New Study Suggests Drone Strikes Don’t Kill as Many Pakistani Civilians as Claimed

It’s the most controversial counterterrorism program there is. The CIA’s remotely piloted aircraft, operating with the tacit consent of the Pakistani government, fire missiles at suspected militants in the Pakistani tribal areas where U.S. ground troops are prohibited from operating and where the Pakistani military is often hesitant to tread. More…

State Dept. (and Justice?) vs. New Indefinite Detention Rules

The Los Angeles Times follows up on Attorney General Eric Holder’s moment of consensus Wednesday with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on creating new indefinite detention rules for a post-Guantanamo effort against al-Qaeda. It’s a consequence of the Obama administration’s decision not only to close Guantanamo but to renounce More…

Did Harold Koh Just Defend Assassination?

Adam Serwer reads through the State Department legal adviser’s recent defense of why drone strikes outside Afghanistan are legal and observes that the rationale Harold Koh offered could be used to argue that assassinations of people like Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen-turned-extremist who has argued that Muslims More…

Could Drone Strikes Be Cleaving Pakistanis From al-Qaeda?

Last month, Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, gave an interview to The Washington Post bragging about the impact the CIA’s drone strikes have had on al-Qaeda and Taliban operations in Pakistan. Not having sufficient information to independently evaluate it, I sort of marked Panetta’s comments As Read. More…

Bolton Suggests Nuclear Treaty Threatens American Sovereignty

In a potential preview of conservative arguments for rejecting the Obama administration’s new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia in the Senate, John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush, said the treaty reflected “stunning naivete” and placed it in the context of More…

That Harold Koh, Such a ‘Transnationalist’ That He Defends The Legality of Drone Strikes

On March 16, Shane Harris reported that Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, asserted that the Obama administration’s drone strikes on al-Qaeda and affiliated targets are legal, and would at some point make a more fulsome public case for why that is. Last night, reports Mark More…

Koh: Obama to Disclose Legal Basis for Drone Strikes At Some Point ‘To Come’

It’s not been the greatest week for the Obama administration’s commitment to open government. But Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser, told Shane Harris of National Journal that the administration is open to disclosing the legal underpinnings of one of its most controversial and beloved national security More…

Lies About Harold Koh Are Always in Fashion

Buried in this transcript at Media Matters, I see Sean Hannity making things up about State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh. “You have a State Department lawyer,” said Hannity, “Harold Koh, who says the U.S. should follow Sharia law in some cases.”

Koh has never said this.

Harold Koh, Newly Confirmed, Thanks His Friends

The new legal adviser to the State Department (on a 62-35 vote) sent this message to a group of supporters on Facebook:

My dear friends:

Earlier today, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm my nomination as Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. Starting tomorrow, I will assume that

More…

Tony Perkins and Frank Gaffney React to Koh Cloture Vote

A vote on Harold Koh’s nomination to be legal adviser to the State Department is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. Yesterday, after cloture passed on Koh, I asked Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council for a reaction on a nominee his group had campaigned hard against.

“I thought the vote More…