. Which GOP impulse will prove to be stronger?

President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he’s called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said.

The U.S. officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and because, one official said, the White House is incensed by leaks on its Afghanistan policy that didn’t originate in the White House.

As TWI’s Spencer Ackerman reported last week, an escalation of this size could test the military’s ability to fulfill the president’s request.

If President Obama orders an additional 30,000 to 40,000 troops to Afghanistan, he will be deploying practically every available U.S. Army brigade to war, leaving few units in reserve in case of an unforeseen emergency and further stressing a force that has seen repeated combat deployments since 2002.

One example of how the divergence squeezes candidates came in 2000, when most voters approved of President Bill Clinton’s work, but most had an “unfavorable” view of his post-impeachment character. That flummoxed Al Gore’s campaign when it thought about how to handle Clinton. According to Gore campaign vets like Bob Shrum, Clinton was toxic in states that he’d won twice and where the economy was booming, like Iowa.

Since Sarah Palin doesn’t have a job outside of her book tour, her “favorable” rating is all she has. Not only is it lower than Barack Obama’s favorable rating, it’s lower than a credible national candidate can really stand — Republicans argued that Hillary Rodham Clinton might be unelectable as a presidential candidate when her “unfavorable” rating was a good 10 points lower than Palin’s.

Spotted in the official White House photo of Monday night’s war council meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in the White House’s situation room: Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag.

His name was not included in a list of participants the White House released earlier Monday, but there has been increasing talk in recent days of the cost of stepping up the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. A quick search of previously-released attendees at the meetings did not disclose Orszag’s attendance.

“Every 10,000 troops would entail a fiscal-year cost of about $10 billion, very roughly speaking,” Orszag said earlier this month at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg News. That comes out to approximately $1 million per soldier per year.

Gerstein’s colleague Ben Smith also made the same play. (Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirms Orzsag’s presence in the meeting to Gerstein here.) And just so I can hit the trifecta on linking to Politico writers, Mike Allen reports that President Obama plans to roll out a revised Afghanistan strategy next Tuesday, Dec. 1.

One of the concerns raised by the military intelligence source is that some Blackwater personnel are being given rolling security clearances above their approved clearances. Using Alternative Compartmentalized Control Measures (ACCMs), he said, the Blackwater personnel are granted clearance to a Special Access Program, the bureaucratic term used to describe highly classified “black” operations. “With an ACCM, the security manager can grant access to you to be exposed to and operate within compartmentalized programs far above ’secret’–even though you have no business doing so,” said the source. It allows Blackwater personnel that “do not have the requisite security clearance or do not hold a security clearance whatsoever to participate in classified operations by virtue of trust,” he added. “Think of it as an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. That’s exactly what it is: a circle of love.” Blackwater, therefore, has access to “all source” reports that are culled in part from JSOC units in the field. “That’s how a lot of things over the years have been conducted with contractors,” said the source. “We have contractors that regularly see things that top policy-makers don’t unless they ask.”

One thing Jeremy might have added is that JSOC’s current commander, Adm. William McRaven, has emerged as a serious player in Afghanistan-Pakistan strategymaking.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding out the possibility that Iraq’s national election could be delayed beyond January because of a dispute over the allocation of seats in parliament.

Clinton told reporters at the State Department Monday that U.S. officials are involved in trying to help Iraqi politicians sort out their differences over an elections law that must pass before the vote can be held.

The election is supposed to be conducted in January. Clinton mentioned no specific dates but said the election “might slip” as a result of the continuing dispute over the elections law. She expressed confidence that the voting eventually will be held.

Iraq’s upcoming election, the second since the 2005 passage of Iraq’s constitution, has no shortage of problems. Last week the Sunni vice president vetoed a cobbled-together election law intended to ensure the election could proceed on time. And today an amended law passed parliament — but only after Sunni lawmakers walked out in protest.

I suppose Clinton is saying that the United States will follow the Iraqi lead on this one. But it’s hard to shake the suspicion that if this were Afghanistan, the U.S. would possess a greater urgency about the election being held on schedule.

IJC Operational Update, Nov. 23: Norwegian Home Guard commander visits IJC; Update on ISAF Casualties

KABUL, Afghanistan (Nov. 23) – The Norwegian Home Guard commander visited the ISAF Joint Command at the North Kabul International Airport military compound Nov. 22.

Major Gen. Bernt Iver Ferdinand Brovold was the guest of Maj. Gen. Jacques Lechevallier, IJC deputy commander. During his brief visit to IJC, the Norwegian general was briefed on the different types of threats Afghan people face and the IJC counterinsurgency strategy. Key points focused on protecting the Afghan people, synchronizing good governance with responsive development and security and partnering with the Afghan National Security Forces to accelerate the growth of Afghanistan’s security capacity.

While in Afghanistan, General Brovold will visit Norwegian troops deployed here.

ISAF Casualties

Four ISAF service members died in the last 24 hours in Afghanistan.
Three service members from the United States died in southern Afghanistan yesterday. Two of the service members died as the result of an IED attack, while the third service member was killed by insurgent’s small arms fire in a separate incident.

Another U.S. service member was killed as a result of an IED detonation in eastern Afghanistan today.

With due respect to Gen. Brovold, in journalism we call that “burying the lede.”