President Obama’s recent removal of travel restrictions for Cuban Americans visiting family has given hope to those who assert our freedom to travel the globe, particularly those who stand to benefit from America opening up travel with Cuba.

Orbitz Worldwide is sponsoring a petition drive in order to lobby the President, Secretary of State and the Congress to completely open Cuba to Americans.

Polls indicate the vast majority of Americans believe that all U.S. citizens should have the freedom to travel to Cuba, but the anti-Communism of 50 years ago still slows the Congress from enforcing the will of the people.  Many of our representatives still believe that Cuba must make drastic reforms before America can repeal the travel ban, though I don’t hear any of these hardliners calling for travel bans to Communist China, Socialist Venezuela,  or any other country with whom we’ve held pissing matches.

Man has the right to move as he will on the face of the earth.  Sign the petition here.

The LA Times has more.

The immigration debate in the Netherlands has been heated, and this episode will no doubt contribute to the intensity.  After Theo Van Gogh’s murder in 2004, the growing Muslim minority has been on the receiving end of a great deal of anger and fear, while Dutch citizens have been justifiably worried about a repeat of such a despicable act of extremist violence.

Three indictments were raised against the accused;

1. Bin Laden planned and ordered the 9/11 attacks
2. Bin Laden is the leader of Al Qaeda, a global terrorist network
3. Bin Laden is, himself, a terrorist

Acting as defense counsel was star defense attorney Gerard Spong, who has been central to the immigration debate and is supporting legal action against anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders.

Serving as prosecutors and attempting to rebut Mr. Spong’s defense were America correspondent and expert Charles Groenhuijsen, and terrorism expert and Dutch-American Glenn Schoen.

Spong speaks of a quickness to find a scapegoat and xenophobia as the justification for Bin Laden so quickly becoming America’s #1 target after 9/11.  He relates of a Dutch Muslim “forcefully arrested, because of a telephone call from Brussels about a family relation with an uncle in Madrid.  Released within 24 hours.  A mistake,” as a parallel to the “mistake” that said there was a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

In arguing that Al Qaeda is nothing but a “phantom”, the defense more or less debunks the theory, put forth by Donald Rumsfeld, of a series of highly complex and advanced underground cave bases in and around Tora Bora which housed Bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists.

“A patsy is being sought.  That’s very convenient,” said Spong.

Finally, Spong argues that Bin Laden is not a terrorist, but more correctly a “freedom fighter,” and goes as far as to compare him to Nelson Mandela, and Al Qaeda to the ANC in South Africa.

The jury of 5 all represent different political parties – though if party names are consistent across the continents, most but not all are what Americans would call “liberal.”

After some heated deliberation, the jury comes back with a verdict of not guilty on the first and second charges, and guilty on the third charge.

“The jury does, by majority of votes, not consider Osama bin Laden responsible for the attacks of 9/11, because in our opinion too little hard, undisputed evidence has been produced.

The jury considers it a fact that Al Qaeda exists, but that he’s the undisputed leader of the organization is something the jury has doubts over.

Almost unanimously the jury considers him a terrorist because he, unlike Nelson Mandela, practices terror worldwide.”

It’s unlikely that we will find much edification in a 33-minute television program from the country that brought us “Big Brother,” but the jury’s verdict is not just controversial – perhaps it shines some light on why the previous administration was never able to successfully prosecute any significant number of the captured “terrorists”; they could never have proved anything in a fair trial.

Watch the entire episode here.  (Dutch language, English subtitles).

The document primarily promises a stronger commitment to existing laws already on the books – laws that many human rights groups claim are often overlooked or suppressed.

Further, no reforms are made to the country’s one-party system, the plan does not end or even phase out the practice of sending individuals to “re-education” prison camps without trial, and the unregistered prisons set up for political dissidents are not even mentioned.

The paper promises a “right of urban and rural residents to a basic standard of living,” and that unemployment will remain below 5%.  The Chinese government appears far more interested in keeping up appearances than in putting people first.

China has made some real progress on human rights since that bloody day in Tiananmen Square, but many local and provincial government agencies are slow to change their ways.  The plan does call for solid action to reduce the occurrence of torture, such as requiring interrogation rooms to have some physical separation to  distance interrogators from a suspect, but even such simple and effective steps will take years to implement nationwide.

About a week ago, Sun Wenguang, a 75-year-old retired professor who has been imprisoned multiple times in his life for expressing his political opinions and who was placed under 24-hour surveillance in the days prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was brutally beaten by 5 unidentified men “in broad daylight and clear view of the police,” according to Human Rights in China.

On December 10, 2008 -  over 300 Chinese intellectuals and human rights advocates signed Charter 08, echoing many of the demands of the Tiananmen Square protesters.  20 years after the “June Fourth Incident,” the world is still waiting…

“We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community. Those concerns may be out of an inappropriate or not so good translation of the law or a misinterpretation of this.”

According to Reuters, the law requires women to “fulfill the sexual desires of her husband,” and mandates that a wife must have sex with her husband at least once every four months.

While parts of the law make definite forward progress from the days of the Sunni Taliban government, it has been widely viewed by the international community as shameful policy with no place in a modern world.

Some have decried Karzai’s signing of the law as a political maneuver to pander to the Shi’ite population in the upcoming August 20 elections.

It’s difficult to comprehend how this law could be misinterpreted or mistranslated.  I think this boils down to one of those “our culture is different” cop-outs.  The idea is that somehow we, as westerners, can’t understand the complexities of a religiously-motivated law that denies women their freedom.

Far be it from me to declare that some people are “not ready for freedom,” but even democracy can facilitate tyranny when there are not sufficient constitutional protections of individual liberties.  Our attempts to export democracy to the Muslim world will continue to fail unless we can first export our recognition of basic human rights.

Obama, in his condemnation of the Afghan law at the NATO summit in France, has said that “while improving conditions in Afghanistan is a commendable goal, people need to remember that the primary reason that U.S. troops are fighting there is to protect Americans from terrorist attacks.”  I applaud much of the fresh thinking that Obama’s administration has brought to the Afghanistan-Pakistan problem, but this to me is too reminiscent of Secretary of State Clinton’s recent statements about human rights in China.

Perhaps our priorities have gotten a little out of line since the days when Americans declared, by the pen and the gun, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Maybe if we acted like those rights applied to everyone, not just us, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about terrorist attacks on the United States or financing endless military occupations in foreign countries.

Karzai is flat wrong on this one, and needs to be held to account by the global community.  Even if it means losing his upcoming election, he has to step up as a Muslim leader in the 21st century and declare that Afghanistan will not allow such a barbaric law to go on the books.

In early 1939, during the run-up to war with Germany, the British propaganda ministry created these posters – “Keep Calm and Carry On” – in order to reassure the people, and remind them that all would be okay, no matter how dire the circumstances, if only they would not fall into fear and paranoia.

While very few of these posters ever made it into circulation for the British people to see, keep calm they did.  On August 24, 1940 during the bombing of London by the German Luftwaffe, journalist Edward R. Murrow was in Trafalgar Square with his microphone.

In the streets, there is no terror, no panic.  Murrow describes a man stopping in front of him to light a cigarette, walking casually as others move quietly at a quicker pace.

…

A lot has changed since those days.

In the interest of “working together for a safer London,” the Metropolitan Police have launched a new counter-terrorism hotline and accompanying media campaign, which encourages calling the cops over anything “suspicious.”

London has been under video surveillance for years, and the Orwellian overtones haven’t been lost on very many.  But this new campaign takes the watchful eye to a new level.  Big Brother is so 1984… in 2009, we all just spy on each other!

The similar look, and yet starkly contrasted nature, of these two images strikes me.

The two other images at the Metro police site are worth examining.  The first seems to imply that good citizens should rummage through one another’s garbage bin looking for incriminating evidence, and the other gives the impression that anyone looking at London’s ubiquitous CCTV cameras is a terrorist bomber.

If something legitimately suspicious is seen, I don’t think the average person needs reminding that such a thing should be reported (and this can be legitimately helpful to law enforcement).  But while the 21st century has taught us the value of distributed computing with hardware, software and wetware, to me this is a dangerous precedent.

Such a hotline seems destined only to waste police officers’ time, and serve as a tool for retribution against that guy down the block whose dog insists on barking all night.

What’s more, promoting  constant low-level paranoia, ratting out neighbors, and passively accepting surveillance as virtues is a far cry from “Keep Calm and Carry On,” the unspoken motto of the stiff upper-lipped folks who faced the terrors of Hitler’s onslaught and responded to the wail of air-raid sirens with only clacking heels on cobble-stones.

If you still prefer the old version, you can share the message – or perhaps you appreciate a bit more irony.

Vice President Joe Biden said recently;

“Since the beginning of last year, there have been nearly 7,000 drug-related murders in Mexico. If we had said that years ago, we would have looked at each other like we were crazy.  Violent drug trafficking organizations are threatening both the United States and Mexican communities.”

While the Mexican government has been deploying thousands of troops to border towns like Ciudad Juarez, U.S. governors in border states are becoming increasingly concerned, including Texas governor Rick Perry who recently made an “urgent call” for 1,000 additional National Guard troops to be deployed to his state to assist with securing the border.

President Barack Obama said recently that several states have requested additional deployments, although according to a Pentagon spokesperson they have not yet been ordered to move any troops to the border.  The president has said he has no interest in “militarizing the border,” and there has been no discussion of sending U.S. troops into Mexico.  However, the Mexican government currently has 5 helicopers, a Marine surveillance vehicle and handheld scanners on loan from the U.S.

Obama and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met earlier this month in anticipation of Mullen’s recent trip to Mexico.  The White House is eager to assist in stablizing the region, and has been mobilizing all resources to address the problem.  Secretary of State Clinton will be in Mexico later this month.  A House subcommittee is expected to question Department of Homeland Security officials in an attempt to address potential dangers to our citizens at home in upcoming hearings.

Mexican government officials share their own concerns about their neighbor in all this – turns out, the majority of the weapons being used in attacks in Mexico have been of U.S. origin.  Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz told CNN that two .50-caliber rifles were confiscated during a recent raid, both of which were purchased via the Internet, from the U.S., citing an example of the easily availability of heavy military-grade firearms to those with the cash.  Mexican officials are increasing pressure on the U.S. to clamp down on the flow of firearms across the border.

Despite a recent U.S. State Department travel alert which compared the fighting between the cartels and local authorities to “small-unit combat,” Mexico’s tourism chief reports no decrease in tourism as a result of the increased killings.  According to him, Mexico is perfectly safe as long as you avoid the “zones that are not safe.”  Well, now I feel better.

It’s easy to get bogged down in the details, and the numbers.  Safe zones and unsafe zones, so many deaths, so many soldiers, so much cash – Forbes added Joaquin Guzman Loera, the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, to their billionaire’s list this year, “self-made” in the “shipping” industry.  Our continuation of the failed War on Drugs is no small part of this mess, and by now it should be clear we have no option other than to legitimize and marginalize the drug cartels if we are ever to restore peace to the border towns of either country.

According to the Department of Defense, five vessels including a Chinese naval ship, trawlers and an “intelligence ship” approached within 50 feet of the boat, waving Chinese flags and telling the U.S. ship to leave the area.  When one of the ships came within as close as 25 feet, the Impeccable used a water cannon to spray the boat in defense.  In response, the Chinese sailors stripped down to their underwear.  The Pentagon has stated that the Impeccable was unarmed (except for that clothes-ruining water cannon) and was manned entirely by civilian mariners conducting ocean surveys.

A U.S. Navy spokesman, Captain Jeffrey Breslau, called the Chinese actions “dangerous.”  He also admitted that the Impeccable had been towing an underwater listening and mapping device used for underwater surveillance, and said one of the Chinese ships tried to snare the device with a long grappling hook.  A Chinese nuclear sub had recently been spotted in satellite photographs at a covert naval base on nearby Hainan, and the implication from both Washington and Beijing is that the U.S. is monitoring Chinese nuclear submarines.

While the incident occurred within what is generally considered “international waters”, China claims an “economic exclusion zone,” extending 200 nautical miles from its coast.  Within this area, China asserts exclusive rights to oil and gas exploration, drilling and fishing.  So the U.S. says it was legal, China says it was illegal.

Showing rapid maturation, the Chinese navy recently deployed two destroyers and a supply ship to the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden, and is working on constructing its first aircraft carrier.  The Washington Post is reporting today that the USS Chung-Hoon, armed with torpedoes and missiles, has been assigned to protect the USNS Impeccable for the immediate future.

Amidst of flurry of  recent and upcoming U.S. attempts to improve relations with China, this incident certainly increases the level of tension but these kinds of naval confrontations are no novelty in American history.  Hans Kristensen, with the Federation of American Scientists, is suggesting that the U.S. and China use the Cold War-era Incidents at Sea Agreement as a template for U.S.-China maritime interactions.

The United States and China are so codependent financially at this point that even a cold war is highly unlikely, but this is a story we will keep our eyes on in the weeks to come.

The International Herald Tribune has more.

1. You don’t really get to vote.
2. The little guy in the janitor jumpsuit and Elvis glasses “runs for re-election” to the “parliamentary seat” of the “constituency” he “represents,” and goes about threatening to nuke the neighbors.
3. 100% of the vote is for Kim Jong-il!
4. In reality, the whole election is only about determining which of the Glorious Leader’s weird kids (that no one knows) will be appointed to take over his father’s dictatorship… er, parliamentary seat.
5. It’s okay though, because there’s no free press to tell you about it.

Details here.

The Obama administration wants a clean slate after the recent Russian invasion of Georgia, and Clinton arrived with a gift; a red plastic button in a green box, emblazoned with the Russian word for “reset” — er, make that “overcharged”.

Turns out the two words aren’t so dissimilar (peregruzka, perezagruzka), and an apparent clerical error resulted in a lost-in-translation moment.

“In a way, the word that’s on the button turns out to be also true.  We are resetting, and because we are resetting, the minister and I have an overload of work.”

Clinton deftly joked, at a press conference later in the day.

Time will tell if a new administration will succesfully make and use a clean slate, or if the typo becomes prophetic.