Axis of Evil Updates

Now that the 100 Hour Democratic Everything Liberal Love-a-thon comes to an exuberant close in the House and Ney is going to prison, there is a slew of updates from the foreign front that are worth noting.

Such Axis of Evil, or should I say "Axis made more Evil because of US incompetence," happenings are both encouraging and saddening. It should be interesting to see what happens and how the Democrats will deal with it.

First off, terrorist detainees awaiting their military tribunals at the dismal Guantanamo Bay holding pen. The Pentagon released its revamped policy on when military tribunals are to be used--sadly, there's not much change from where the whole deal started off. Indeed, the penumbra from the Republican Congress of Horrors is still casting a shadow over just trials. As the NYT puts it, "Under legislation signed into law last year, the government is poised to restart tribunals that the Supreme Court halted last summer." It's my sincere hope that the Democrats will do something about this. Of course the ACLU is all wound up over it. They have a good selection of blogs all about the Guantanamo disaster. On another interesting note, the ACLU points out that the Pentagon as actually been monitoring peace protests throughout the country, "[collecting]more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in an anti-terrorist threat database." That sure gives us something to look forward to for the UPJ March next weekend.

Second, there seems to be a dim and somewhat disorienting light at the end of the tunnel in terms of talks with North Korea. Pyongyang has agreed to resume talks in the six-party negotiations with the US. WaPo reports that "The talks took place from January 16 to 18 in a positive and sincere atmosphere and a certain agreement was reached there." At least some form sensibility and diplomacy have been reached, eh?

Finally, the Iraq troop surge controversy. Democrats are working together in both chambers of Congress to oppose the troop increase that is "not in the national interest of the United States." Amen! Some legislation should hit the floor as early as next Wednesday.