Hezbollah's network warfare

The New York Times has a fascinating article on what the current Mideast conflict represents to US military analysts:

“We are now into the first great war between nations and networks,” said John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, and a leading analyst of net warfare. “This proves the growing strength of networks as a threat to American national security.”

"A New Enemy Gains on the U.S." [New York Times]

Long Island City's been without power for five days?

A blackout has left much of northwest Queens without power for the last five days, and service will not be fully restored until early next week. [New York Times] Somehow, my neighborhood, the Hunter's Point section of Long Island City (the waterfront area south of the Queensboro Bridge, where the blue Citibank Building stands), has not been affected by the blackout, even though the surrounding areas directly to the north (the northern part of Long Island City, and Astoria) and to the east (Sunnyside and Woodside) were.

Long Island City is kind of like the Holy Roman Empire - it's not a city, and it's not in Long Island. Instead, it is a neighborhood in Queens, located across the East River from Midtown Manhattan, and north of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Recently, it has become commonplace for people to use the name "Long Island City" to refer to the Hunter's Point area specifically, but it also includes Ravenswood (the area north of the Queensboro Bridge, bordering on Astoria) and Dutch Kills (the area northwest of Queens Plaza, bordering on Sunnyside Yards, the massive train yard separating LIC from Sunnyside). Historically, Long Island City also included Astoria (as well as Ditmars and Steinway, which are often considered part of Astoria), Sunnyside, and Woodside. As a result, the Long Island City postal district, one of the four Queens postal districts, still includes the entire area.

So when the Times says that the blackout is affecting "most residents in Long Island City, Queens, and surrounding neighborhoods," they are using the traditional definition of Long Island City. With any luck, the blackout will not spread to the area people usually refer to as Long Island City in current parlance; just to be on the safe side, I'm running my air conditioner on Energy Saver mode and using nothing but florescent light bulbs. My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who is without power, especially the elderly and folks who rely on electricity for medical equipment.

Queens Probably Will Not Have Power by Sunday [New York Times]
Profiles of Long Island City [Wikipedia; About.com]
Forgotten New York's coverage of LIC [forgotten-ny.com]
Maps of the area [About.com; Google Maps]

Thank God: US to comply with Geneva Conventions

Today, the Pentagon announced that the United States military will resume compliance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires humane treatment and a minimum standard of judicial protections for prisoners. [New York Times]

The Bush adminstration's disregard for the Geneva Conventions has had a disastrous effect on the Nation's reputation internationally. That should have come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the treaty's history. Common Article 3 is part of the Third Geneva Convention, relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which was signed in 1949, in response to the brutal treatment of prisoners of war during World War II. [icrc.org] The 1949 treaty's introduction reflects the signers' intent to address the miserable conditions WWII prisoners had experienced:

"It became necessary to revise the 1929 Convention on a number of points owing to the changes that had occurred in the conduct of warfare and the consequences thereof, as well as in the living condition of peoples. Experience had shown that the daily life of prisoners depended specifically on the interpretation given to the general regulations. Consequently, certain regulations were given a more explicit form which was lacking in the preceding provisions . . . The categories of persons entitled to prisoner of war status were broadened in accordance with Conventions I and II. The conditions and places of captivity were more precisely defined, in particular with regard to the labour of prisoners of war, their financial resources, the relief they receive and the judicial proceedings instituted against them." [icrc.org]

What I will never understand is why the history of the Third Geneva Convention was not a more prominent part of the national debate over the Bush administration's detention and torture policies. At the very same time President Bush was comparing the Iraq War to World War II [CNN], he was undoing one of the major legal and moral commitments we made in that war's aftermath. Every American should be proud that our country is back on the side of rest of the civilized world by complying with the Geneva Conventions.

"In Big Shift, US to Follow Geneva Treaty for Detainees" [New York Times]
PDF: Defense Department Memo, July 7, 2006 [New York Times]
"White House: Detainees entitled to Geneva Conventions protections" [CNN]

UPDATED 7/12/06:

Will the reinstatement of Geneva Conventions protections for prisoners really change anything? Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post warns us not to count our chickens before they hatch:

"More Ambiguity About Torture" [Washington Post]

Hoekstra letter to White House on illegal spying programs

During May, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R - Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter to President Bush which discussed, among other things, secret spying programs on which the committee had not been briefed. [PDF: New York Times] Section 501 of the National Security Act of 1947 requires the President to "ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by this title." [Intelligence.gov]

Here is an excerpt from Hoekstra's letter:

"I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed. If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies . . . The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play 'Twenty Questions' to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution." [PDF: New York Times]

The nature of these secret programs is unclear - but it is worth nothing that Hoekstra has been a supporter of the administration's other (formerly) secret programs involving domestic spying and monitoring international banking transactions. Hoekstra has also participated in recent efforts to comb through documents seized in Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction, championing an innovative "open source" approach intended to let citizens participate in the research. [Boston Globe, Foreign Military Studies Office] Recently, Hoekstra and Sen. Rick Santorum (R - Pa.) claimed that some of the documents found in Iraq proved that the regime possessed WMD, but the Pentagon responded that the weapons in question were "not the WMD we were looking for when we went in this time." [MSNBC]

Clearly, Hoekstra's concerns are not motivated by partisan politics or political ideology, but instead, by concern for the rule of law. With any luck, the growing backlash against the administration's secrecy among conservatives will represent another blow to the current White House's radically broad view of executive power.

"Ally Warned Bush on Keeping Spying from Congress" [New York Times]
PDF: Letter from Rep. Hoekstra to President Bush [New York Times]
"Hoekstra Confirms Letter That Gave 'NYT' Another Scoop" [Editor & Publisher]
Section 501 of the National Security Act [intelligence.gov]