Last week, following Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s speech before Congress, many conservatives blasted Calderon for slamming Arizona’s new immigration law and “meddling” in U.S. politics. “It’s about us. It’s about our citizenry,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “I just think that’s a line I would prefer that he did not cross. He went farther than I’m comfortable with,” stated Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). A statement released by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) read, “It’s unfortunate and disappointing the president of Mexico chose to criticize the state of Arizona by weighing in on a U.S. domestic policy issue during a trip that was meant to reaffirm the unique relationship between our two countries.” However, Calderon isn’t the first international figure to voice his concerns over the law. In fact, he joins a loud chorus of global leaders who have criticized the drastic measures that Arizona is taking to lock out undocumented immigrants:

CENTRAL AMERICA: The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry issued a press release soon after Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB-1070 into law, deploring the measure and expressing the government’s “deep concern” for the threat it represents to basic justice. The new government of Honduras also condemned the law. “Honduras considers that the passing of the law is the wrong step and does nothing to resolve the core problems behind of illegal immigration,” said Minister of the Presidency María Antonieta Guillén. Officials in El Salvador urged its citizens to avoid traveling to Arizona, and in Nicaragua, officials called on the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations (UN) “to take the necessary measures to safeguard the rights of the Hispanic population.”

SOUTH AMERICA: The Chilean Secretary of OAS, José Miguel Insulza, responded to Nicaragua’s request by expressing “the concern of the OAS, its Secretary General, the countries of the hemisphere and the Latin American community with the passage of a law in a state of the United States that we consider to be discriminatory against immigrants, and in particular against a population of such origin that lives in this country.” Heads of state and foreign ministers of the 12-member Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) slammed SB-1070, stating that it encourages “discretional detention of people based on racial, ethnic, phenotypic, language and migratory status reasons under the questionable concept of ‘reasonable doubt.’”

EUROPE: After reviewing the law, UN experts based in Geneva, Switzerland stated that SB-1070 could violate international standards that are binding in the United States. “A disturbing pattern of legislative activity hostile to ethnic minorities and immigrants has been established with the adoption of an immigration law that may allow for police action targeting individuals on the basis of their perceived ethnic origin,” the experts said. Amnesty International, whose headquarters is based in London, agreed, calling the law “cruel and misguided” and in violation of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

AFRICA: South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu has been an outspoken critic of Arizona’s immigration law. “Abominations such as apartheid do not start with an entire population suddenly becoming inhumane. They start here. They start with generalizing unwanted characteristics across an entire segment of a population,” wrote Tutu. “A solution that degrades innocent people, or that makes anyone with broken English a suspect, is not a solution.”

When it comes down to it, Arizonans may not care about what the international community has to say about its controversial new law, but global leaders have every right to care about what might happen to their countrymen and woman who visit, live, or travel through their state. In the end, it’s not meddling, it’s diplomacy with a stick.

On Saturday, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared at a right-wing pro-Israeli settler rally in New York’s Central Park, trashing the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel, and rejecting further Israeli “concessions” to the peace process.

“It grieves me to the core,” said Steele, “to have to admit that today the American government has abdicated her traditional solidarity with Israel”:

Today, Israel truly stands alone among governments. Facing existential threats more dangerous and more imminent than ever before. That’s not to say that Israel has been abandoned, however, by the American people. But there is no denying that the current administration and its Congressional collaborators have left Israel to fend for herself.

Watch it:

It would be interesting to hear Steele explain how the Obama administration’s request for — and its Congressional “collaborators’” approval of — an additional $205 million in assistance for Israel for the “Iron Dome” short-range missile defense system squares with his assertion that the U.S. is “leaving Israel to fend for herself.”

Furthermore, as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, despite tensions over Israeli settlements, under the Obama administration the U.S. and Israel “actually have undertaken a broad effort at military and strategic cooperation — including supplying Israel with sophisticated American military equipment — to counter threats from Iran and Hezbollah fighters armed by Syria.”

Accusing the Obama administration of having an “appeasement-first mentality,” Steele went on to insist that “For the sake of Jerusalem, we must not be silent”:

For the sake of Jerusalem, we must no longer allow this or any administration to second-guess the relationship between Israel and America. For the sake of Jerusalem, the world can longer demand that Israel sell out the security of her people, and make every concession in the book just on the off-chance that a Palestinian leadership might show up at the bargaining table willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Steele shouldn’t have to be reminded of this, but pressuring Israel to honor its own past commitments to cease settlement construction does not in any sense qualify as a “concession.” These commitments were made as part of agreements brokered by the United States and its partners, whose credibility is negatively impacted by the refusal of the parties to meet their obligations. This doesn’t seem to bother Steele.

And, just in point of fact, the Palestinians already showed up at the bargaining table willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist, and did so — back in 1993.

As was noted in a previous post, this rally was sponsored by some of the most hardcore pro-settler organizations in the country, groups that actively support the takeover of Palestinian land by violent Jewish religious extremists. It’s disgraceful that Steele would even appear at such an event in the first place, let alone go and tell transparent, pandering lies about the Obama administration’s policies and encourage the most rejectionist elements in Israeli politics in the interest of getting a few more votes for Republicans.

President Obama’s commencement address at West Point on Saturday contained the broad outlines of his administration’s forthcoming national security strategy, and echoed a number of themes that he’s sounded since the 2008 campaign: American power derived from American economic stability, and the strengthening of international institutions to facilitate a greater sharing of global responsibilities.

On the first, Obama stated that, in order for America to achieve our goals abroad, “we must first recognize that our strength and influence abroad begins with steps we take at home.”

We must educate our children to compete in an age where knowledge is capital, and the marketplace is global. We must develop clean energy that can power new industry and unbound us from foreign oil and preserve our planet. We have to pursue science and research that unlocks wonders as unforeseen to us today as the microchip and the surface of the moon were a century ago.

Simply put, American innovation must be the foundation of American power — because at no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy. And so that means that the civilians among us, as parents and community leaders, elected officials, business leaders, we have a role to play. We cannot leave it to those in uniform to defend this country — we have to make sure that America is building on its strengths.

On the second, Obama said “As we build these economic sources of our strength, the second thing we must do is build and integrate the capabilities that can advance our interests, and the common interests of human beings around the world.”

America’s armed forces are adapting to changing times, but your efforts have to be complemented. We will need the renewed engagement of our diplomats, from grand capitals to dangerous outposts. We need development experts who can support Afghan agriculture and help Africans build the capacity to feed themselves. We need intelligence agencies that work seamlessly with their counterparts to unravel plots that run from the mountains of Pakistan to the streets of our cities. We need law enforcement that can strengthen judicial systems abroad, and protect us here at home. And we need first responders who can act swiftly in the event of earthquakes and storms and disease.

The burdens of this century cannot fall on our soldiers alone. It also cannot fall on American shoulders alone. Our adversaries would like to see America sap its strength by overextending our power. And in the past, we’ve always had the foresight to avoid acting alone. We were part of the most powerful wartime coalition in human history through World War II. We stitched together a community of free nations and institutions to endure and ultimately prevail during a Cold War.

One of Osama bin Laden’s stated goals is to provoke the U.S. into taking on overseas commitments it cannot financially sustain — it’s called the “bleed until bankruptcy” strategy. It’s good to see some acknowledgment from the president that the idea that America can be everywhere at once isn’t strength, it’s stupidity.

The speech notably lacked any really explicit digs at the previous administration’s disastrous foreign policy legacy, but Obama did make a pretty clear indication that the unilateralism of the Bush Doctrine was out of step with traditional American foreign policy, noting that while “we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system…America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of cooperation–we have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don’t.”

So we have to shape an international order that can meet the challenges of our generation. We will be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well, including those who will serve by your side in Afghanistan and around the globe. As influence extends to more countries and capitals, we also have to build new partnerships, and shape stronger international standards and institutions.

Many conservatives seem to believe that even the recognition that global power is shifting to a more diverse array of stakeholders is “embracing decline.” But this shift is a reality. A responsible foreign policy is one that seeks to responsibly maximize American power and influence within that changing global context, to embed it within strengthened international institutions.

Importantly, the president also voiced an American commitment to promoting democracy and the rule of law, saying that a “fundamental part of our strategy is America’s support for those universal rights that formed the creed of our founding.”

We will promote these values above all by living them — through our fidelity to the rule of law and our Constitution, even when it’s hard; and through our commitment to forever pursue a more perfect union. And together with our friends and allies, America will always seek a world that extends these rights. Where an individual is silenced, we aim to be her voice. Where ideas are suppressed, we provide space for open debate. Where democratic institutions take hold, we add a wind at their back. When humanitarian disaster strikes, we extend a hand. Where human dignity is denied, America opposes poverty and is a source of opportunity. That is who we are. That is what we do.

Thus far, the Obama administration has said and done little on the democracy promotion front. So while I’m very glad to see this included in the speech, it will be incumbent on progressives to hold him and his administration to it.

This weekend, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) released a campaign video featuring a singing frog puppet encouraging opponents to read the state’s recently passed immigration law, SB-1070, before forming an opinion about it. The sing-a-long mocks Attorney General Eric Holder and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano for criticizing SB-1070 without having had a chance to review the whole bill.

Watch it:

Despite the fact that Napolitano and Holder were likely briefed by someone who had read SB-1070 in detail, they probably should’ve read it themselves. However, Wonk Room has read it well enough to know that Brewer’s ad distracts from the fact that a lot of their criticisms of the law are justified.

In past interviews, Napolitano has rightly pointed out that she had vetoed laws nearly identical to SB-1070 when she was governor of Arizona. So, at the very least, she has some basic knowledge about the core provisions contained in SB-1070. Napolitano has also stated that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency fears it will have to use its stretched resources to deal with those arrested under Arizona’s new law. “We have some deep concerns with the law…it will detract from and siphon resources that we need to concentrate on those in the country illegally, those who have committed the most serious crimes,” Napolitano said. Unless Arizona police plan on personally transporting immigrants back across the border without ever contacting ICE to definitively verify that the suspects are illegally present in the U.S., Napolitano doesn’t need to read the law to know that the state will need the federal government’s help in implementing it. The Center for American Progress estimates that it costs $23,148 for each person to be apprehended, detained, legally processed, and finally transported out of the country. Given the high cost of deportation, ICE has a policy of focusing its resources on going after the “worst of the worst.” Yet, SB-1070 does not discriminate between an undocumented gardener and a dangerous drug cartel operative. In practical terms, helping Arizona enforce its new immigration law is beyond the scope of ICE’s limited budget and runs counter to its priorities.

Holder has called SB-1070 “unfortunate” in that it might give rise to potential “abuse” by law enforcement officials. If Holder had read the law, he could’ve pointed to Section 2 of the law which “impermissibly vests” in police officers “unbridled discretion” in establishing “reasonable suspicion” that someone is undocumented. The amended law prohibits racial profiling, but it doesn’t outline the criteria that should be used to establish “reasonable suspicion” that someone is unlawfully present in the U.S. In the words of the president of the American Immigration Lawyer’s Association, David Leopold, “‘reasonable suspicion’ under S.B. 1070 is based on a subjective notion of a person’s status” — which leaves a lot of room for both abuse and error. Also, as part of the amended bill, a police officer responding to city ordinance violations would be required to determine the immigration status if reasonable suspicion is established. One of the bill’s architects, lawyer Kris Kobach, said himself that it essentially means police can use violations such as “cars on blocks in the yard” as an excuse to “initiate queries” in light of the “lawful contact” deletion.

Brewer’s video also doesn’t mention the fact that some of SB-1070′s biggest proponents hadn’t read the law before commenting on it either. Think Progress reported last week that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took the liberty to praise SB-1070 as a “good tool” for law enforcement, despite not having “had a chance to look at all the aspects.”

An Arizona local news station (KPHO) is reporting that the state Senator behind Arizona’s new immigration law, Russell Pearce (R), does not intend on stopping at SB-1070. In e-mails obtained by CBS 5, Pearce said he intends to push for an “anchor baby” bill that would essentially overturn the 14th amendment by no longer granting citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants born on U.S. soil. “Anchor babies” is a derogatory and “politically charged” term used to refer to the U.S. citizen children of undocumented parents.

Pearce is confident his new proposal is constitutional. “It’s common sense,” Pearce said. “Again – you can’t break into someone’s country and then expect to be rewarded for that. You can’t do it.”

However, the Constitution doesn’t grant citizenship to those born in the U.S. as an “award,” but rather, as a right. In an article released by the Center for American Progress (CAP), its authors argue “Eleven years and a bloody Civil War later, when the framers of the 14th Amendment composed its text, they explicitly rejected the notion that America is a country club.” Under the 14th Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The U.S. Supreme Court explicitly confirmed in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that anyone born in the United States would be a citizen regardless of their parents’ nationality. “This is why the hard right’s assault on birthright citizenship — claiming that the Constitution does not in fact grant citizenship to the children of immigrants to the United States — does not survive contact with the text of the Constitution itself,” writes CAP.

Pearce isn’t the first lawmaker to go after the children of immigrants. Since taking office, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) has tried and failed to pass seven pieces of legislation that would either repeal or reinterpret the 14th Amendment’s definition of citizenship. Most recently, Bilbray took his anti-14th Amendment crusade to the state-level, backing the Taxpayer Revolution’s “Anchor Baby” reform initiative which sought to limit the rights and benefits of the U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants by redefining the 14th Amendment’s jurisdiction. Bilbray has also praised and defended Arizona’s new immigration law, indicating that police officers will be able to identify undocumented immigrants by employing criteria such as the shoes they wear.

KPHO obtained a troubling email from one of Pearce’s constituents who is encouraging him to pursue the “anchor baby” legislation. “If we are going to have an effect on the anchor baby racket, we need to target the mother,” wrote the constituent. “Call it sexist, but that’s the way nature made it. Men don’t drop anchor babies, illegal alien mothers do.” In response to the email, Pearce said he “didn’t find anything wrong with the language.” “It’s somebody’s opinion…What they’re trying to say is it’s wrong. And I agree with them. It’s wrong,” Pearce told KPHO.

I first became aware of Malcolm Nance back in 2007, when he staged an intervention into the waterboarding/torture debate with an item at Small Wars Journal entitled “Waterboarding is Torture…Period“:

With regards to the waterboard, I want to set the record straight so the apologists can finally embrace the fact that they condone and encourage torture. […]

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration — usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threatened with its use again and again.

Coming from a former Master Instructor and Chief of Training at the U.S. Navy Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape School (SERE), Nance’s views on the subject carried enormous weight. Responding to the nonsensical “waterboarding isn’t torture because we use it on our own trainees!” argument (which is still a favorite of torture advocates like Liz Cheney and Marc Thiessen, of whom Nance has written “has no sense of honor and no moral compass“), Nance noted that “SERE was designed to show how an evil totalitarian enemy would use torture at the slightest whim. If this is the case, then waterboarding is unquestionably being used as torture technique.” In other words, U.S. trainees are subjected to waterboarding in order to prepare them for torture if they are ever captured.

Nance, who now works as a counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant for the U.S. government’s Special Operations, Homeland Security and Intelligence agencies, has just published a new book with the purposeful title An End to Al Qaeda. “The American strategic communications effort since 9/11 has been an unmitigated failure at every level,” Nance writes. The Bush administration’s “lack of knowledge about Al Qaeda and their religious-based ideological strategy led President Bush to declare the ‘War on Terrorism’ a new Crusade,” effectively affirming Osama bin Laden’s own claims about the nature of the conflict between Islam and the West.

As to why American strategic communications efforts were so poor, Nance writes that, rather than directing its messaging toward Al Qaeda’s own target audience among Muslim populations, “the Bush strategic communications policy was focused like a laser on the American public”:

But getting the American people to understand terror was not the goal. The push behind the policies to influence the nation’s message was designed to target changing American laws to benefit the conservative agenda in America, not counter the ideology of bin Laden. By choosing the spend billions on influence operations to change the internal dynamics of American life with the objective of what presidential political adviser Karl Rove called working toward “a permanent Republican majority,” the Bush administration effectively surrendered the war of influence in the Muslim world to bin Laden.

I’ve similarly noted on several occasions that conservatives’ obsession with being “at war” with Al Qaeda is a transparent attempt to keep the national security debate on grounds more favorable to conservatives, nevermind that this both misunderstands the actual nature and scope of the threat, and plays right into Al Qaeda’s own propaganda.

Though the Obama administration has made progress in degrading the capabilities of Al Qaeda and affiliated groups, Nance insists that it is essential to continue to challenge Al Qaeda over the basis of its murderous ideology, and better highlight the fact that the vast majority of Al Qaeda’s victims have been innocent Muslims, including hundreds of children. Noting a number of influential Islamic scholars who have condemned Al Qaeda, Nance writes that “the greatest weakness of Al Qaeda’s religious militant ideology is vulnerability to any deep analytical dissection of their religious motives.” While Western governments getting into fine-grained discussions over Islamic precepts will probably do little to convince those Al Qaeda is targeting with their pitch, much more can be done to facilitate and publicize internal Muslim critics of Al Qaeda, who have far more credibility in calling out Al Qaeda’s attempted hijacking of Islam. “In the war of ideas,” writes Nance, “Al Qaeda and their viral messengers need to be shouted down.”

This Sunday at 5 p.m. (ET) I’ll be hosting a discussion of An End to Al Qaeda with Mr. Nance at Firedoglake.

Last night, the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute (CHLI) honored House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-IN) with a leadership achievement award for his contributions to the Hispanic community. However, Roll Call reports that “nobody — including Pence — can seem to figure out why.”

According to CHLI executive director Octavio Hinojosa, Pence is being recognized for his “collective leadership,” “willingness to work on comprehensive immigration reform,” and for talking with Republican lawmakers “about the need to engage folks on the other side of the aisle” on issues that are important to Latinos. However, a look at Pence’s record raises more questions than it answers about CHLI’s decision to honor Pence:

In 2006, while Pence was introducing a “no amnesty immigration reform” plan in the House, CHLI was hosting a congressional briefing that “united” pro-immigration reform advocates in support of a moderate Senate bill containing a path to legalization.

Pence told Roll Call yesterday that he has not been reaching out to Democrats to craft a bipartisan immigration reform plan in 2010 and still does not support creating a pathway to legalization for undocumented immigrants. CHLI Chairman Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), meanwhile, has said he believes “that any legislation Congress considers should be comprehensive in nature” and stressed the need to “create a system to ensure that foreign workers seeking employment in the U.S. are appropriately authorized to work.”

In recent weeks, Diaz-Balart has been an outspoken critic of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070. Pence, meanwhile, has defended Arizona’s actions, stating “we can’t blame Arizonans for trying to reaffirm the rule of law.” Sixty-seven percent of Latinos oppose SB-1070.

While 74 percent of Latino registered voters were “very supportive” of including a public option in health care reform, Pence told Hispanics that they can “expect that Republicans will be united in opposition to a government takeover of healthcare.”

Pence told Roll Call that CHLI might be honoring him because he helped provide the first-ever Spanish-language GOP response to the State of the Union. Ironically, in 2007, Pence felt the need to co-sponsor legislation declaring English as the official language of the U.S.

In a November 2009 interview with Newt Gingrich’s online publication, “The Americano,” Pence stated that “Republicans didn’t work hard enough in the past to reach out to Hispanic Americans.” According to Pence, “that’s changing.”

Today, the Independent Women’s Forum hosted a panel at Georgetown Law School entitled “The Situation in Arizona, The New Immigration Law, And Its National Implications.” At one point during the panel, in the middle of a discussion about what constitutes “reasonable suspicion,” Arizona state Rep. John Kavanagh (R) admitted that “barring” a case in which someone is in an “orange jump suit” who is sneaking across the border tries to run away from the police, it’s nearly impossible to establish obvious “reasonable suspicion” that someone is in the country illegally. However, Kavanagh insisted that Arizona’s immigration law, SB-1070, will not lead to racial profiling by suggesting that even he or fellow panelist Tamar Jacoby of ImmigrationWorks USA could be pulled over and questioned about their immigration status.:

KAVANAGH: Multiple facts. A Police officer will look at multiple facts [to establish reasonable suspicion]. They’ll question the person. They’ll get inconsistent answers. The person will get caught in lies. It’s a slow process of questioning an individual or making observations.

JACOBY: – And am I ever going to get questioned? Are you ever going to get questioned? People who look like us?

KAVANAGH: Possibly.

Watch it:

Essentially, Kavanagh is suggesting that anyone who is pulled over for speeding or a broken tail light should be prepared to prove that they are legally present in the U.S. Chances are that the 52 percent of Arizonans who support SB-1070 wouldn’t be if they thought they might become accidental targets of it. It’s also likely that, despite Kavanagh’s claim of equal treatment, most white-skinned Americans probably won’t have to worry about being interrogated about their citizenship status — even if they forget their license or other form of identification at home.

Though SB-1070 prohibits racial profiling, it doesn’t provide any details on the criteria that police should use to establish reasonable suspicion. Its architect Kris Kobach, however, has made a training video in the past outlining the factors that may lead to “reasonable suspicion.” Those factors include speaking “English poorly,” “indications from dress or appearance of the person that he is an illegal alien,” or the evidence that the “individual appears to be in transit or traveled a significant distance.” According to Kobach, reasonable suspicion must be based on the “totality of the circumstances,” which he translates to mean that officers must simply “rely on more than one” factor.

The Wonk Room also asked Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu on the criteria that he will instruct his officers to use when establishing “reasonable suspicion” that someone is undocumented. Though Babeu’s answer was vague, he did give his word that having accent, at least in Pinal County, will not be used against someone who is pulled over for a traffic violation.

Years after the end of World War II there were cases of Japanese troops scattered around the Pacific that were unaware or refused to believe that the great war had ended. Well it seems that in the United States there are an isolated group at the Heritage Foundation and in the Senate GOP that seem to have no idea that the Cold War ended 20 years ago.

It was revealed in this week’s hearing on the New START treaty that GOP Senators, as articulated by Senator Jim DeMint, are opposing START because they want to build a missile defense system that even George W. Bush opposed. DeMint at the hearing said that “obviously, we’re agreeing to keep our missile defense to the point where it does not render their weapons useless.” Peter Baker noted that:

If that is his concern with the treaty, then his argument is as much with former President George W. Bush as with Mr. Obama. After all, the missile defense program developed by Mr. Bush was not meant to render Russian weapons useless; it was to be a limited system to defend against nuclear missile attack by states like Iran. Although Mr. Obama reformulated the system last year, he kept Mr. Bush’s goal. The line of attack on the so-called New Start agreement with Russia is instructive, suggesting that some Senate Republicans may go after the pact on the grounds that it does not allow a missile defense against Russia, something neither Republican nor Democratic presidents have actually wanted… Mr. DeMint’s complaint about the treaty conflates the missile defense program begun by Mr. Bush and continued in different form by Mr. Obama with the original idea expressed during the cold war by President Ronald Reagan, who envisioned a much more robust program that actually was intended to neutralize the Russian nuclear arsenal.

See, the original idea as proposed by Reagan was when we were, you know, actually at war with the Soviet Union. Conservatives have myopically embraced this legacy of Reagan, while completely ignoring and dismissing his lasting arms-control legacy, as Reagan negotiated the first START treaty. After watching the Senate hearing, Fred Kaplan writes the “Cold War is over” but “you wouldn’t know it from some of the questions in today’s Senate hearing.” Kaplan adds, referring to the exchange between Jim DeMint and John Kerry:

Though they [Republican Senators] tried a few times this morning, the committee’s Republicans could find no substantive faults with this treaty… So the objections come down to missile defense—and one bit of today’s hearings raises the question of whether some of the most diehard Republicans understand this issue in the slightest… How many Republicans out there are like [Sen. Jim] DeMint, who seems to think the Cold War is still on? And how many Russian hawks watched that exchange and came away confirmed in their beliefs that the Americans are still after their hides?

In fact, it isn’t really that the Heritage Foundation doesn’t know that the Cold War is over. It is that they want a new Cold War. At a panel discussion in December, the central message was that the a new Cold War was on the way. In the Heritage Foundation’s missile defense propaganda film 33 minutes, the three evil leaders shown in the film as a reason for missile defense are Kim Jung Ill, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and Vladimir Putin. The Soviets – er Russia – over at Heritage and amongst much of the Senate GOP, remains very much the enemy.

It is important to understand the implications of the approach that Heritage, Senator DeMint, and the GOP caucus is advocating. Pursuit of a comprehensive missile defense system that targets the Russians will lead unequivocally to a massive nuclear arms race and nuclear instability. The Russians (and the Chinese) would simply build more and more missiles to overwhelm any defense, would develop expanded and more innovative ways to deliver these nuclear weapons, would put them all on instant hair trigger alert, and would have a very very itchy trigger finger. As a result, as Senator Kerry points out this would put us back where we were during the Cold War when we had 50,000 nuclear weapons. We would spend hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons and a fantasy-based missile shield, that would only leave us and the world much less safe and much much poorer. This approach is so extreme that it is even to the far right of where the Bush administration was.

Yesterday, on CNN’s the Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer probed Mexican President Felipe Calderón about his country’s own immigration laws. Blitzer quoted a piece printed in the Washington Times entitled “Mexico’s illegals laws tougher than Arizona’s.” According to the article, “under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison.” The Washington Times then quotes Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) calling Calderón “arrogant and hypocritical.” However, it appears the Washington Times and the GOP sources it quotes relied on dated information.

Calderón informed Blitzer last night that Mexico has enacted its own immigration reform:

BLITZER: I read an article in “The Washington Times” the other day. I’m going to read a paragraph to you and you tell me if this is true or not true. [...] “Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to reenter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals.” Is that true?

CALDERON: It was true, but it is not anymore. We derogate or we erased that part of the law…Not anymore, since one year ago. And that is the reason why we are trying to establish our own comprehensive public policy talking about, for instance, immigrants coming from Central America. [...]

BLITZER: Immigration is not a crime, you’re saying?

CALDERON: It’s not a crime.

Watch it:

In 2008, the Mexican Congress voted unanimously with 393 votes to decriminalize undocumented immigration to Mexico. Before then, the Washington Times description of Mexican immigration law would’ve been accurate. Following the 2008 reform, however, undocumented immigration is a minor offense punishable by fines equivalent to about $475 to $2,400. The approved reform identified Mexico’s old immigration laws as “inadmissible” and a violation of human rights.

Mexican lawmakers also recognized that they were not in a position to criticize the U.S. immigration system if they did not address their own stringent immigration laws. The Arizona Daily Star reported that “Some Mexican officials acknowledged that the current harsh penalties weakened Mexico’s position in arguing for better treatment of its own migrants in the United States.” Congresswoman Irma Pineiro of the small New Alliance Party states, “Mexico is politically and morally obligated to treat migrants with dignity and to make a commitment to human rights, as a country that both exports and receives migrants.” Rep. Edmundo Ramírez Martínez of the country’s Institutional Revolutionary Party told Mexican newspaper La Jornada that Mexico can’t demand the U.S. treat its Mexican immigrants with dignity without reforming their own immigration laws and decriminalizing Central American immigration.

However, just because Mexico reformed its laws doesn’t mean its law enforcement authorities got the memo. Amnesty International recently issued a report calling the “widespread abuse of migrants in Mexico” a “human rights crisis.” Nearly 10,000 migrants were abducted in Mexico over six months and an estimated six out of 10 migrant women and girls experience sexual violence — many not just at the hands of criminal gangs, but also the Federal Police.

Amnesty International recommends further reforms, including legislative reforms to ensure access to justice, the establishment of a federal task force to coordinate and implement measures, and the compilation and publication of data on abuses against migrants and the steps taken to bring those responsible to account –including public officials. However, one of the central issues, according to Amnesty, is that migrants still fear they will be deported if they complain to Mexican authorities about abuses. Article 67 of Mexico’s immigration law still requires law enforcement to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country. The Interior Department is reportedly working to repeal Article 67 “so that no one can deny or restrict foreigners’ access to justice and human rights, whatever their migratory status.” In the mean time, the U.S. would be wise to look at Mexico’s immigration problems not necessarily as a source of hypocrisy, but rather, an extreme, but poignant case study of the deputization of immigration law and what can happen when it turns immigrants into criminals.

Today, Cuentame — a project of Brave New Films — posted a video interview with Phoenix police officer Paul Dobson’s reaction to Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070. Though the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (the union representing Phoenix officers) “lobbied aggressively for the law,” not all of its members think it’s a good idea. In Cuentame’s video, Dobson expresses his own opposition to the law and how he believes it will affect his ability to fulfill his duties:

This [SB-1070] law will make me feel like a Nazi out there. [...] How I feel about SB-1070 is I have a great deal of contempt for it, I am very emotional about it. This law is pure and simple a racist law. It is focused on Latinos. I would not be able to show any discretion whatsoever under SB-1070. I am required to arrest that person and take them to jail. As a law enforcement officer I am required to serve and protect. Under SB-1070, I know that people will not call officers in case of a real emergency. [...] It violates our calling to serve and protect.

Watch it:

Dobson isn’t the only officer on the Phoenix police force that is against SB-1070. David Salgado is a 19-year Phoenix police officer who has sued the city and the governor asking that the law be blocked. “Before the signing of this bill, citizens would wave at me,” said Salgado. “Now they don’t even want to make eye contact.” Tucson police officer Martin Escobar has also filed a lawsuit, saying there is no such thing as “race-neutral” criteria for him to determine “reasonable suspicion” that someone is in the country illegally.

Meanwhile, the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police (AAOP) has said SB-1070 is “problematic and will negatively affect the ability of law enforcement agencies across the state to fulfill their many responsibilities in a timely manner.” The president of the Arizona Fraternal Order of Police — an association of sworn law enforcement officers — has also expressed concerns that the bill “will bankrupt our city.” “What’s going to happen is you’re going to fear the police…they’re [immigrants] going to shy away from us instead of coming forward with information,” stated Sgt. Bryan Soller in a local interview.

Today, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas appeared in a press conference blasting the new interim county attorney, Rick Romley, for requiring verification that the undocumented immigrants that Arpaio arrests and then charges with smuggling themselves over the border are actually in the country illegally.

Arpaio recently arrested 32 undocumented on suspicion of smuggling themselves into the country. Apparently, before Thomas stepped down to run for Attorney General, it would’ve been general practice to prosecute those immigrants with a felony for being “co-conspirators” in their own smuggling without requiring verification of their illegal status before a case was filed. If found guilty, those immigrants would then be jailed for 90 days at the taxpayer’s expense rather than being immediately deported back to their home country. The Phoenix New Times estimates that Romley saved Maricopa County about $212,000 in this case alone by simply turning the 32 suspects over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

However, Arpaio is furious over the new requirements, stating, “Is he going to request every time that the police arrest someone on a state violation that you have to have documentation?” Thomas responded with a press release reminding the public that requiring documentation is standard and that Arpaio’s and Thomas’ interpretation of Arizona’s smuggling law is unique:

The former County Attorney was the only prosecutor in the state to bring charges of conspiracy to commit human smuggling against the individual paying to be smuggled.

Under the former County Attorney, the Sheriff’s Office wasn’t required to submit certified federal records regarding immigration status of the person arrested before charges were filed.

Records from Federal Authorities are required in order to prove immigration status at trial.

Watch KTVK 3TV’s coverage of the press conference:

Two independent reports by the East Valley Tribune and the Goldwater Institute show that Arpaio’s immigration-enforcement crusade has contributed to a huge county budget deficit and that crime rates have actually escalated as Arpaio has failed to arrest top smugglers and criminals.

Yesterday, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would allow the state’s 270,000 gun permit holders to carry their firearms into bars, nightclubs, museums, zoos, and other establishments that have liquor licenses.

This is the second time in two years that Bredesen has vetoed a “guns in bars” bill. Last year, the state legislature passed a law that would have allowed permit holders to carry their weapons into any restaurant, except those whose predominant business was to serve alcohol. Bredesen vetoed it, the legislature overrode his veto, but a court later struck down the law on the grounds that it was unconstitutionally vague.

Reiterating his view that “guns and alcohol don’t mix,” Bredesen called the latest version of the “guns in bars” bill an “even more expansive and dangerous form” than the “reckless” version he vetoed a year ago. He twice referenced “common sense” in his veto message, emphasizing that gun rights need to be “exercised with” it.

The state house and senate need only simple majorities to override the governor’s veto. Last year, Bredesen’s veto was rejected by a whopping 66-31 vote in the house and a 23-9 vote in the senate, suggesting that his veto will be overturned again this year:

Will Cheek, a Nashville attorney who worked on last year’s court challenge, agreed that an override probably would succeed. This year’s bill was meant to be less susceptible to a court challenge, and Cheek said this measure doesn’t have the same problems as the one passed last year.

“The NRA (National Rifle Association) is too powerful, particularly in an election year, for legislators to do the right thing,” he said. “The governor is sticking to his principles. It’s symbolic, but it’s also consistent with what he believes.”

Rep. Joe McCord, a Republican state legislator with an A+ plus rating from the NRA, has criticized the unreasonableness of the gun lobby. “Essentially, NRA is saying to us, if you don’t support and vote for carrying guns in bars, we will not endorse you,” McCord said. “This line of reasoning borders on lunacy.” McCord is more liberated to speak honestly about this issue because he is not running for re-election.

Many of the state’s business associations are opposed to the “guns in bars” bill, including the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and the Tennessee Hospitality Association. But the Tennessee Firearms Association called opposition to the bill “futile.” As ThinkProgress reported from the NRA convention in Charlotte this weekend, the NRA leadership appears to be out of step with the views of its own membership.

The Washington Post has a good summary of the measures contained in the new UN sanctions package announced yesterday by Secretary of State Clinton:

Among other measures, the resolution would expand an asset freeze and travel ban against individuals and entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. A critical element still to be negotiated is a list of those names.

The resolution would establish an embargo on large weapons systems such as battle tanks, combat aircraft and missiles — a previous U.N. resolution called on nations only to “exercise vigilance and restraint” in such trade — but would not include the comprehensive arms embargo sought by the United States and France. Iran could continue to buy light weapons.

As the article notes, the measures fall short of “crippling” — a consequence of securing Russian and Chinese support for the resolution — but they are significant, and do provide an international imprimatur for further multilateral sanctions by the U.S. and European Union.

As Secretary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, in response to Monday’s announcement of a nuclear compromise deal by Iran, Turkey, and Brazil, the new UN sanctions resolution “is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as any we could provide.”

It’s not hard to figure out why the U.S. is not thrilled by the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal. Iran’s agreeing to ship out 1200 kg of low-enriched uranium in May 2010 is very different than Iran’s agreeing to ship out 1200 kg of low-enriched uranium in October 2009, when 1200 kg represented half of Iran’s LEU stock. Because Iran has continued enriching in the interim, it now represents around half. But I really have to question the tenor and timing of Clinton’s announcement. By not even waiting a few days to pretend to seriously examine and consider the terms of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal, the administration has potentially squandered a lot of the diplomatic capital that it generated by what was widely seen as a good-faith effort to engage the Islamic Republic toward an agreement on its nuclear program, capital that it will need to cultivate greater international cooperation in enforcing the sanctions.

It’s clear that Iran saw the announcement of the deal as a way to head off international pressure. But that doesn’t mean that its acceptance of the terms isn’t significant — it is. In my view, it would have been smarter for Obama to acknowledge the deal as a potentially positive step, but make clear that more is needed, similar to how he pocketed Netanyahu’s sort-of-but-not-really acceptance of a Palestinian state last year. As it is, by scrambling to get the UN sanctions resolution finalized in the shadow of the Brazil-Turkey intervention, that resolution now looks much more like an end in themselves, rather than a means to arriving at a mutually acceptable agreement.

There’s also the question of how the deal, and the quick rejection, will impact the situation inside Iran, particularly as we approach the anniversary of Iran’s June 12 presidential elections and the subsequent protests. As Iranian dissident and democracy activist Akbar Ganji noted last week, President Obama’s willingness to forthrightly engage Iran helped create a favorable environment for the Iranian democracy movement by placing the focus on the Iranian regime and discrediting the regime’s claim to be the victim of Western plots to deny Iran its nuclear rights. Those claims will look far more plausible now, right at a time when Iran’s democracy movement is gearing up for more demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the stolen election.

It is not every day that US Senators get worked up over nuclear deterrence theory. Toward the end of yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing – which was the first hearing on the New START treaty since it was submitted to the Senate last week – Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Secretary of Defense Gates got in an animated and exasperated exchange with Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) over the START treaty and missile defense.

What is clear to everyone is that the START treaty has NO limitations on our planned missile defense program. But what the far right is concerned about is they want to create a mythical missile defense system that goes far beyond current plans and that specifically targets Russia and renders their nuclear arsenal useless. In other words, far-right Republicans, led by the Heritage Foundation, which is the leading preacher of missile defense gospel, want to eliminate the days of “mutually assured destruction” by building a totally impregnable Jedi force field of freedom.

However, Senator Kerry points out the obvious: if you can build it – which is a huge huge if – the result would only be a massive nuclear arms race. The fact is that the Russians, as well as the Chinese would simply start building more nuclear weapons and missiles to overcome these defenses and then the US, seeing that all of a sudden the Russians are expanding their missile forces, would begin to do the same, leading quite easily to a new massive Cold War-style arms race, where the United States is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a useless missile defense system and on new nuclear weapons. This all because conservatives have some asinine faith in some magical sci-fi capability.

But, and here is the rub, under the terms of the START treaty, we could still build this dangerous make-believe missile defense system – since the treaty does not constrain defensive systems. Now the Russians did say that if we pursue this capability, they would obviously withdraw from the treaty and start building nuclear weapons. But all this means is that should Jim DeMint’s conservative wing take over power and pursue their missile defense agenda a new nuclear arms-race is guaranteed. Secretary Gates also noted that DeMint’s desire to target missile defense against Russia is to the far right of where even the Bush administration was, as the system developed by the Bush administration was never intended to target Russia. Watch it:

DeMint is unable to refute the point that a comprehensive missile defense program will only prompt the Russians to produce more nuclear weapons. But following this exchange, DeMint tweeted and wrote on Heritage’s Blog that:

Senator Kerry proved why Americans have a hard time fully trusting the left to put American interests first in foreign affairs. While the goal of reducing global levels of nuclear weapons is noble, it cannot take priority over our duty to protect Americans. It seems the goal of this administration and liberals in Congress is to condition American security into parity with Russia, which makes no sense.

In reality, pursuing nuclear parity with the Russians is the way we create nuclear stability that prevents a massive arms race. The fact is that the only way to get beyond the concept of mutually assured destruction is not to build a destabilizing missile defense system, but to actually eliminate nuclear weapons. And this is what the Russians are most afraid of. If nuclear weapons are eliminated US conventional dominance becomes overwhelming, since Russian conventional forces are in such disrepair. Contrary to conservative assumptions, the existence of nuclear weapons actually make us weaker as the level the global power playing field.

Transcript: Read more

Yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona challenging the state’s new immigration law, SB-1070. However, the Washington Post pointed out today that a controversial legal opinion issued by Jay S. Bybee of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) may complicate the legal battle against the nation’s harshest immigration law which partially rests on the assumption that it interferes with federal law. However, just as President Obama issued an Executive Order rescinding Bybee’s previous OLC guidance permitting the use of torture and directed that no government agency may rely on any of OLC opinions on that topic between 2001 and 2009, Obama can and should similarly exercise his authority to nullify Bybee’s radical “inherent authority” immigration memo.

In 1996 (and also in 1989), the OLC determined that, under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), local police officers can only enforce the Act’s criminal provisions (entering the country illegally) and do not have the authority to arrest immigrants “on the basis of civil deportability” (being illegally present in the country). In other words, police can’t go after someone for simply overstaying a visa. However, Bybee deemed the OLC’s 1996 opinion “mistaken.” “We further assume that States have conferred on state police the necessary state-law authority to to make arrest for violation of the federal immigration laws,” wrote Bybee.

When the memo was released in 2005, the ACLU slammed Bybee’s opinion on three accounts. According to the ACLU, Bybee:

- Selectively read case law in order to conclude that the federal government has not preempted local authority to enforce complicated, multi-layered immigration law;

- Misconstrued decisions in cases where police assisted in criminal enforcement to extend them authority to enforce civil laws as well; and

- Repeatedly ignores instances in which Congress authorized police to assist in immigration enforcement under specific situations, even when the Congressional Record reflects the fact that lawmakers intended such provisions to grant new authority that police did not already possess.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) concurred in their own assessment of “inherent authority.” MPI cites DeCanas v. Bica, which affirmed that “the power to regulate immigration is unquestionably exclusively a federal power.” While Bybee held that Gonzales v. City of Peoria established that the “general rule is that local police are not precluded from enforcing federal statutes,” MPI doesn’t think the decision itself confers “inherent authority.” Quite the contrary, the decision explicitly stated that though “state law authorizes Peoria police to enforce the criminal provisions” of the INA, “this authorization is limited to criminal violations.” More specifically, the Court stated that officers “must distinguish illegal entry from illegal presence and must comply with all arrest requirements imposed by the federal Constitution.” MPI further notes that the INA was substantially amended in 1996 to include new provisions relating to state and local involvement in immigration enforcement. If Congress did believe states have inherent authority, the new INA provisions would have been meaningless. And even if Congress intended to alter INA’s interpretation of inherent authority, it probably would’ve just expressly stated so.

On a practical level, many police officers themselves have rejected Arizona’s deputization of immigration law on the basis that it will make Arizona less safe by forcing police to prioritize immigration enforcement over violent crimes, draining strained financial and manpower resources, exacerbating civil rights violations, and fueling costly lawsuits. Kobach, meanwhile, might want to be careful about citing the authority of someone who has been described as “unfit for a job that requires legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution” when trying to convince the American people of the validity of his own murky legal reasoning.

The Defense Authorization Act last year mandated that the Obama administration submit a 10 year budget plan for the nuclear weapons infrastructure. Last week the administration submitted this plan along with the New START treaty to the Senate. And the figures were shockingly large. In a time of growing deficits and following Secretary Gates’ calls to cut the fat in the defense budget, the Obama administration has made George W. Bush look like a nuclear cheap skate.

The Obama administration had previewed its intentions with its FY11 budget proposal in February, which requested a huge 10 percent increase for the nuclear weapons complex. This amount was so high it led George W. Bush’s nuclear administrator to remark that “he would have killed for this budget” and nuclear opponents to grumble about the massive funding going to the nuclear bureaucracy. During a speech in February, Vice President Biden said the spending on the nuclear weapons complex was likely to have detractors from traditional supporters – and with good reason. These budget numbers provide a massive amount of funding for nuclear weapons that goes well beyond what is necessary to maintain an effective deterrent. The Washington Post reports that Obama administration:

spending on modernization of the nuclear weapons complex over the decade will reach $80 billion, growing from $6.4 billion this year to $7 billion in coming years and eventually topping $8 billion beginning in 2016. The growing costs reflect not just construction of facilities but also the refurbishment and possible replacement of some warheads in the next decade, all without the need for testing, according to the summary.

To put this in context, from 2000 to 2010, including the tenure of the Bush administration, the US spent just about $68 billion. Yet under the Obama administration they are planning to spend $78 billion – amounting to a 15 percent increase over the Bush administration.

This increase is massive and unneccessary. The JASON advisory panel – essentially the gold standard of nuclear panels – confirmed that the lesser funding provided by the Bush administration effectively maintained the nuclear arsenal.

Lifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed in LEPs [Life Extension Programs] to date.

The nuclear weapons complex has more than enough money to maintain an effective nuclear deterrence, especially when there are many fewer nuclear weapons to maintain since our nuclear stockpiles have shrunk at a rapid rate over the last two decades.

This budget effectively gives Senator Kyl, McCain, and Lieberman what they wanted – massive increases to the nuclear bureaucracy – and considering this was their principal argument against supporting New START, their support for START should now be a given. Yet like on other legislation, this could quite easily be another case of Lucy pulling the football away. Kyl will now likely shift his focus of complaints to other areas, making it still an open qustion whether this over-the top and unnecessary budget buys any support after all.