In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that a set of rules codifying the administration’s counterterrorism policies, including its targeted killing program, have been completed and President Obama has approved it.

The letter also confirms for the first time that the United States killed four American citizens in drone strikes since President Obama took office in 2009.

But the completion of the Obama administration’s codification of how it conducts targeted killings and other counterterrorism policies — or the “playbook” as it has been called — has much further reaching implications for future U.S. policy. Begun as a project of then-White House Counterterrorism Director John Brennan, and accelerated due to fears of Obama not serving a second term, the playbook was meant to put into writing many of the ad hoc processes the administration had developed to facilitate the targeted killing of suspected terrorists.

A Washington Post article on Brennan from 2012 revealed that the playbook is meant to “cover the selection and approval of targets from the ‘disposition matrix,’ the designation of who should pull the trigger when a killing is warranted, and the legal authorities the administration thinks sanction its actions in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond.” The “disposition matrix” is the benign-sounding name for the process used to approve targets for strikes. Far from being limited to drones, these strikes include the use of missiles fired from Naval warships and manned aircraft, and special operations forces.

According to Holder’s letter to Congressional leaders, the playbook has been completed, though it won’t be available to the public anytime soon:

This week the President approved and relevant congressional committees will be notified and briefed on a document that institutionalizes the Administration’s exacting standards and processes for reviewing and approving operations to capture or use lethal force against terrorist targets outside the United States and areas of active hostilities; these standards and processes are already in place or are to be transitioned into place. While that document remains classified, it makes clear that a cornerstone of the Administration’s policy is one of the principles I noted in my speech at Northwester: that lethal force should not be used when it is feasible to capture a terrorist suspect.

Among the changes rumored to be put into place in the playbook is the shifting of authority for agencies to use drones in carrying out lethal strikes. Reports indicate that while the CIA will retain control of the drone program in Pakistan, other theaters will see drones placed under the sole purview of the Department of Defense.

Despite the increased attention they’ve received, the number of drone strikes has reportedly dropped in recent years. President Obama is due to deliver a speech on Thursday at the National Defense University laying out his vision for how counterterrorism goals will be pursued in the second term, including the use of drones and the closure of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The latest report from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog shows that Iran continues to process nuclear fuel, it is making sure to keep its total amount low enough to not cross Israel’s so-called “red-line.”

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, since its last report Iran has continued to disregard demands that it halt enrichment of uranium at its nuclear facilities, instead processing another 689 kilograms of the nuclear fuel to the 5 percent level. Of greater concern to the international community is the uranium Iran has processed to 20 percent, compromising an additional 44 kilograms since February.

Iran’s known enriched uranium stockpile is not 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, and Tehran seems to have been careful not to reach 250 kilograms worth of 20 percent enriched uranium in its stockpile.

To keep it below that level, Iran has continued its efforts to convert some of its 20 percent stockpile into uranium gas, which are then used in constructing fuel plates. These plates are extremely difficult to process further, making them effectively out of the running for being considered part of any possible weaponization. In the latest IAEA update, Iran reported converting 58 kilograms worth of 20 percent enriched uranium into uranium oxide between the end of September and May. Thus, the IAEA reported 182 kilograms of declared material still in the form of uranium hexafloride.

The report also indicates that Iran continues its efforts to install new centrifuges into its facilities, with nearly 700 installed since the start of the year.

There are also troubling portions of the report dealing with the Agency’s concerns over the Parchin military base. To date, the IAEA has been denied access to the facility, which is suspected to have been involved with earlier regime efforts to design a trigger for a nuclear weapon. Since first requesting access, it appears a cover-up of the facility’s work has been taking place:

55. Since the Director General’s previous report, Iran has conducted further spreading, levelling and compacting of material over most of the site, a significant proportion of which it has also asphalted. There have also been indications of activity within the chamber building.

56. As previously reported, Iran has stated that the allegation of nuclear activities at the Parchin site is “baseless” and that “the recent activities claimed to be conducted in the vicinity of the location of interest to the Agency, has nothing to do with specified location by the Agency”. Iran’s explanation for the soil displacement by trucks is that it was “due to constructing the Parchin new road”.

Iran’s lack of cooperation over Parchin proved a stumbling block in Iran’s ongoing talks with the U.N. over its nuclear program. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano warned back in December that the site could soon be cleared of any evidence that could have been uncovered. The IAEA, which has been issuing quarterly reports on Iran’s nuclear activities since 2003, still concludes though that none of Iran’s declared nuclear material has been diverted towards producing a nuclear weapon.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies also still believe that Iran has not made a decision to pursue a nuclear weapon at this time. This has not precluded Congress from beginning to pursue a slew of new action against Iran in recent weeks, with bills in both the House and Senate to increase sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Several experts have questioned the wisdom of ratcheting up sanctions on Iran without end, given the still ongoing pursuit of a diplomatic solution to the stand-off.

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee in a letter to President Obama on Tuesday praised the president’s renewed commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but urged Obama to appoint a senior official charged with working to close the facility.

“I write to add my strong support to your efforts to re-engage with Congress on this issue,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said. “I will do everything I can to aid those efforts.”

The State Department in January reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing Gitmo, and did not replace him. Attorney General Eric Holder said this month that the administration is “in the process now” to fill the position, and Smith is urging action:

I ask you to appoint a senior official, either to your White House staff or to a senior position within the Department of State, charged with leading the renewed efforts to transfer those detainees held at GTMO who have been cleared for transfer by the Guantanamo Detainee Review Task Force. The appointment of a senior leader to negotiate and effectuate international detainee transfers is fundamental to a renewed effort to close GTMO.

Obama can order Defense Secretary Hagel to start transferring detainees out of Guantanamo, particularly 59 Yemenis who have been cleared for release. Not only would that begin the process of closing Gitmo — and perhaps even end the ongoing hunger strike there — but it’s relatively non-controversial because, as the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the Yemenis’ “new government wants them back.”

Smith agrees:

I also ask you to make several efforts to expedite the transfer of detainees whose transfer from GTMO will not hurt the security of the United States. First, request Secretary of Defense Hagel to study the feasibility of using the national security waiver to transfer low-risk detainees. Second, implement a limited waiver of your ban on transfers to Yemen.

While the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), has also written Obama offering support for closing Gitmo, getting the rest of Congress, particularly Republicans, to sign on is going to be a tough sell. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he wants the prison closed but has so-far just complained that Obama has “never come up with a viable plan.”

“Congress has blocked it, so he’s going to have to find a way to remove the blockages of Congress, and hopefully he’ll let us know how he’ll do that,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said Tuesday, according to the Hill.

More than 100 detainees are officially on hunger strike at Gitmo, and 31 are being force-fed — a practice rights groups have condemned as a violation of international law and possibly torture. “It’s getting uglier and uglier at Gitmo,” Smith told the Hill.

“The level of embarrassment is growing and the cost is growing, so is that enough to persuade [Members of Congress] that it’s time to change positions?” Smith added. “We’re going to have that debate.” (HT: Carol Rosenberg)

Civil rights leaders slammed an amendment added to the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill that would subject immigrants from Muslim countries for extra scrutiny.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and added to the bill with the support of at least two Democrats, would require additional review for undocumented immigrants applying for legal status who are from “a region or country known to pose a threat, or that contains groups or organizations that pose a threat, to the national security of the United States.” Under the underlining bill, all undocumented immigrations are required to undergo three separate background checks before obtaining legal status. In defending his amendment during the Senate Judiciary Committee mark-up on Monday, Graham argued for an additional screening from regions of the world “where terrorists operate.”

“I mean, it’s pretty clear what I’m trying to do,” Graham said. “I’m trying to make sure that in addition to looking at your criminal background, when you adjust status, that if there are certain parts of the world or countries — like Yemen — that you’re adjusting from, I want to know a little more about you, given the world we live in.”

Under the provisions of the amendment, the Secretary of Homeland Security would have the broad authority to target any “alien or alien dependent spouse or child” from any region or country that they deem, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to house threats to the United States for additional scrutiny before becoming citizens. “I’m not dictating that [the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State] have to pick any region or country over the other,” Graham said, attempting to deflect criticisms that the amendment focuses specifically on the Middle East.

But a coalition of civil rights groups disagreed with Graham’s approach, arguing that the measure was similar to the now-defunct National Security Entry-Exit System (NSEERS), a largely ineffective program set up under the the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11. As part of the program, immigrants from twenty-four Muslim majority countries were forced to register into the system, which tracked their entry and exit from the country. The coalition — including the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP, Arab American Institute, and National Council of La Raza — signed onto a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to condemn the amendment as being the NSEERS reborn:

Graham amendment #3 seems to do little more than revive the failed approach taken by the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), in which nonimmigrants from countries designated as national security concerns were subject to special screening. NSEERS was widely discredited, as it resulted in unjust racial and ethnic profiling of individuals from mainly Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern and South Asian communities. While NSEERS resulted in the detention and deportation of thousands of people, it cost $10 million annually and failed to result in any successful counter-terrorism prosecutions. The Department’s Inspector General reported that the program was inefficient and burdensome. There is no reason to believe that the approach in Graham amendment #3 would be any more successful in rooting out national security threats.

The Obama administration shuttered most of the NSEER’s functions in 2011, leaving the program indefinitely suspended. Graham’s amendment is less explicit than the NSEERS was, but would still place into law the ability for the government to racially profile potential citizens. During debate, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) suggested that a better system should be based on intelligence and law enforcement concerns rather than nation of origin, a suggestion Graham denied was necessary.

Graham’s amendment passed by voice vote and was inserted into the overarching bill with support from Sens. Al Franken (D-MN) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who announced they would back the measure. The overarching bill itself was voted out of committee last night, propelling it to the Senate floor where an effort to remove Graham’s language is likely to take shape.

What was hailed as a landmark ruling in Guatemala has been thrown out, as the country’s high court ordered a former dictator’s case on charges of genocide return to a lower court.

Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt was just less than two weeks ago convicted of committing genocide against his own people during his time in power. According to the charges against him, Rios Montt was aware of the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayans during the country’s lengthy civil war, and did nothing to stop it. As punishment, the 86-year old former dictator was sentenced to eighty years in prison, the first time a national court had convicted a former head of state for committing genocide.

Instead of sitting in a cell for the rest of his life, however, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court has overturned the conviction and ordered that the trial jump back down to the tribunal that originally tried the case. Additionally, the trial has to rewind to where it stood back on April 19, to cover what Rios Montt claimed were violations of due process. As a result, it seems that Rios Montt will likely be released from custody in the near future, while many involved with the prosecution have already fled the country for fear of reprisals from those who sought to have the conviction reversed.

When it was first announced, Human Rights Watch called Rios Montt’s guilty verdict an “unprecedented step toward establishing accountability for atrocities.”

“The conviction of Rios Montt sends a powerful message to Guatemala and the world that nobody, not even a former head of state, is above the law when it comes to committing genocide,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, at the time.

The overturning of the ruling should be particularly disappointing for Americans, given the role that the United States played in enabling Rios Montt’s rule and subsequent abuse of power at the height of the Cold War:

When General Ríos Montt was installed in a coup in March 1982, Reagan administration officials were eager to embrace him as an ally. Embassy officials trekked up to the scene of massacres and reported back the army’s line that the guerrillas were doing the killing, according to documents uncovered by [Kate Doyle, a Guatemala expert at the National Security Archive].

Over the next two years, about $15 million in spare parts and vehicles from the United States reached the Guatemalan military, said Prof. Michael E. Allison, a political scientist at the University of Scranton who studies Central America. More aid came from American allies like Israel, Taiwan, Argentina and Chile. In the 1990s, the American government revealed that the C.I.A. had been paying top military officers throughout the period.

President Bill Clinton in 1999 traveled to Guatemala to apologize for the U.S.’ support for the dictator, saying that “support for military forces or intelligence units which engage in violent and widespread repression of the kind described in the [Commission for Historical Clarification] report was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.”

The most expensive prison in the world recently became even more costly. The Guantanamo Bay prison is badly in need of renovation and it’s going to cost the American taxpayer nearly $200 million to do it.

“The mess hall, the barracks for my military personnel down there are just ramshackle,” Southern Command commander Gen. John Kelly told Foreign Policy this week. “No one thought [Gitmo] would be open this long, so they didn’t build any accommodations for the troops.”

That $200 million is on top of the $150 million it costs each year — setting aside the moral, tactical and strategic costs — to operate the prison and military court system — that’s around $900,000 per detainee. To put that number into perspective, the Federal government pays around $60,000 per inmate, per year in a maximum security prison and an average of $30,000 across all federal prisons.

“That … may be what finally gets us to actually close the prison. I mean the costs are astronomical, when you compare them to what it would cost to detain somebody in the United States,” CAP’s Ken Gude recently told Reuters.

Or perhaps what might move Congress and the President is what the U.S. government could spend that money on otherwise, Reuters has some examples:

Just one inmate from Guantanamo, for example, is equivalent to the cost of 12 weeks of White House tours for the public — a treasured tradition that the Secret Service says costs $74,000 a week and that has been axed under sequestration.

A single inmate is also the equivalent of keeping open the control tower at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport for 45 months. That control tower, another victim of cuts, costs $20,000 per month to run.

The $900,000 also matches the funding for nearly seven states to help serve home delivered meals to the elderly. Sequestration has cost Meals on Wheels a median shortfall of $129,497 per state, the organization says.

Or measured in terms of military spending and national security, the cost of four inmates represents the cost of training an Air Force fighter pilot – based on the Department of Defense’s figure of $3.6 million per pilot.

President Obama agrees. As the hunger strike and force-feeding crises at Gitmo were heating up, the President announced last month that he would renew his administration’s long-stalled efforts to close the prison. “I think it is critical for us to understand that Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe,” he said, adding: “It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”

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The International Crisis Group (ICG) on Tuesday published a new report “Drones: Myths And Reality In Pakistan,” examining the ongoing war against militant groups located in Pakistan. The report calls on both the United States and Pakistan to come clean about the ongoing use of drones against suspected terrorists, saying that more than strikes are needed to end Pakistan’s ongoing problem with militants.

Since 2004, according to the ICG, at least 350 U.S. drone strikes have taken place on Pakistani soil, within the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Complicating operations against militant groups based in the area, the vast majority of Pakistan’s laws simply do not apply to the FATA, with the region instead following its own set of tribal laws and codes. Given the lack of control Islamabad exerts, the FATA has long been a haven for armed groups, including those who strike across the border in Afghanistan, including Mullah Omar’s Taliban and the Haqqani Network, as well as the Pakistani Taliban, which strikes against Pakistan itself.

One of the major issues ICG raises regarding drone strikes in the area is the lack of firm intelligence about precisely who is being targeted. In place of firm data, the U.S. often utilizes what are known as “signature strikes” or “personality strikes.” Groups of men between 16-55 who meet a certain profile are often considered legitimate targets, based on “pattern of life” data including where they’ve traveled while under surveillance and whether or not they were in the vicinity of known targets when the strike occurred.

As the report details, Pakistan and U.S. are locked in delicate dance over the actual use of drones within Pakistan, each concealing the full truth from the public. The U.S. still won’t officially confirm that the CIA-run targeted killing program within Pakistan even exists. The IGC says Pakistan often displays behavior that “borders on the schizophrenic” when it comes to the drone program. The Pakistani government often claims to have no forewarning about the use of drones and publicly denounces many of the strikes, even with ample evidence that they provide permission for the operations to occur, especially when carried out against its enemies.

ICG suggests both Washington and Islamabad become more transparent about the relationship the two have on drone strikes, while shifting their policies away from relying solely on military options, and instead taking a more comprehensive approach to combating militancy:

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GOP aides are criticizing the House Republicans’ partisan witch-hunt over the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya last year, arguing that the Party should focus more on substantive issues, such as lessons learned and how to recalibrate diplomatic security.

Roll Call reports that Republican aides are saying staffers are getting bogged down chasing bogus accusations.

“We have got to get past that and figure out what are we going to do going forward,” a GOP aide told Roll Call. “Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff.” Another aide expressed frustration at accusations that military assets weren’t properly deployed during the night of the attacks and that a team from Tripoli could have been flown in to fight off the attackers:

“There are some real issues there and then there is just some crazy stuff,” the senior House GOP aide said. “The crazy stuff is, you know, the airman in Ramstein [Air Base, Germany,] that knew that the Predator [drone] was armed. There are no armed Predators in the region there. The [status of forces agreement] does not allow us to fly them armed, and everybody knows it.” [...]

GOP aides described another criticism aired at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing that there were four security officers at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli who were ordered to remain in the capital for several hours after the first reports of an attack, rather than being scrambled to assist the consulate in Benghazi.

“The stand-down order was for four guys,” the GOP aide said. “When you step back and say how were the people killed at the annex, they were killed by an indirect fire mortar round. Four more M-4s [rifles] inside the annex doesn’t change that outcome. In fact, they might have just created more casualties. We have got to get down to what really happened on the DoD side and for us the DoD side was not properly postured, why?”

It appears that some Republicans are also beginning to see that the GOP’s Benghazi affair isn’t paying dividends. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell backed away from some Republicans’ baseless claims of an Obama White House cover-up. And Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) in an interview on Fox News on Monday warned his colleagues about taking the issue too far:

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JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN — It was early evening in South Sudan, and my colleagues and I had made our way to the compound of a Member of Parliament in the country’s troubled Jonglei state. We were there to meet with several people who had sought refuge from violence in the town of Pibor. People like Mary, who had arrived with five members of her family in tow. The stories that Mary told us were disturbing. She spoke of government forces shooting civilians, burning houses, and looting homes and the local market.

Sadly, Mary’s story echoed other reports that have been coming out of Pibor over the last days and weeks. And they all speak to the growing humanitarian crisis in this war-torn part of the world.

For several weeks, residents of Pibor have been terrorized by the government forces known as the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army). We’ve heard reports of shops and homes being looted, civilians being killed, and dwellings being burned (sometimes with people still inside of them). Thousands of people sought shelter in the bush, making forays into town to get whatever food was still available in the local market.

The breaking point for many came a couple of weeks ago, when a woman was killed along with her teenage daughter and infant child, while a toddler was left barely alive after being stabbed multiple times. After this, the idea of even short trips into Pibor became untenable for some. We heard of two separate incidents of people who had stepped on landmines but chose to stay in the bush rather than seek medical help for fear of being attacked.

Compounding the problem has been the activities of a local rebel leader named David Yau Yau, who launched an uprising in Jonglei after failing to win a local election in 2010. He recently captured the town of Boma, not far from Pibor. As he threatened to march on Pibor, the last of the civilians fled the town, along with the few remaining humanitarian agencies. The SPLA took advantage of the departures by looting those agencies’ compounds.

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Dara McLeod is the Director of Communications for Refugees International, a non-profit organization that seeks to end displacement and statelessness crises worldwide and accepts no government or UN funding.

Yet another Islamophobic ad from a group linked to Pamela Geller has appeared in the Washington, DC Metrorail system, this one lamenting what it claims to be “apartheid” against non-Muslims and calling for the U.S. to cut off all funding to “Islamic” states.

In the newest poster, a Saudi Arabian highway sign is pictured, which instructs drivers travelling to Mecca to keep to the left, while non-Muslims must stay to the right to travel to the nearby city of Jeddah instead. “This is Islamic Apartheid,” the ad declares, imploring that the government “Stop U.S. Aid to Islamic Countries.”

It is unclear what the ad means when it suggests that Saudi Arabia is carrying out “apartheid” against non-Muslims. In apartheid South Africa, the ruling class carried out a series of policies that stripped black Africans of their citizenship, segregated their education, medical care, and other government services, and denied them of the right to assemble or own property. Riyadh’s ban on non-Muslims entering Mecca is definitely a form of segregation, but is a one-off rule, given the city’s unique role in Islamic theology, and one that does not hold true in even the second-most holy city, Medina.

It is true that many other troubling instances of segregation occur throughout Saudi society, particularly when it relates to the treatment of women. It can even be argued that a form of “gender apartheid” exists within the Kingdom, where women are systematically denied legal rights and status. But the example Geller puts forward in her ad does not address that inequality, and fails to reach the same level as seen in the white dominance in Apartheid South Africa. Instead, it seems far more likely that Geller is looking to raise baseless fears of similar policies taking hold in the United States.

It’s also unclear what the ad means in calling on the U.S. to stop sending aid to “Islamic countries.” Without defining what “Islamic countries” means, it could refer to one of two things: either states that have a majority Muslim population or countries that incorporate some degree of Islamic law into their legal system. If the former, Geller could be calling for an end to humanitarian aid to Syria and Somalia, military aid to NATO-ally Turkey, or disaster relief to Indonesia. If the latter, that would mean ending ties between many key U.S. allies in combating terrorism including Pakistan and Yemen, and ceasing assistance to Afghanistan after U.S. combat forces leave in 2014.

The ad is the latest in a series from the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a group headed by Geller and whose sole purpose is to trumpet the supposed threat that all Muslims pose to the United States. The AFDI has placed the posters in public transit systems around the country for almost a year now, including in San Francisco, New York City, and DC so far. The posters have sparked a massive backlash wherever they’ve been placed, inspiring response ads from interfaith leaders, Muslim advocacy groups, and grassroots campaigns.

Unlike San Francisco, however, a DC transport press official confirmed to ThinkProgress that DC’s public transit system does not donate the proceeds from Geller’s ads to charity. Instead, WMATA has instituted a policy of placing a disclaimer at the bottom of the ads, disavowing themselves of anything resembling agreement with the content.

I didn’t know Chris Stevens. I admit that the first I’d heard of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya was the morning of Sept. 12, when I woke up and, along with the rest of the country, learned that he and three others had died in an attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi. By all accounts, Stevens was well-respected among his peers and adored by his family and friends. I didn’t know Ambassador Stevens, but I do know one thing: he deserved better from his government all in these weeks and months after his death, from the Republican party that chose to place him center ring in an embarrassing circus to the Obama administration that failed in its responsibility to keep him safe.

In retrospect, the original Republican attempt to co-opt his death and turn it into something political, a weapon to use against President Obama’s reelection, is almost to be expected. The Obama administration’s troubling lack of transparency when it comes to national security matters certainly didn’t help debunk the inchoate sense that something was being hidden from the public.

Since the election, however, the furor over Benghazi hasn’t settled into sober examination of just went wrong. Instead, the sniping and bickering has seemed to escalate, keeping the tone surrounding the tragedy somewhere in the range of the level of discourse during the Whitewater scandal. By allowing the conversation to stay firmly on the questions that don’t matter, such as “Who changed the talking points?”, we manage to avoid the questions that do, such as “What do we do to keep this from happening again?”

Republicans in Congress have sought to play up the former for all its worth, resulting in a waxing and waning faux scandal that reemerges to the headlines every few months. In the months after the election, Republican senators threatened to filibuster any number of President Obama’s potential nominees unless they learned “the truth” about what happened. In the process, they and their House colleagues relentlessly attacked U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice for her presentation of what the administration initial knew about the tragedy, calling her “incompetent” and eventually forcing her to remove herself from the running to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. As the release this week of emails surrounding the drafting of the talking points Rice used revealed, those attacks were misplaced.

The very real role that the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee has in policing the Executive Branch has likewise devolved into a witch-hunt, searching for someone, anyone to burn at the stake, despite learning nothing new in many of them. Four dead Americans, is the repeated refrain from Republican congressmen, without seeming to care how or why they wound up that way or preventing more from reaching a similar fate. To aid their pursuit, the House Republicans have developed their own report on Benghazi, one filled with misleading evidence twisted to reveal a mythical cover-up.

It’s not as though the Republicans have been forced to hunt for legitimate things to criticize the Obama administration for in the wake of Benghazi. The State Department convened what’s known as an Accountability Review Board to examine just went wrong in the lead-up to the attack and how to fix them in the future. The final report from the Board, co-chaired by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, revealed real issues with the State Department’s execution of diplomatic security. The unclassified version of the report names twenty-four recommendations for preventing further loss of life at missions in high-risk areas, with the classified version putting forward another five recommendations.

Among the more damning findings of the Board for the Obama administration is that the security posture at Special Mission in Benghazi was “inadequate,” to put it mildly, due both to failures at State to provide the requisite tools needed and funding that was lacking. To prevent future State Department facilities from experiencing the latter, the Board recommended that State “work with Congress to restore the Capital Security Cost Sharing Program at its full capacity,” boosting the program’s funding to about $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2015, “prioritized for construction of new facilities in high risk, high threat areas.” It also suggested working with Congress to use Overseas Contingency Operations funding — the money set aside to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — to help meet the needs of high risk, high threat posts.

And it isn’t as if there hasn’t been opportunity for Republicans to work together with Democrats to implement these recommendations. In February, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) authored a bill that would transfer $1.3 billion in unused funding bookmarked for Iraq to the Department of State to bolster embassy security as the Board suggested. To his credit, Sen. Graham co-sponsored that bill, which passed the Senate by unanimous consent. It still sits in the House of Representatives, however, having not been referred to any committee for deliberation.

March’s continuing resolution to keep the government funded did include a boost in funding for embassy security that brought it back in line with the President’s request. In the face of sequestration’s across the board cuts, however, its uncertain whether embassy security funding will be able to remain at that level. And given that part of the problem that led to that lack of security at the mission in Benghazi was the poor decision making regarding the prioritization of funds, its not clear how sustainable this band-aid really is. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) on Thursday introduced the Embassy Security and Personnel Protection Act to more permanently enact the increase in funding to the Capital Security Cost-Sharing Program the Board suggested. No Republicans have thus far chosen to serve as co-sponsors of the bill.

A search of the Library of Congress’ repository of legislation also reveals that of the most vocal critics of the administration in the House, only House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce has cosponsored a bill related to diplomatic security. None have introduced their own legislation related to this topic, and neither House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa nor Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) have signed on to support the only Republican-drafted bills that seek to improve the way the State Department handles personnel failures discovered in the course of internal reviews and procures contractors to aid in providing security to its facilities. Instead, Chaffetz in November once proudly declared on Fox News that he had in fact voted to cut funding for embassy security.
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On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet The Press, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — the GOP leader in the senate — distanced himself from Republican efforts to portray the Obama administration’s response to the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic issue in Benghazi, Libya as a Watergate-level scandal that should result in impeachment. McConnell’s comments come just days after the White House released 100 pages of emails undermining GOP claims that administration officials doctored the public talking points U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used to discuss the incident on the Sunday morning talk shows.

“You’re talking about others who may have said various things about this, let me tell you what I think about it. It’s clear there was inadequate security out there and it’s very clear that it was inconvenient within six weeks of the election, for the administration to in effect announce, that it was a terrorist attack,” McConnell said. “I think that’s worth examining, it is going to be examined.”

But asked repeatedly if Republicans should tone down their attacks against the administration, McConnell demurred, saying only that Obama should allow for an investigation. He also couldn’t identify specific evidence of an administration cover-up:

DAVID GREGORY (HOST): But you have specific evidence that they made up a tale, or was it based on information they had at the time?

MCCONNELL: Well, the talking points clearly were not accurate. I think getting to the bottom of this is an important investigation.

Watch it:

E-mails between the White House, CIA, State Department, Justice Department, and the FBI show that Rice’s remarks reflect the early view of the intelligence community and were produced with few changes from the White House. On Thursday, CBS’ Major Garrett reported that Republican sources misquoted or significantly embellished the emails officials used to draft Rice’s remarks in order to implicate the administration in a conspiracy to mislead the public about Benghazi.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) have both argued that Obama could be impeached for his handling of the attacks in Benghazi.

On February 6, a number of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison started a hunger strike after guards there allegedly searched their Qurans, an act the detainees viewed as mistreating Islam’s holy book and saw as violating a long-standing agreement with authorities at Gitmo. But now the hunger strike is 100 days old with no end in sight. Dozens more prisoners have joined the protest (102 of the 166 detainees by the military’s count, but detainee lawyers say the number is closer to 130) and the military says 30 hunger strikers are being force-fed, mostly against their will.

While the hunger strike has had the benefit of sparking wider media attention to the detainees’ predicament and renewing interest in closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, particularly from President Obama, the situation in and of itself is looking more like a lose-lose proposition for all sides involved: a public relations disaster for the U.S. military and the Obama administration and, for the detainees, many of whom have been cleared for release, malnutrition, the possibility of being force-fed — which experts and rights groups say violates international law and could be viewed as torture — or perhaps even death.

Ultimately, the problems at Guantanamo Bay won’t end until the prison is closed. But lawyers for hunger striking detainees have said that, at the very least, there are seemingly non-complicated ways to end this hunger strike. Listed below are some ways, they said, to achieve that result. And indeed, one possible prescription for beginning to end the hunger strike could also serve as one step in the process of closing the Gitmo prison all together:

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Since September, Republicans have claimed the Obama administration covered up the truth about the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya by altering the talking points Susan Rice used on the Sunday morning talk shows. To bolster the story, Republicans misquoted or significantly embellished the emails officials used to draft Rice’s remarks, the CBS Evening News reported Thursday.

CBS News’ Major Garrett confirmed that it was a GOP source who leaked the altered emails.

The miscast quotes affect at least two emails that include a State Department spokesperson and a White House deputy adviser — the two parties GOP lawmakers insist were trying to engage a cover-up on behalf of the Obama administration to protect the president’s chances of re-election.

A leaked email adds new language to State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland’s email, including a specific reference to al-Qaeda:

“The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda’s presence and activities of al-Qaeda.“

The actual email read:

“The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings.“

A leaked email written by deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes suggests that he asked for the final draft to remove references to warnings about specific attacks, a demand made by the State Department:

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.”

But the actual email did not mention the State Department:

“We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.”

Since the congressional hearings last week, the White House on Wednesday released a hundred pages of emails from after the consulate attack. The full version undermines already-thin accusations that this is a White House scandal.

The military’s sexual assault crisis has been in the headlines consistently for the past two weeks, leading two members of Congress to call on President Obama to take executive action and fix it.

Sen. John Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced the Ruth Moore Act of 2013 earlier this year to help the victims of sexual assault receive benefits once they leave the military. At present, the burden of proof for victims of rape and sexual assault to qualify for disability benefits for conditions related to their trauma, including treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, is shockingly high, leaving many men and women unable to receive the care they need. A scheduled hearing on the bill was meant to take place on Wednesday, but has instead been delayed until June 3.

Rather than waiting for the Ruth Moore Act to pass, the bill’s sponsors sent Obama a letter on Thursday calling on him to use his authority as president to act now:

We commend your willingness to work with Congress to address the prevalence of sexual assault in the military. However, given the increasing rate of these assaults and the dramatic implications they are having on our service members, veterans, and their families, we strongly urge you to take further action to confront this crisis. In particular, you have the ability to provide justice for thousands of survivors of service-related sexual trauma by calling for more fairness in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims process, and increasing their ability to access the benefits they desperately need. [...]

Our legislation continues to garner support in Congress and has been endorsed by every major veterans’ service organization. Legislation, however, is not necessary to keep faith with these veterans. In 2010, the VA relaxed evidentiary standards to make it easier for combat veterans suffering from PTSD to get the disability benefits they need. It is past time the VA make a similar regulatory change for MST survivors. And you can direct them to do so.

Sexual assault and rape culture in the military has reached a tipping point in the last two weeks, with multiple stories about officials in positions to prevent assaults being charged or investigated for sexual assault themselves. “We’re losing the confidence of the women who serve that we can solve this problem,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Thursday. “That’s a crisis.”
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