This Week in the War on Terror

By David Szydloski This is the first of a (hopefully) weekly link dump related to American foreign policy, particularly relating to the ‘War on Terror,’ and related events abroad. Glen Greenwald has a typically thorough look at the reporting being done on both sides of the Atlantic on the arrest and detainment of Raymond Davis, the former Special Forces soldier and CIA employee. John Robb links to a great (and continuously updated) open source map of the battle going on in Libya between forces loyal to leader Muammar Gaddafi and rebels seeking to remove him from power. Attorney General Eric Holder stated in a House appropriations hearing on Wednesday that he does not know if Camp X-Ray, the detention facility often referred to simply as Guantanamo Bay, will be closed within President Barak Obama’s first term in office. Obama had signed an executive order within his first month in office that to close the facility “as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Two great articles documenting the inner workings of the U.S. government’s military and intelligence communities have been honored with the 2011 George Polk Award in Journalism. Michael Hasting’s “Runaway General”—which led to the removal of General Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan—and Dana Priest and William M. Arkin’s tour-de-force series “Top Secret America.” The award website has full descriptions for each work and links to the articles themselves, if you missed them. On Wednesday, the Army announced its 22 charges against PFC Bradley Manning, the Army private who has been held in solitary confinement for eight months in the Marine Corps Base Quantico brig for leaking classified government documents. Manning’s lawyer posts regular updates of his client’s case on his website.