“You have a friend for life,” former NBA star Dennis Rodman told Kim Jong-un, the leader of the Stalinist and reclusive North Korea, capping a strange trip that managed to completely gloss over the plight of the North Korean people.

Rodman spent the last several days in North Korea along with a crew from VICE and three members of the Harlem Globetrotters to film an episode of a forthcoming HBO series and take part in what VICE dubbed “basketball diplomacy.” While Rodman has been known for pulling crazy stunts during and after his time on the basketball court, a visit to the most reclusive country on Earth was unexpected. The trip had more than a tinge of the ludicrous from the beginning, with Rodman tweeting out his arrival to confusion from the masses:

It’s true, I’m in North Korea.Looking forward to sitting down with Kim Jung Un.I love the people of North Korea. #WORMinNorthKorea

— Dennis Rodman (@dennisrodman) February 26, 2013

Rodman also tweeted that he hoped to meet Psy, the South Korean pop star, during his trip, lending to the absurdity. In the climax of the sojourn, Rodman met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to enjoy the performance of the Globetrotters in a Pyongyang stadium, before retiring to Kim’s palace, where the North Korean leader reportedly “plied the group” with food and alcohol, leading one member of Rodman’s entourage to tweet “Um … so Kim Jong Un just got the (hash)VICEonHBO crew wasted … no really, that happened.” The AP has more:

The two chatted in English, but Kim primarily spoke in Korean through a translator, [VICE founder Shane] Smith said after speaking to the VICE crew in Pyongyang.

“They bonded during the game,” Smith said by telephone from New York after speaking to the crew. “They were both enjoying the crazy shots, and the Harlem Globetrotters were putting on quite a show.”

The bond between the 6′ 7″ former NBA player and diminutive North Korean leader belies the tension between the United States and DPRK. Indeed, their improbable dialogue is the highest-level conversation between the North Korean leader and an American since Kim took power in 2011. In that time, Kim has worked to solidify his control of the isolated country, including conducting the Hermit Kingdom’s third nuclear weapons test just weeks ago.
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Two hawkish Senators want to set U.S. policy in favor of prematurely pulling the “military option” trigger against Iran, pledging American backing of absolutely any strike by Israel against Iran and its nuclear program.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in the coming days plan to unveil a new joint resolution to “strongly support the full implementation of United States and international sanctions on Iran and to urge the President to continue to strengthen enforcement of sanctions legislation.” Couched in such seemingly benign language, the resolution saves its most worrisome clauses for the end, including an open-ended policy of U.S. support for any Israeli strike against Iran:

Urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.

Graham first announced his intention to introduce such legislation in 2012, but never followed through. The new bill co-sponsored by Menendez goes beyond previous attempts to show support for Israeli policy towards Iran. The last such attempt was a 2011 proposal from Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Louis Gohmert (R-TX) that would have “approved” any strike Israel performed. Menendez and Graham’s proposal is all the more threatening in that it is backed by credible legislators, though known hawks against Iran, and is ostensibly bipartisan.

The joint resolution is non-binding and would serve as neither a declaration of war nor an Authorization of the Use of Military Force like the near carte-blanche approval granted to President George W Bush at the onset of the Iraq War. It would, though, serve as an official announcement of U.S. policy to support any Israeli strike, whether the Obama administration had been previously consulted or not. This would include strikes against Iran that would be preventative — or seeking to stop any threat before it materializes — instead of a preemptive strike against an imminent threat, which is much more widely accepted as legitimate.

The Senate proposal dovetails with a bill announced on Wednesday from the heads of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to ratchet up sanctions on Iran yet again while shifting policy to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons capability.

Current and former military officials have warned of the potential consequences of strikes against Iran in several reports. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey last year backed away from American support of an Israeli strike, saying “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it.” Dempsey also warned that a strike against Iran could possibly break the international coalition that has been placing pressure on Iran. That coalition recently concluded a positive round of talks in Kazakhstan and are set to meet again in Istanbul in March.

The Obama administration has not ruled out the use of force against Iran if necessary to prevent its acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but only after the exhaustion of all other available tools.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a speech before a gathering of Defense Department officials and military brass on Wednesday that the U.S. should remain engaged with its allies around the world and “reach out and find new alliances” based on common interests.

Hagel also told the group that he is “proud” to be leading the Pentagon, and that “it’s a great honor” and “a privilege” to join DOD. “You’re not joining my team,” Hagel said in the speech, “I am joining your team.”

“If there’s anything American has stood for more than any one thing, is that we are a force for good,” the newly minted Pentagon chief said later. “We’ve made mistakes. We’ll continue to make mistakes but we are a force for good.”

He also pledged to see that every Department of Defense employee is treated equally and without discrimination:

HAGEL: It’s also important for you to know that I am committed to … assuring that every person in the Department of Defense associated with the Department of Defense, civilian or military, is absolutely treated fairly, honestly, equal benefits, everything that each of you do should be dealt with on a fair and equal basis. No discrimination anywhere in any way.

The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart writes today that the fight over Hagel’s nomination and confirmation was really about “the struggle over the Bush doctrine” and the fact that Hagel has challenged the notion that military force should be used to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

Hagel seemed to touch on this theme during his speech today, arguing that the United States should use its power to remained engaged in the world. “How we apply our power is particularly important,” he said, adding, “That engagement in the world should be done wisely.” Watch the clip:

As the overlong saga that has been Chuck Hagel’s Secretary of Defense nomination comes to a close, it’s worth looking back on the number of ways in which conservatives predicted his impending downfall.

In addition to the many instances in which the right distorted Hagel’s record, the list of ways that these predictions turned out to be mistaken — and it is extensive — bridges conspiracy theories and cynical political calculations, attacks on character and long-standing grudges, both policy and personal. Now that the Senate has voted to break the Republican filibuster of Hagel’s nomination and he has been officially confirmed, here’s a list of some of the right wing’s more farcical predictions in its pursuit of trying to prevent Hagel from becoming the next Pentagon chief:

1. “Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite.”

Before Hagel’s nomination was even officially announced, the neoconservative smear machine was gearing up to make sure Hagel would pay for opposing the war in Iraq. In the first of many stories centered around a quote from an anonymous Senate aide, the Weekly Standard quoted one as saying, “Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite.”

However, the claim that Hagel is an anti-Semite effectively died soon after the Council on Foreign Relations’ Elliott Abrams lobbed it in an NPR interview, causing CFR’s President Richard Haass himself to smack the claim down. In the aftermath, only a few have dared to make the accusation directly against Hagel, instead resorting to misleading statements about his pro-Israel stance.

2. Democrats will turn on Chuck Hagel.

Politicos were speculating for weeks ahead of the announcement that the former Republican Senator would have a tough time gaining support among Democrats. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) topped several lists of those who would turn on Hagel, with non-committal comments of his blasted out by venues like The Weekly Standard.

Mainstream media got in on this idea as well, with NBC News’ Chuck Todd saying as many as ten Democrats might oppose Hagel and the National Journal writing up why Democrats don’t love him. In the end, though, it turned out that not only did Schumer announce his full support of Hagel, not a single Democrat voted against cloture for Hagel.

3. The LGBT community won’t accept Hagel.

In the days leading up to Hagel’s nomination, Republicans appeared to have found their long-lost concern for the equal rights of gays and lesbians. Hagel in 1998 said that James Hormel, then-President Bill Clinton’s nominee for Ambassador to Luxembourg, was “aggressively gay,” and thus unfit for the post. Right-wing concern trolling commenced, including Washington Post blogger Jen Rubin’s prediction that “along with the eggnog and mistletoe, Hagel will disappear after the holidays.” The attack reached its peak with the Log Cabin Republicans’ purchase of two full-page ads against Hagel.

That charge fizzled quickly, however. Hagel apologized publicly for his comments, which Hormel accepted graciously. Former staffers came out in support of Hagel, the Human Rights Campaign withdrew its complaints, and the opposition that Republicans hoped to elicit from the gay community never materialized.

4. GOP will walkout on Hagel vote.

With the Democrats unlikely to turn on Hagel, Republicans then opted to do everything they could to delay a vote on Hagel indefinitely. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) was forced to postpone moving Hagel out of committee by a hold from Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Ted Cruz (R-TX). News outlets soon reported — via more anonymous sources — that Republicans would walk out on the committee vote for Hagel. ThinkProgress learned differently, and Hagel moved out of committee with barely an incident.

5. Hagel will withdraw.

After Hagel’s confirmation hearing, Foreign Policy blogger Tom Ricks saw “50-50” odds that Hagel would withdraw. Hagel’s personal confidants said he would not withdraw his nomination and when asked about the matter, White House spokesman Jay Carney said “absolutely not.” Republicans took no chances, choosing to make history by filibustering a Defense Secretary-nominee for the first time, going against previous stances on up-or-down votes on nominees. Despite that filibuster’s obvious inability to hold, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and 14 of his colleagues still sent President Obama a letter to pull Hagel — despite still not having the votes to block confirmation.

6. Hagel’s secret speeches will sink his nomination.

Republicans and the right-wing media have been desperately hunting for nefarious speeches given by Hagel after his time in the Senate as a way to block his confirmation. One of those speeches, given before the liberal pro-Israel group J Street in 2009, was sure to be the silver bullet that ended Hagel’s nomination according to Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin. Rubin — who has written over 100 posts trying to derail Hagel — claimed that J Street was hiding the video out of fear for what it showed. J Street eventually released the video in question, which was received with a yawn by most of the world.

The right then hoped that Hagel’s long-sought after comments to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League would be the final nail in his coffin — the speech turned out to be a dud. A supposedly explosive comment made by Hagel, calling the State Department an “adjunct” of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, was likewise denied by a professor in attendance at the speech.

7. Hagel’s ties to the “Friends of Hamas” will end his bid.

Attempts by the likes of Sen. Cruz to insinuate that Hagel has received funding from shady sources likewise hasn’t been able to stand up to scrutiny. One such effort claimed that Hagel had the backing of a group called the “Friends of Hamas.” That claim — later revealed to have started as a joke — was spread across the right-wing before being debunked. The so-called “Friends of Hamas” doesn’t exist. In the end, Hagel survived a set of lengthy confirmation battles that in the words of Sen. Levin “far exceed” the scrutiny previous nominees have faced.

(Photo: Scripps Howard Foundation Wire)

The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to become the next Secretary of Defense, just hours after the upper chamber of Congress broke the Republican-led filibuster of Hagel’s nomination.

The final vote was 58-41. Four Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for Hagel: Sens. Mike Johanns (NE), Thad Cochran (MS), Richard Shelby (AL), and in a surprise move, Rand Paul (KY), who voted against cloture earlier today. Eighteen Republicans supported the cloture motion to bring about the up-or-down vote this afternoon.

Once sworn in, Hagel will most likely first face the looming budget crisis, particularly sequestration, which is set to kick in at the end of the week absent any deal. Hagel will also face other pressing issues like the coming drawdown in Afghanistan and the focus on Asia, none of which were debated much during the run-up to Hagel’s confirmation vote.

The Republicans and their neocon allies threw everything they could — however false, misleading, petty or shameless — at Hagel to try to prevent him from leading the Pentagon and TPM’s Josh Marshall may have stumbled across one of the main reasons why. “The real driver of this drama is that it signals a real closing of the door on the Bush era,” he wrote last week.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) in the waning minutes of the fight to confirm Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense attempted to tie Hagel to Iran’s past denial of the Holocaust.

Speaking from the floor of the Senate, Inhofe, the Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, began by noting that he’d just watched the 1993 film Schindler’s List for the first time three days ago. The Oscar-winning film depicts a story in the midst of the Holocaust, in which over six million Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and others were systematically killed, an event that Iranian government officials have denied actually happened.

Inhofe expressed his amazement that any state could deny such an event, then brought the whole thing back around to surreptitiously question Chuck Hagel’s support for Israel:

INHOFE: But I think the mere fact that they would say — Iran would say that the Holocaust didn’t exist. Keep in mind, I know the response to this. They say, we don’t have any control over who supports this. Isn’t it interesting, though, that Iran supports Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense? I mean, they — arguably, they could be considered to be the most — the greatest foe that’s out there for the United States, recognizing the capability that they’re going to have and statements they have a made about the United States of America. That is a frightening thing.

Watch his comments here:

The Iranians responded to the Hagel nomination by taking a backhanded swipe at the United States for its policies. The neocons picked up the comment, claiming that Iran supports Hagel, but as one expert observed, “The Iranian regime is hardly cheering Hagel on.”

Inhofe in particular has been attacking Hagel for this for weeks, including during Hagel’s confirmation hearing. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) took to task Inhofe’s pushing the Iranian “endorsement” line during the last meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, questioning whether he and his colleagues would appreciate it if “the worst group you could imagine” endorsed them.

The Senate on Tuesday voted to break the Republican-led filibuster of Chuck Hagel’s nomination to become the next Secretary of Defense, clearing the way for his confirmation.

Senate Republicans made history earlier this month by successfully filibustering a president’s Defense Secretary nominee for the first time in U.S. history.

But a number of Republicans who voted to uphold the filibuster — including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) — joined Democrats in breaking the filibuster on Tuesday. Overall, 18 Republicans voted for cloture, which ultimately passed by a vote of 71-27.

The neocons, later joined by Senate Republicans, spent two-and-a-half months trying to prevent Hagel’s nomination and eventual confirmation, mostly by promoting false claims and smears that Hagel is an anti-Semite, anti-Israel and pro-Iran, all of which with either debunked or lacked credibility to stick. Hagel’s detractors then turned to a kitchen-sink strategy by distorting his record and making wild claims, for example that Hagel accepted money from America’s enemies and that the former Republican senator has ties to, as it turns out, non-existant terror groups.

According to Senate rules, a final up-or-down vote on Hagel’s nomination will take place no later than 30 hours from today’s cloture vote. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said today that he hopes the vote will take place later on this afternoon.

Two of the diplomats held during the 444-day Iranian Hostage Crisis are speaking out in favor of stronger diplomatic overtures between the United States and Iran.

Former Ambassador Bruce Laigen and former Ambassador John Limbert were among the dozens of U.S. citizens held captive in Tehran from 1979-81, the former serving as Chief of Mission, the latter as a Political Officer in the U.S. Embassy. The two spoke at a press conference Monday, capitalizing on the film Argo‘s Best Picture win Sunday night at the Academy Awards to highlight the need for U.S. diplomacy with Iran moving forward.

“Rather than learning from the lessons of history, the U.S. and Iran continue to be held hostage to it,” Laingen said in his prepared remarks, laying out a theme that would be continued throughout the press conference. Both men also made clear that the mutual interests of the U.S. and Iran are too many to not have continuing dialogue between the states. “The Islamic Republic [of Iran], like it or not, is what it is and we do have things to talk about, even if we do not necessarily talk to them as friends,” Limbert said.

The need for diplomacy with Iran stretches beyond issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, according to the former diplomats, with Laigen in particular noting difficulties that come in negotiating absent steady communication:

LAIGEN: It’s difficult because you’re not there, that’s one of the problems. We — Americans are not in Tehran. What the hell, we should be. We should be there representing the United States of America. We should a relationship of have some kind. We have zilch. And that’s not a very good basis on which to have any kind of diplomatic exchange.

The latest round in discussions between Iran and the P5+1 — the United States, United Kingdom, Russian Federation, China, France, and Germany — over Tehran’s nuclear program are set to begin in Kazakhstan on Tuesday. Asked about their expectations for the meetings, the two were muted in their predictions. Laigen confidently asserted that the talks would end with a follow-up meeting next month. “As long as the two sides simply refuse to see the world how the other side sees the world, I don’t know where you’re going to make progress,” Limbert said.

Limbert, in response to a question, took on the concept of the “general feeling” that Iran is aiming to build a nuclear weapon, noting the lack of evidence that tends to come from those making the claim. Limbert characterized the argument from those making the claim by saying, “We know [that Iran is working towards a nuclear weapon] because they are bad people and they do bad things. So when they say their program is entirely peaceful, it must be exactly the opposite.” U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials both currently believe that Iran has not decided to pursue a nuclear weapon.

Limbert also downplayed the threat of Iranian influence in the Middle East, saying he “[doesn't] lose a lot of sleep” over the idea. Noting that Iran is “not in a good place politically and diplomatically,” Limbert pointed out that Iran’s lack of allies in the region makes it difficult for anything resembling a spread of the Iranian revolution to occur. “The threat of Iranian hegemony has been overblown by parties who seek to benefit by continuing the chest-beating,” he concluded.

The Obama administration, by contrast, has said that Iran with a nuclear weapon is a threat to the region and has pledged to use all available tools, including military action, to prevent the Islamic Republican from building one.

A new poll released by the Hill newspaper has found that more voters favor slashing military spending versus cutting spending on domestic programs like Medicare and Social Security in order to reduce the debt and deficit.

While the HIll says the poll results show that American voters think reducing the debt is more important than maintaining domestic and military spending at current levels, they prefer to see the cuts come from the Pentagon:

Forty-nine percent of respondents said they would support cutting military spending, while just 23 percent said they would support slashing Social Security and Medicare. An overwhelming majority, 69 percent, said they would oppose cuts to social programs.

Moreover, 37 percent said the U.S. spends “too much” on the military, 38 percent said “just the right amount” and only 18 percent said “too little.”

The new poll results come as the sequester cuts — totaling $85 billion this year alone — are set to take effect on March 1 if Congress and the White House can’t get a deal done to avert them.

But as far as the sequester’s military reductions are concerned, the arbitrary automatic cuts probably aren’t the best way to reduce the Pentagon’s bloated budget (there are alternatives). But, as CAP Senior Fellow Lawrence Korb noted recently, the military spending sequester would bring DOD’s baseline budget “would return to the fiscal year 2007.”

Even former Defense officials led by former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen agree. “In previous eras, increased defense spending may have been required to maintain security,” the group wrote in a joint statement in December. “That is no longer the case. In our judgment, advances in technological capabilities and the changing nature of threats make it possible, if properly done, to spend less on a more intelligent, efficient and contemporary defense strategy that maintains our military superiority and national security.”

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Sunday that he plans to introduce legislation to allow the Obama administration to transfer weapons to Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Reporting from the region, ABC’s Terry Moran said on the network’s Sunday program “This Week” that the U.S. faces a choice, either arm the rebels or work with Russia, and perhaps Assad himself, on a potential peace deal between the two warring factions. When asked about that choice, Engel said he thinks “it’s time” to allow President Obama to provide the rebels with direct military assistance:

TERRY MORAN: The United States has a choice: arm the rebels, engage even more deeply in what is becoming a chaotic and dangerous war to this region or broker a peace, probably with Russia, give the Syrian people an opportunity to determine their future and at least in the first stages, Bashar Assad is likely to be part of that process.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Engel is that the choice?

ENGEL: I think it’s the choice and I will be introducing legislation to allow the President to arm the rebels. I think it’s time to do that. I think the Free Syria Army needs help. We know who they are and I think it’s time we make that move.

Watch the clip:

The United States has been providing training and logistics and communications assistance to the rebels but thus far, the Obama administration has been reluctant to provide arms, instead preferring to allow other regional allies to send weapons to the rebels fighting Assad. But with recent revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey supported a plan to arm the rebels, and now with the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to introduce legislation backing that plan, momentum may be gaining to persuade the Obama administration to shift course.

As mandatory budget cuts loom, a group of Congressional Republicans has cheered the coming reductions in federal spending — so long as federal funding is maintained for a plane that is years behind schedule and doesn’t fly, that is.

The Department of Defense announced on Friday afternoon that it has grounded the entire fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in light of an issue with its engine. Grounding the fleet, in all three of its variations, is just the latest in a slew of setbacks to the troubled acquisition program. Produced by Lockheed Martin to the tune of $100 million per plane, the total cost of the project so far has climbed over $400 billion, making it the most expensive weapons system in U.S. history. By contrast, the Manhattan Project — which created the nuclear weapon from scratch — cost about $55 billion in today’s dollars.

The F-35 project as a whole is currently at least six years behind schedule, slated for delivery in 2015 at the earliest. Beginning on March 1, the Defense Department budget is poised to fall under the effect of mandatory budget cuts known as sequestration, cutting $1 trillion from the budget in military and domestic spending over the next ten years.

Enter the Joint Strike Fighter Caucus.

Formed in 2011, as talks to avoid sequestration were first ongoing, 49 members of the House of Representatives — hailing from both parties — signed on to protect the F-35. Several of the Republican members of the JSF Caucus, however, are among the most ardent supporters of slashing federal funding currently in Congress. Among their ranks are Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), each of whom have called for deep reductions to programs that actually work.

Broun, in a 2012 interview with Politico, estimated that he had proposed $4 billion in cuts in the House Science, Technology, and Commerce committee alone. Franks has made clear that he believes the only way to shrink the government “is to choke the monster.” Poe has compared Congress to “addicts” when it comes to spending, proposing a 12 step program to break the habit as he argued against the fiscal cliff deal.

While several Republicans have favored raising revenues to help offset sequestration, none of the Republicans listed above have joined in. Instead, the Representatives listed above all voted “aye” on a bill to replace the defense cuts in sequestration entirely with cuts on the domestic side. Cuts to defense can be made certainly made to military spending — if done smartly — making voting to protect a plane that doesn’t work in opposition to providing health care to millions of Americans near unconscionable.

An interfaith group is speaking out against Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) claim on Thursday that Americans need the Second Amendment’s protection in order to shield the nation from Sharia Law.

Speaking on a radio show called The Voice of Freedom, Gohmert insisted that “We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed.” In response, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of the Interfaith Alliance, has sent a letter to Gohmert, protesting his “continued demonization of Islam”:

I feel compelled to again remind you that the continued demonization of Islam and disenfranchisement of the American Muslim community is not only uncalled for, it is a dangerous affront to the religious freedom upon which this nation was founded and it must end. American Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom live peaceful, law-abiding lives — just like Americans from other religious groups — should not have to live in a country where their elected officials imply that they need to be kept at bay with firearms.

Furthermore, at a time when gun violence has wracked our nation with one unimaginable tragedy after another, I would hope that elected officials such as you would stay focused on real measures to prevent future needless deaths. I would hope that you would focus your attention on measures to truly balance the Second Amendment rights you so strongly defend, rather than derailing what should be a substantive policy discussion with misguided bigotry.

Gohmert has been in trouble before with the Interfaith Alliance, having also received a letter from them during his partnership with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to persecute Muslim-American government officials. Gorhmert has also during his time in Congress called for hearings on the dangers of Sharia and claimed that President Obama went to war in Libya to help Al Qaeda spread across the Middle East.

Rev. Gaddy also included with his letter a copy of a text titled “What is the Truth About American Muslims: Questions and Answers,” produced by Interfaith Alliance and the Religious Freedom Education Project of the First Amendment Center. Congressman Gohmert’s office did not immediately respond to an e-mailed question regarding whether or not he had read over, or plans to read, the resource.

The full text of the letter can be read after the break.

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The Associated Press reports foreign visitors to North Korea will have the ability to purchase access to 3G data service on their mobile devices as early as next week:

“Koryolink, a joint venture between Korea Post & Telecommunications Corporation and Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding SAE, informed foreign residents in Pyongyang on Friday that it will launch a third generation, or 3G, mobile Internet service no later than March 1.”

This freedom for foreign visitors is in stark contrast to the digital isolation that defines its citizens lives: the only networked access available to the general public is the closed intranet known as “Kwangmyong” started in 2000 — although “central party, national security units, and some Cabinet-level government organizations, as well as foreign diplomatic missions, joint ventures, and foreign individuals staying in Pyongyang can have ‘full but monitored’ access” to the real world wide web.

Google’s Eric Schmidt noted the restricted nature of North Korean’s access to communication technology following his visit last year — as well as how the infrastructure of these closed systems could be easily modified to allow a more democratic information experience:

“There is a 3G network that is a joint venture with an Egyptian company called Orascom. It is a 2100 Megahertz SMS-based technology network, that does not, for example, allow users to have a data connection and use smart phones. It would be very easy for them to turn the Internet on for this 3G network. Estimates are that are about a million and a half phones in the DPRK with some growth planned in the near future.

There is a supervised Internet and a Korean Intranet. (It appeared supervised in that people were not able to use the internet without someone else watching them). There’s a private intranet that is linked with their universities. Again, it would be easy to connect these networks to the global Internet.”

Despite the highly questionable ethics of financially supporting a regime that holds as many as 200,000 people in political prison camps “rife with torture, rape and slave labor” and recently conducted yet another nuclear test much to the dismay of the international community, North Korea claims to be experiencing a tourism boom. While those tourists will undoubtedly appreciate being able to check Facebook on their iPhones during their visit, thousands of North Koreans remain under a regime that denies them the most basic of human rights, let alone real internet access.

South African Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius was released on bail this morning following the shooting death of his girlfriend, and the cable news networks devoted the vast majority of their coverage to the hearing. CNN alone spent 192 minutes in total on the story between 5:00 AM to 10:00 AM, broadcasting for three hours without a single commercial break. The network maintained a constant box on the side of its screen alerting viewers to the imminent bail hearing.

And while the Pistorius case has scandalous appeal, there are other real important news stories in Africa that the networks routinely ignore. Here are just five things happening on the African continent that have nothing to do with the Olympian’s trial:

1. U.S. sending troops to Niger.

President Obama announced in a letter to Congress that he will be deploying 100 troops to Niger, to help aid in the ongoing operations against Islamists in Mali. According to the Associated Press report on the letter, the troops will be armed “for the purpose of providing their own force protection and security,” and focus on “intelligence sharing.” This is the second such deployment that Obama has made in recent years; 100 military advisers were sent to Uganda in 2011 to aid in the hunt for wanted war-criminal Joseph Kony.

Transference of military resources to the African continent has become a hallmark of Obama’s foreign and counter-terrorism policies, as groups like Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army, al-Shabaab, and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb have taken on more threatening postures towards U.S. interests. The United States and Niger recently signed an agreement that would allow for the opening of a base for unmanned aircraft — or drones — to be piloted for surveillance purposes.

2. There’s a war in Mali.

The fighting in Mali continues apace, despite French claims that they will begin withdrawing troops in the coming weeks. France intervened in the fight between the Malian government and several rebel groups in January, sending U.S. and European allies scrambling to provide support for the operations. While almost all towns in Mali’s north have been retaken by the government, low-levels of fighting flare up periodically.

Complicating matters are claims of atrocities — mostly in the form of “reprisal killings — committed by the Malian Army against minorities. The International Criminal Court in the Hague has already launched an investigation into potential war-crimes committed during the course of the last year’s fighting,

3. Sales of elephant ivory are fueling terrorism.

The poaching of elephants and rhinos for their ivory is a real security threat to the United States according to a State Department official. Robert Hormats — who serves as Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Enviroment — gave an interview with AllAfrica.com, in which he agreed that ivory counts as a ‘conflict resource.’ Organized groups, like al-Shabaab and the janjaweed militia in Sudan, kill large numbers of animals, sell off the ivory illegally, and use the purchases to buy more weapons for themselves.

The majority of that ivory is being sold to China, as much as 70 percent as reported by the New York Times.

4. Africa’s economic boom.

“Seven of the ten fastest growing countries are on the African continent,” Secretary of State John Kerry declared Wednesday, in his first major speech since taking on the role. Each of those seven countries — Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Zambia, and Nigeria — had projected growth rates of 8 percent or more in 2011 according to the International Monetary Fund. In comparison, last year the U.S. economy grew by around 2 percent. By 2030, the continent is set to boast a middle-class majority for the first time, as poverty drops. All of that growth may not correspond to happiness though — as The Economist points out, not many of the fastest growing economies currently rank among the best places to live.

5. Elections looming in Kenya.

2007’s Presidential elections in Kenya led to the death of thousands as neighbors clashed over the outcome of a disputed vote. Only the diplomatic intervention of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan helped stanch the flow of blood at the time, prompting serious concerns over the pending March 4 elections. This year’s coming elections – in which one of those running have been indicted by the ICC for helping promote violence in 2007 – have the potential to launch another violent struggle between ethnic groups in the East African country. President Obama has already issued a video statement to the people of Kenya ahead of the first round of voting, urging calm and faith in the democratic process. Meanwhile, the State Department’s Conflict and Stabilization Operations Bureau has been working for months with the local government to prevent another outpouring of violence.

A new report released on Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the growth of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has continued apace ahead of renewed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

Since the release of the last report by the IAEA’s Governor-General in November 2012, Iran has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to a 20 percent level by about 43 kilograms. While Iran has restarted its conversion of some of that stockpile into uranium oxide gas and other forms that are difficult to further enrich to fuel medical research at the Tehran Research Reactor, the associated reduction didn’t counter new enrichment enough to show a decrease in overall levels.

The concern surrounding Iran’s uranium stockpile is not that it’s currently usable in a nuclear weapon — for that it would need to be enriched to 90 percent level, making it highly-enriched. However, the technology required to produce 90 percent enriched uranium is a small step from that required to reach the 20 percent threshold. Approximately 250 kilograms of 90 percent uranium is required to create one nuclear weapon, an amount that Iran has been careful not to reach.

Compounding misgivings about Iran’s nuclear program, however, is the news that its heavy-water reactor based in Arak is slated to become operational in early 2014. Unfortunately, the new reactor has the potential to produce plutonium as a by-product of its usage, which would only add to suspicions about the nature of Iran’s program. Plutonium can still be used in civilian reactors, but lower amounts are necessary to produce simpler — but lower-yield — nuclear weapons than those that utilize uranium. Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies still believe, however, that Iran has not made a decision to pursue a nuclear weapon at this time.

Adding to the unfortunate news contained in the IAEA report, Iran today announced that it has begun installing more advanced centrifuges in its main enrichment facility Nanatz. The Iranian government had previously informed the IAEA of its plans to do so weeks ago, but started the actual work of getting the equipment into place today. However, today’s IAEA report does indicate that the exact same number of centrifuges remain operational at Natanz as in November, despite an increase in the number fully installed.

All of this heightens the pressure upon negotiators from the P5+1 — the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, Russian Federation, and Germany — ahead of their restarted talks with Iran next week in Kazakhstan. Reuters has reported that the group will present Iran with a new package of “substantial and serious” offers to Iran during the negotiations, including eased sanctions on gold and other precious metals.

Emad Burnat — the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “5 Broken Cameras” — landed in Los Angeles yesterday ahead of Sunday’s awards ceremony to a less than pleasant welcome. Rather than the easy transit he had experienced during his previous five visits to the U.S., customs officials detained him, his wife, and six-year old son in a small room in Los Angeles International Airport and couldn’t believe that he was in town to attend the prestigious event.

According to Burnat, customs agents wouldn’t accept the scanned versions of the official documents that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sends its nominees. Burnat then texted documentarian Michael Moore to let him know that he was being threatened with being sent back to Turkey without more proof that he was attending the Academy Awards. Moore described what happened more fully in a post on his blog yesterday:

I told Emad to give the Homeland Security people my name and cell number and to have them call me ASAP so I could explain who he was and why they should let him go.

After being held for somewhere between one and two hours, with repeated suggestions that the U.S. may not let him into the country – saying that they may send him back home – the authorities relented and released Emad and his family.

Moore also documented the events in a series of tweets to his 1.4 million followers, not hiding his beliefs about the motives behind Burnat’s threatened deportation:

Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn’t understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee. Emad texted me for help.

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013

The holding of Burnat, director of the first Palestinian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary, remains puzzling as he would have had to go through the visa process before entering the U.S. on his previous visits and likely did so again. Burnat was also detained for six hours by Israeli security when trying to cross the border into Jordan to catch his flight to the U.S.

When asked about the situation during today’s press brief, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland deflected the question to the Department of Homeland Security. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which is a part of DHS — did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the detention of Burnat. “Travelers may be referred for further inspection for a variety of reasons to include identity verification, intent of travel, and confirmation of admissibility,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to Reuters. “The United States has been, and continues to be, a welcoming nation.”