Category: Foreign Relations

Germany F%$#s Up Again

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While I believe that the dissolution of Yugoslavia was inevitable once Milosevic took control of the executive council, the German decision post unification to feel their diplomatic oats to recognize the independence of Slovenia set in motion a cascade of events that led to the orgy of violence and Genocide in the former Yugoslavia.

Well, the just did it again, by recognizing the rebels in Benghazi as the government of Libya :

Germany, which declined to participate in the NATO air campaign against Libya, on Monday recognized the opposition National Transitional Council as the legitimate representative of Libya, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said during a visit to the rebel capital of Benghazi.

The announcement by Mr. Westerwelle comes after weeks of hesitation by Germany over which rebel leaders or movements, if any, it would recognize as an alternative to the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“The Transitional Council is the legitimate representation of the Libyan people,” Mr. Westerwelle said after arriving in Benghazi. “With this council, we want to support the building of a democratic and law-abiding Libya.”

Germany will open a small mission in Benghazi, joining the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, Britain, France, Spain, Malta and Qatar, which have established a presence there in the past several weeks. Washington, however, has not extended diplomatic recognition to the council.

This has fiasco written all over it.

It’s Official, Libya is a Bug Hunt

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So a NATO Spokesman has just admitted that NATO is attempting to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi:

A U.N. resolution justifies the targeting of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, a senior NATO military official with operational knowledge of the Libya mission told CNN Thursday.

Asked by CNN whether Gadhafi was being targeted, the NATO official declined to give a direct answer. The resolution applies to Gadhafi because, as head of the military, he is part of the control and command structure and therefore a legitimate target, the official said.

NATO has been ramping up pressure on the regime, employing helicopters last weekend for the first time against Gadhafi’s forces. Explosions are heard often in Tripoli, evidence of allied air strikes.

NATO began bombing Libya on March 31, under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians who have been targeted by Gadhafi’s military.

Unsurprising. Since Gadhafi’s forces are not folding up under the air assault, the French and the British are desperate to avoid defeat, or worse, the need to send in ground troops, either of which will sink both UK PM Cameron and French President Sarkosy.

This was intended to be a neat neo-colonial adventure with the attendant electoral boost,  killing a few “wogs” for a few votes, but now its looking like a complete clusterf%$#.

Yet Another Dissection of the bin Laden Killing

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First, it comes out now that bin Laden was not armed and did not use his wife as a human shield, which implies to me that perhaps the reason for his burial at sea was to obscure the powder burns caused when a muzzle of a weapon is pressed against the head.

Second is the question of, “Why Now?,” and I think that this analysis is the one closest accurate: that the House of Saud determined that with unrest through the Arab world, he had become redundant:

Normally I do not speculate on operational matters; to solicit information on secret matters even from very good sources is like telling Pinocchio, “Lie to me.” Some considerations here are obvious, though, even without the usual disinformation. It is hard to conclude otherwise that Bin Laden died this week because people who knew his whereabouts chose this particular moment to inform the US authorities. What has changed? The simple answer is: everything has changed. Instability in the Muslim world has reached a level that makes Bin Laden redundant.

The overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the near-overthrow of Yemini President Ali Abdullah Saleh, along with the eruption of instability across the whole of the Arab world, changed al-Qaeda’s position. From Riyadh’s vantage point, Bin Laden was a loose cannon and an annoyance, but no threat to the strategic position of Saudi Arabia.

The royal family preferred to allow some of its more radically-inclined members to provide support to Bin Laden on a covert basis in return for al-Qaeda’s de facto agreement to leave the Arabian Peninsula in peace. As a WikiLeaks cable revealed, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a secret December 2009 memo, “More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Toiba] and other terrorist groups.”

With the destabilization of Yemen, that sort of modus vivendi became obsolete. As the terse diplomatic announcements of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ April 6 conversation with King Abdullah made clear, the Saudis were deeply concerned about the destabilization of Yemen by al-Qaeda along with Iran.

I think that he’s wrong about one thing: al Qaeda wasn’t done in by some sort of Iranian alliance, these folks are Salafists, and consider Shia to be heretics, but rather they are terrified at the idea that Jihadism is fading as an outlet for desires for reform and democracy in the dominion of the House of Saud, and they are casting about for some other way to maintain their kleptocracy.

The Obama Doctrine…

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Courtesy of Dan Nexon:

Humanitarian-intervention-against-militarily-weak-fossil-fuel-producing-countries-in-strategically-important-regions-that-are-also-located-near-many-large-NATO-military-bases-and-are-run-by-dictators-who-kind-of-piss-us-off-and-have-no-powerful-allies Doctrine

And he is right: This is not the stuff of grand strategy.

Now It’s A-10s and AC-130s

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So now we are now engaging in direct close air support in direct support of the rebel forces, which means that, win or lose, the rebels will have very little legitimacy, and so will be dependent upon support of the west, probably the British and French, in any future government.

This ain’t a bug, it’s a feature, because it makes for a low cost semi-colonial relationship with the oil rich nation in the future:

The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan government ground forces over the weekend, launching its first missions with AC-130 flying gunships and A-10 attack aircraft designed to strike enemy ground troops and supply convoys.

The use of the aircraft, during days of heavy fighting in which the momentum seemed to swing in favor of the rebels, demonstrated how allied military forces have been drawn deeper into the chaotic fight in Libya. A mission that initially seemed to revolve around establishing a no-fly zone has become focused on halting advances by government ground forces in and around key coastal cities.

The AC-130s, which fly low and slow over the battlefield and are typically more vulnerable to enemy fire than fast-moving fighter jets, were deployed only after a week of sustained coalition attacks on Libyan government air defenses and radar sites. These aircraft, armed with heavy machine guns and cannons that rake the ground, allow strikes on dug-in Libyan ground forces and convoys in closer proximity to civilians.

Let’s be clear here: Dug in forces are not a threat to non-combatant civilians. They are an impediment to the rebel army, and going after them puts the lie to the idea that this is about “protecting civilians,” as called for in the Security Council resolution.

I agree with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who is saying that this is taking sides in a civil war, and while the removal of Qaddafi may be a noble goal, it is not the one that was authorized.

We are back down the same rabbit hole that forced us to invade Iraq.

The survival of the current regime in Libya has now become an unacceptable outcome, notwithstanding the protests of Obama and other world leaders, just like the survival of Saddam Hussein’s regime became unacceptable to Bush, Jr. in 2003.

We elected George W. Bush with better diction.

So, We are Bombing Libya

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On our part, just cruise missiles launched at air defense installations, with the British and the French taking the lead, apparently hitting tanks, and perhaps artillery installations, with aid from the Italians and the Canadians. (The Canadians?!?!?! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?!?)

On interesting thing is that the French may have initiated attacks before the rest of the allies had reached an agreement on plans:

The campaign began with French warplanes, which started their attacks even before the end of an emergency meeting among allied leaders in Paris. The officials, reacting to news that Colonel Qaddafi’s forces were attacking the rebel capital, Benghazi, despite international demands for a cease-fire, said they had no choice but to defend Libyan civilians and opposition forces.

But there were signs of disagreement among the allies in Paris. Some diplomats said that French insistence on the meeting had delayed military action against Colonel Qaddafi’s forces before they reached Benghazi, a charge that French officials denied.

This behavior makes me wonder if perhaps the French eagerness for military action may be an attempt by the tremendously unpopular Nicolas Sarkosy to boost his reelections chances, as Margaret Thatcher did in the early 1980s with the Falklands.

This all is further complicated by the fact that Libya is claiming that it is adhering to the UN mandated ceasefire.

No clue as to where the truth on all this is.

CIA Mercenary Released After US Pays Blood Money

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And I mean this literally.

Under Pakistani law, if the families of the victim accept payment, the defendant can be acquitted, and this is what happens in Pakistan.

The fact that the US government had to pay several million dollars to the families in order to extract their “diplomat”, his status is actually indeterminate, marks a shift in diplomatic immunity.

Scott Horton notes that this is a shift in how governments view diplomatic staff, but I’m not so sure that it’s a change in policy as much as it is a recognition by foreign governments in areas of intense US interest that the establishment of sprawling embassies, consulates, and various satellite offices have nothing to do with diplomacy, and everything to do with placing spies in those places.

I Generally, Don’t Approve of Armchair Generals…

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But with all the inside Beltway pukes, (and yes, I do mean you, John Kerry) calling for aggressive air strikes in Libya under the fig leaf of a “no fly zone”, I think that I need to put on my incredibly incompetent tactician cap, and kick some metaphorical butt.

First, I think that a lot of people think that a “No Fly Zone” is where we wave some sort of magic wand, and fly planes over hostile territory to keep the other guy from flying his planes.

It’s a lot more involved.

In order to enforce a no fly zone, you have to be able to fly over hostile territory with impunity, which involves:

  • Thoroughly disabling every SAM site in the country.  (Bombing)
  • Thoroughly disabling every AAA site in the country.  (More bombing)
  • Crippling the command and control systems (yet more bombing, and likely boots on the ground to confirm this).
  • Bombing all the air fields, and pretty much anywhere that an attack helicopter might be based.

A no fly zone is invasion-lite.

OK, so, if you want to support the anti-Gaddafi forces, what do you do, if you don’t want to go Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia on his ass?

Well, here is where I put on my stupid hat, and make a military suggestion.

What you do, is that you give the insurgents some sort of aid that:

  • Has a low marginal cost.
  • Cannot be transferred to entities who are hostile to the US (see Stinger missiles given to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan)
  • Is highly perishable, so that you can withdraw it and get them to stop when you want it to stop.

The thing is that there IS something that fulfills all this criteria:  Accurate real-time tactical intelligence.

Between satellites, long range radars on AWACS and E-2Cs, and signals intelligence (Sigint), we could be giving warnings of things like air-strikes, and the specific order of battle of Gaddafi’s forces.

Ironically, about a decade ago, the US Army thought that this sort of situational awareness would allow them to largely dispense with armor on their vehicles, which brought forth the abortive FCS, but the Army, as is the rest of the Pentagon, is constrained by a need to have zero casualties, while the rebels in Libya are under no such artificial constraint.

They just need to die less than their opponents.

Then again, my military experience would fit in a thimble with room to spare.

He’s Not Just CIA, He’s Blackwater

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And it appears that he was working as a contractor for the CIA, and former, and perhaps currently, worked for Blackwater or Xe.

It should also note that the New York Times has been told by the government that it has permission from the US government to confirm his CIA connections.

Permission from the government? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? (Glenn Greenwald is somewhat more articulate on this issue.)

So he’s a contractor, and considering his background, perhaps the appellation “mercenary” would be appropriate, said the contractor (working as an engineer, not a shooter).
In any case, the fact that they are admitting this means that both CIA and the State Department are very worried about this.

A Non-Surprise About the Most Over Rated Man in America

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When Colin Powell spewed his lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, his staff had already warned him that the information was complete crap.

In one case, he personally made up dialog that did not exist, and in others, he used reports that flagged the data as “Weak” and “not credible”.

Not a surprise.

Here is hoping that at some point in the not-too-distant future, Powell’s reputation experiences the same sort of reevaluation that Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan has.

U.S. Vetoes UN Resolution On Settlements

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This is rather unsurprising.

I favor a 2 state solution, one along the other ethnic separations out there, which means parts of pre-1967 Israel will become a part of a future Palestinian state, because at it’s core what is going is is negotiations over ethnic land divisions, and under those terms, some areas near the West Bank, and parts of the Galilee which are overwhelmingly Arab, would necessarily move in that direction.

Whether or not this sort of separation occurs, full rights should be extended to non-Jews, by which I mean something along the lines of the US civil rights act, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of ethnicity.

Another full right that should be extended to the non Jewish (and non Druze) population in Israel is conscription: As it stands now Arabs are not required to serve, which, among other things, prevents the formation of social ties that normally occur during mandatory service, and which frequently help in later life. (aka “Old school ties).

As to the veto, I am increasingly of the opinion that any foreign involvement in the diplomacy between the Palestinian government and Israel is counter-productive, because it leads the negotiators to spend too much time playing to outside entities, whether it be the US, UN, EU, or Arab governments, and not enough dealing with each other.

One reality here that needs to be accepted is that at some point in the next few decades, Hamas will win an election (they already have) and take power (they weren’t allowed to after the election).

This may be scary, but the current principals in this matter need to suck it up and accept reality.

Just Who, and What, Is Raymond Davis

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He’s currently being investigated for a double murder in Lahore, Pakistan, and the US government is claiming that he has diplomatic immunity, and so must be released.

There are a number of peculiarities here. As constitutional lawyer
Scott Horton notes, the issuance of a diplomatic passport does not convey diplomatic immunity, the host country formally recognize and accept their diplomatic status.

Also, it’s unclear if he was a diplomatic or a consular officer and if the latter, then the charge, double murder, would certainly not be covered by any immunity.

In fact, immunity might not apply in either case, since the Vienna convention does not apply to serious crimes, like, for example, murder.

Additionally, thanks Dave Lindorff of Eurasia review for this, it appears that Mr. Davis was not a consular or embassy employee, but rather the employee of a defunct security firm, Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, which makes his status even more suspicious.

Also, when caught, he had at least two guns in his car, a number of cell phones and batteries, and a telescope.

Linhoff also reports that the two Pakistanis were shot in the back, and that he has received reports that they were not just two guys on a motorbike, but in fact operatives of Pakistan’s security service, the ISI.

Given the circumstances, and the fact that a heavily armed strike team in the SUV rushing from the US consulate to try to snatch him from police immediately following the incident, and running down and killing a person in the process, I would be inclined to believe that whatever he was doing there had nothing to do with diplomacy.

One interesting factoid in all of this is that his arrest has corresponded to an unusual lull in drone strikes, which would be consistent with his having a senior managerial role in those operations:

A mysterious halt to U.S Predator strikes on Pakistan after the Raymond Davis incident in Lahore has led to intense speculation the American “diplomat” was connected to the Drone program even as Washington and Islamabad are going eyeball-to-eyeball over his status.

Davis, 36, was apprehended by Pakistani police after he shot dead two Pakistanis on a busy Lahore thoroughfare on January 27, four days after the last drone U.S Drone strike in Pakistan. There has not been a single strike in the 25 days since then, making it the third-longest period of inactivity since the U.S ramped up the Predator program to take out terrorists infesting Pakistan’s frontier regions, according to Long War Journal (LWJ), a blog that tracks U.S Predator attacks.

Speculation is now rife that Davis was somehow connected to the Predator program since he was reportedly carrying a GPS, telescope, camera and assorted equipment not usually associated with thoroughbred diplomats. Pakistani authorities have also accused him of unauthorized travels to the Frontier region and being in touch with extremist elements in Waziristan, which suggests he might have been coordinating the attacks with U.S moles in the region.

While Davis claimed that he shot the two Pakistanis in self-defense when they were trying to rob him, some reports have said they were ISI tails assigned to follow him because the Pakistani intelligence felt he had crossed certain unspecified “red lines.” Those red lines may have involved discovering the Pakistani establishment’s links with terrorists group, a pursuit which led to the death of Wall Street Journalist Danny Pearl.

I’m thinking that Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, is about as real as Brewster-Jennings was for Valerie Plame, and that he works for the CIA, some other TLA (three letter agency), or a contractor hired by some arm of the US government.

It would explain why heads have been exploding at Foggy Bottom (State), and probably Langley (CIA) as well, for the past few weeks.

The Football is Pulled Away Again…

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Who knew that Lucy Van Pelt was an 82 Year Old Egyptian President?

In a move that stunned observers, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to step down, and instead delegated his powers to his VP, Omar Suleiman, who is also doing duty of the state intelligence services, which, unsurprisingly, does not bode well for the prospects of democratic reform.

Note here that he did not “transfer” his authority, he “delegated” it, which means that he can take the powers back whenever he wants:

President Hosni Mubarak told the Egyptian people on Thursday that he would delegate authority to Vice President Omar Suleiman but that he would not resign, enraging hundreds of thousands gathered to hail his departure and setting in motion a volatile new stage in the three-week uprising.

The declaration by Mr. Mubarak that he would remain president appeared to signal a dangerous escalation in one of the largest popular revolts in Egypt’s history, and some protesters warned that weeks of peaceful rallies might give way to violence as early as Friday.

The 17-minute speech itself underlined a seemingly unbridgeable gap between ruler and ruled in Egypt: Mr. Mubarak, in paternalistic tones, talked in great detail about changes he planned to make to Egypt’s autocratic Constitution, while crowds in Tahrir Square, with bewilderment and anger, demanded that he step down.

Mr. Mubarak seemed oblivious. “It’s not about me,” he said in his address. When he was done, crowds in Cairo waved the bottoms of their shoes in the air, a gesture intended to convey disgust, and shouted, “Leave! Leave!”

This is not going to end well.

More Revolving Door Cronyism at the Obama Administration

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Robert Fisk of The Independent explains why Frank Wisner, Obama’s envoy to Cairo, told reporters that it was important for Mubarak to remain in power for some time, which surprised the reporters as well as the White House, which said that Mr. Wisner was speaking solely on his own behalf.

That’s not really true though. He was speaking on behalf of his employer, the law firm of Patton Boggs, which happens to represents Hosni Mubarak in the United States:

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a “personal capacity”. But there is nothing “personal” about Mr Wisner’s connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises “the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the US”. Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year career diplomat – he served as US ambassador to Egypt, Zambia, the Philippines and India under eight American presidents. In other words, he was not a political appointee. But it is inconceivable Hillary Clinton did not know of his employment by a company that works for the very dictator which Mr Wisner now defends in the face of a massive democratic opposition in Egypt.

So why on earth was he sent to talk to Mubarak, who is in effect a client of Mr Wisner’s current employers?

The only explanation I can see is that rather than “changing the culture of Washington,” it has been subsumed by it.

The Bush and His Evil Minions™ took incompetent self-dealing to new heights, but this appears to be yet ANOTHER area, like torture, illegal wiretaps, etc. where the Obama administration is determined to ape his ape-like predecessor.

Mubarak Announces Retirement at End of Term

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The protestors want him to leave both his office, and the country, immediately:

Egyptians wholeheartedly rejected President Hosni Mubarak’s announcement Tuesday evening that he will not run for reelection in September, continuing to demand that he step down immediately.

A roar of anger went up from the thousands of people in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square even before the president had finished his address, offering an immediate answer to an unprecedented offer from an autocrat who has ruled for almost 30 years with few concession to the people. They shook their shoes at a large screen where the president’s image was broadcast, screaming “Get out! Get out!”

“I was angry, but now I am enraged,” said Abdullah Rawaq, shouting to be heard amid a crowd chanting: “He must go! We will not go!

Somehow, I do not think that it is likely that Mubarak will get either his 8 months or his wish to stay in Egypt.

A bit of doggerel about this follows the break, apologies to Theodore Geisel and Art Buchwald.

“Hosni Sayyid Mubarak will you please go now!
The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
I don’t care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Hosni Sayyid Mubarak will you please go now!
You can go on skates.
You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat.
But
Please go.
Please!
I don’t care.
You can go
By bike.
You can go
On a Zike-Bike
If you like.
If you like
You can go
In an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO!
Please do, do, do, DO!
Hosni Sayyid Mubarak
I don’t care how.
Hosni Sayyid Mubarak
Will you please
GO NOW!
You can go on stilts.
You can go by fish.
You can go in a Crunk-Car
If you wish.
If you wish
You may go
By lion’s tale.
Or stamp yourself
And go by mail.
Hosni Sayyid Mubarak
Don’t you know
The time has come
To go, go, GO!
Get on your way!
Please Hosni M.!
You might like going in a Zumble-Zay.
You can go by balloon . . .
Or broomstick.
Or
You can go by camel
In a bureau drawer.
You can go by bumble-boat
. . . or jet.
I don’t care how you go.
Just get!
Hosni Sayyid Mubarak!
I don’t care how.
Hosni Sayyid Mubarak
Will you please
GO NOW!
I said
GO
And
GO
I meant . . .
The time had come
So . . .
HOSNI WENT.”

Obama Wants to Nuke the Whales

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MAnother Wikileaks gem, it appears that the Obama administration was preparing to go after the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s tax status to placate the Japanese and their whaling obsession:

Japan and the US proposed to investigate and act against international anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as part of a political deal to reduce whaling in Antarctic waters.

Four confidential cables from the US embassy in Tokyo and the state department in Washington, released by WikiLeaks, show US and Japanese diplomats secretly negotiating a compromise agreement ahead of a key meeting last year of the International Whaling Commission, the body that regulates international whaling.

The American proposal would have forced Japan to reduce the number of whales that Japan killed each year in the Antarctic whale sanctuary in return for the legal right to hunt other whales off its own coasts. In addition, the US proposed to ratify laws that would “guarantee security in the seas” – a reference to acting against groups such as Sea Shepherd that have tried to physically stop whaling.

The US proposal was eventually shot down by Britain and the EU in June 2010, but the cables show that the Sea Shepherd group had become a political embarrassment to Japan after stopping its whaling fleet reaching its annual quota of whale killed for several years.

It simply buggers my mind. What next? Are they going to be biting the heads off of kittens?

Seriously, for all the low expectations that I had for Barack Obama, I didn’t expect that they would stun and amaze the way that Bush and His Evil Minions™ did on a regular basis, but here I am, staring at the screen with an expression on my face resembling that of a cow that just stepped on its own udder.

<Facepalm>

And the Insanity Continues

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So after a ruinous recession, the economy shrunk by over a fifth, made worse by austerity programs that were intended to maintain a hard peg to the Euro, Estonia’s government has finally achieved the desired result, and at the start of the year, Estonia joins the Euro Zone.

Truth be told, the Estonian government set it up such that there was no choice, since it maintained a hard peg to the Euro, and the Deutsch Mark before that, and almost all the loans outstanding are foreign denominated, so there really never was any sort of fiscal or economic sovereignty in the small Baltic Republic.

If anyone expects an improvement in the standards of living as a result of this though, they are very likely to be disappointed.

Good News on the Legislative Front Today

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The repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was signed into law, the Senate passed the START arms control treaty, and a new food safety bill that gives the FDA the power to order recalls passed the house and is heading to the President’s desk.

I still don’t see any gazillion dimensional chess here, but it’s a good day.

BTW, since the bill gives the military fairly broad discretion in how the ban is phased in, I would take even money that separations from the military will be continuing into 2012, because Obama won’t push the military on this.

Assange Granted Bail

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Basically, the terms of his bail amount to house arrest:

Britain’s high court today granted bail to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is wanted in Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape.

Mr Justice Duncan Ouseley agreed with a decision by City of Westminister magistrates court earlier in the week to release Assange on strict conditions: £200,000 cash deposit, with a further £40,000 guaranteed in two sureties of £20,000, and strict conditions on his movement.

This is good news, but we are hearing more reports of the US looking for ways to indict him, this time by ginning up a conspiracy case:

Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts with an Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the information.

Justice Department officials are trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State Department files from a government computer system. If he did so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.

Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.

It should be noted that these activities, cultivating and providing a source a way to get his information to you, are staples in the diet of investigative journalism.

Any prosecution under these circumstances would be an full frontal assault on freedom of the press, which is profoundly disturbing to anyone who cares at all about the Constitution.

Unfortunately, I think that this sort of assault on the press, and by extension leaking, appears to be something that Barack Obama, who must have been the worst professor of Constitutional law ever, really would like to do.

His administration is more vociferously hostile toward leaks and leakers than Bush/Cheney ever was.

Of course, this is why this administration is allowing the leaker, PFC Bradley Manning to be tortured pre-trial, because they want to coerce an accusation against Assange.