Dutch still wincing at Bush-era 'Invasion of The Hague Act'

By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The Hague - In 2002, Congress passed a law enabling United States forces to unilaterally storm into peaceful Holland to liberate American soldiers held for war crimes.

Coming in the early days of the war on terrorists, and as the International Criminal Court was being formed here, the measure provoked controversy and seemed to the Dutch – stout US allies – an absurd example of America's "with us or against us" foreign policy.

The law is still on the books.

Formally titled the American Service Members Protection Act, the measure is widely and derisively known here as the Invasion of The Hague Act.

Odd as it may seem, the law allows the US to constitutionally send jack-booted commandos to fly over fields of innocent tulips, swoop into the land of wooden shoes, tread past threatening windmills and sleepy milk cows into the Dutch capital – into a city synonymous with international law – and pry loose any US troops.

Today, the Dutch mostly treat the issue as a joke, a cowboy American moment. But it is widely felt that if President Barack Obama's foreign policy team wants to achieve a symbolic break with the previous White House, it could rescind the invasion law.

As a Dutch Ministry of Justice official put it, "I wouldn't overstate how seriously we take this any more, but it does seem a bizarre symbol." ...

Categories: holland, usa, bush, military, war-on-terror

Repower America? Science Communication and the Obama Presidency

By Matthew C. Nisbet

As President Barack Obama takes office, his Administration faces a host of science policy challenges that are likely to necessitate a re-thinking of traditional approaches to public communication. Some challenges, such as passing meaningful climate change legislation, will require the application of principles from political campaigning. Other challenges -- such as engaging the public on the risks and ethics of biomedical research, nanotechnology, and neuroscience -- will require government agencies and scientists to adopt new modes of communication, directly involving the public in decision-making. In each area, to be successful, the Obama administration will need to boost funding for science communication research and initiatives.

On climate change legislation, polls show that a sizable proportion of Americans continue to refute that human activity is at the root of the problem, while climate change ranks at the bottom of the public's policy priorities. In the context of an economic recession and two wars, absent a shift in the polls and a surge in input from a diversity of constituents, it is unlikely fence-sitters in Congress will take on the political risks of passing major policy initiatives such as an emissions cap and trade bill or ratifying a major international climate treaty.

The continued perceptual gridlock on climate change has little to do with science literacy, a lack of respect for science, poor reporting on the part of journalists, or a decline in the science beat at major news organizations such as CNN. Indeed, it is time to stop blaming the public, journalists, and media conglomerates. The communication burden instead rests with political leaders, scientists, advocates, and policy experts.

It is time to turn the page on the "war on science," "inconvenient truths," and "denier" rhetoric that were battle cries for the Left during the Bush administration and the 2008 election. The raw emotion that continues to fuel this focus is in part understandable. Earlier this decade, when groups needed to be rallied to defend science, these frame devices served a purpose ...

To Read More of This Column Visit: http://www.csicop.org/scienceandmedia/repower-america/

Categories: environment, climate-change, usa, global-warming, politics, obama

Obama lets CIA keep controversial renditions tool

WASHINGTON — "The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

"But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact.

"Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

"Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said the rendition program is poised to play an expanded role because it is the main remaining mechanism—aside from Predator missile strikes—for taking suspected terrorists off the street ..."
Chicago Tribune

Telegraph.co.uk

Obama to allow anti-terror rendition to continue Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - 3 hours ago The highly controversial anti-terror practice of rendition will continue under Barack Obama, it has emerged. By Alex Spillius in Washington Despite ordering ... Renditions still allowed under new Obama directive Dallas Morning News Obama maintains foreign renditions Detroit Free Press Surprise! Obama expands renditions Hot Air Chicago Tribune - Media Matters for America all 19 news articles »

Barack Obama grants CIA permission to retain right to carry out ... Times Online, UK - 9 minutes ago Claude Moraes, the Labour MEP who was part of the European committee investigating CIA renditions, said it was hard to criticise Mr Obama because he had ...

Truthdig

Obama Keeps Renditions In the Toolbox Truthdig, United States - 11 minutes ago President Obama may be trying to shut down Guantanamo and CIA black sites, but he’s decided to make renditions a part of his regime. ...

Categories: usa, obama, torture, rendition, human-rights, civil-rights