re: "Credit Where It's Due"

Spook86 at In From the Cold ("MUSINGS ON LIFE, LOVE, POLITICS, MILITARY AFFAIRS, THE MEDIA, THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY AND JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAPTURES OUR INTEREST") recognized a good call by our former president.

Money quote(s):

"George W. Bush and his advisers deserve our lasting thanks for deciding to hold terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, and conducting their trials through military tribunals, instead of a federal courtroom.

The wisdom of this approach was on display yesterday, during the arraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, and two other senior Al Qaida figures. According to The New York Times (and other media accounts), the proceedings were a study in confusion and obfuscation"

Don't think the confusion, sown liberally by the defendents, wasn't intended. It's part of their playbook, after all.

"Instead of a global stage, KSM and his fellow killers will have to make due with pool coverage from a handful of reporters at Gitmo. Instead of a battery of ACLU lawyers, they have a small defense team which they may (or may not) cooperate with. And instead of a federal judge trying to ride herd over a legal circus, the Al Qaida defendants have a no-nonsense military judge, Colonel James L. Pohl.

Of course, the antics that unfolded yesterday at Gitmo were utterly predictable."

See above. Key word: playbook.

"KSM and the terrorists at Gitmo were nabbed overseas, and with their designation as combatants, military tribunals became the most viable option. The prosecution of Al Qaida terrorists at Gitmo will likely drag on for years, but without the media circus that terrorists crave and in a secure environment. Security costs for a trial in a New York federal court were pegged at $300-500 million a year, with the interruption to normal traffic and commerce costing millions more."

CAA suspects the average (i.e., non-Al Qaeda sympathizer) New Yorker would be perfectly happy to host the public execution of the defendents, so long as the whole process took-up only one business day, but the kind of media and security circus a civilian trial process would entail for them is right out.

"On the issue of trying terror suspects, Mr. Bush was correct in opting for military tribunals, and the wisdom of that approach will be affirmed in the months and years that follow."

5/6

re: "My New York Times Mini Op-Ed'

Peter Van Buren at We Meant Well ("How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People") shared some observations and predictions.

Money quote(s):

"The State Department’s reduction of staff in Iraq is the final act of the American invasion. The war is now really over.

The U.S. has finally acknowledged that Iraq is not its most important foreign policy story."

This is due to a couple-three factors.

First, the change in administrations. The Bush administration made the invasion and reconstruction effort in Iraq a national priority or mission. That national priority or mission drove things like causing Iraq embassy and PRT personnel requirements to, along with similar requirements in Afghanistan (and, to a degree, Pakistan) drive the Foreign Service's human resources engine.

As CAA predicted before the CPA was ever replaced by an actual U.S. embassy mission, Iraq was going to be the tail that wagged our assignments system dog. For better or worse.

The U.S. post-war reconstruction and security effort in Iraq, as of January 2009, became the Obama administration's war to lose.

Second, and deriving from the first, with the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq, what media attention still focused there has dissipated. Until such time as things really go south, and the networks can get footage of helicopters lifting U.S. diplomats from the embassy's rooftops, that not really going to change.

"(O)nly days after the U.S. military withdrawal, the world’s largest embassy watched helplessly as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki tried to arrest his own vice president, who fled to Kurdistan where Iraqi government forces are powerless to intervene."

What's that saying about history repeating itself as farce?

In any case, this episode alone makes the prognostications of others, such as Vice President Biden if I recall correctly, about Iraq best becoming three separate countries, a lot less risible. Likewise for the post-pandemic predictions of John Ringo.

"The U.S. has finally acknowledged that Iraq is not its most important foreign policy story, and that America’s diplomats cannot survive on their own in the middle of a civil war. The embassy will eventually shrink to the small-to-medium scale that Iraq requires (think Turkey or Jordan). America’s relationship will wither into the same uneasy state of half-antagonistic, half-opportunistic status that we enjoy with the other autocrats in the Middle East. Maliki will continue to expertly play the U.S. off the Iranians and vice versa. U.S. military sales and oil purchases will assure him the soft landing someday of a medical visa to the United States à la Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, and not the sanctioned disposal awaiting Bashar al-Assad of Syria."

The prediction piece of Brother Van Buren's article could do with some un-packing. Frankly, the second part of the first sentence is simply not so. The U.S. continues, in Iraq and Afghanistan (and, to a degree, Pakistan) to expect our diplomats to "survive on their own in the middle of a civil war." They just do. I can't explain it.

2/11

re: "Today's Reading Assignment"

Spook86 at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") shared an excellent and detailed narrative explaining why military pensions are earned rather than being socialist "entitlements."

Money quote(s):

"Professor Lacey shares our outrage at a recent article in The New York Times, which described the armed forces retirement program as "another big social welfare system." Recounting the long list of military operations over the past two decades, Lacey reminds us that a soldier who enlisted in 1990 had more than "earned" his pension by the time he retired last year."

Prof. Lacey went on to provide a detailed fleshing out of what a recent 20-year military careers actually involved. If you didn't already experience it yourself, it makes educational reading.

"(O)nly two of the Republican candidates have actually served in the military."

That's a fact which deserves a bit more attention, at least from this registered voter. I know Gov. Perry served in the Air Force. Who is the other one?

"Sounds like a "lose-lose" for hundreds of thousands of career military members (and retirees) who gave so much for that $25,000 a year pension. We should also note that Professor Lacey's prototypical retiree was something of a fast burner. The average non-commissioned officer who leaves active duty after 20 years is an E-6, with an average annual pension of less than $20,000 a year. "

Which isn't a lot. Fortunately, given that the average NCO joined the military sometime before (or not long after) their 20th birthday, the average active duty retiree is around age 40, with a couple more decades of working life ahead during which to launch and make a second career. They will also have the experience and life skills learned in two decades of increasing responsibilities to help them make that second career a success.

(Which doesn't mean they aren't owed the earned military pensions to which they're due.)

10/5

re: "For God's sake Amb. Munter, don't Go Native on us now"

Pundita ("US foreign policy for the 21st Century") has some sharp criticism of the Department.

Money quote(s):

"In yet another sign that the U.S. Department of State should relocate to Brussels U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter advised White House officials that President Obama should deliver a "formal video statement," according to White House officials interviewed by the New York Times, regarding the NATO air strike inside Pakistan on November 26."

Amb. Munter is a career professional diplomat who gave, from his in-country vantage point, foreign policy advice tempered by knowledge of local politics, sentiment, and conditions.

That's kinda/sorta his job.

(Disclaimer: CAA met, briefly and in passing, the aforementioned ambassador a few years ago.)

He was notably one of the senior FSOs who, fairly early, volunteered for service in Iraq, where he lead the first PRT in Mosul in 2006; he also served at the Baghdad embassy in 2009-2010.

I recall him stating publicly (paraphrase follows) that if senior leadership was going to ask FSOs to volunteer for service in war zones it would behoove them to lead by example. Or word to that effect.

"As to how Munter's highly sensitive discussion with White House officials came to be made public, I'd say that the U.S. Department of State is the prime suspect."

Leaking to the press is simply outside of CAA's area of competency. I got nothing.

"As to how State arrived at the idea that any advice they could give on Pakistan would be helpful to the United States is beyond me. State's track record on Pakistan since the Afghan War heated up has been awful"

Frankly, the United States' track record on Pakistan is something that needs to be examined holistically, from top-down decisions down to our working level relationships. The State Dept. doesn't set policy. It implements it, it provides advice beforehand and feedback as implementation proceeds.

"Moving along, Munter's advice was given on the 28th, just two days after the NATO air strike, when the U.S. Department of Defense was still trying untangle how the strike came about and exactly what had happened during the strike. So it's almost beyond belief that a career diplomat of Munter's experience would ask the President of the United States for a formal apology before the strike had been properly investigated.

Yet when it comes to State not much is beyond belief anymore. State officials have come to think of themselves as 'policymakers' even though State is only supposed to advise the White House on policy."

See my comments above. That being said, at a certain level and above, senior officials are not only implementers and advice-givers, they are policy-makers. This is just as true at DoD, the CIA, and the DoJ as it is in Foggy Bottom.

"This is no way to run foreign policy; this is no way to conduct any kind of policy and certainly not the way to run a war. This is headless horseman thinking, which means there is no real thinking at all; there is just a bureaucracy's obsession with expanding its turf by attempting to please scores of competing factions."

Part of the problem is the pretense that Pakistan is not part of a.) the larger campaign in Afghanistan; and b.) the larger "war on terror."

That being said, while we do send our honorable diplomats abroad to lie for their country, they must always take care to tell only the truth when reporting back to Washington, whether that is to the Department or to the White House.

12/1

re: "NYT: We Cannot Possibly Withdraw From a War Before It Is Won Or It Might Undermine US Credibility (No Seriously, Stop Laughing)"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ cherry-picked a great quote.

re: "Hussein strikes out"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") rakes Pres. Obama over the coals.

Money quote(s) of a non-ad hominem nature:

"just how much clout the NY Times and MSNBC have in the Arab world"

Just about none. Don't believe me? Check overall literacy rates in the Arab world (litaracy in any languages, even their own), look into how often (for instance) Al Jazeera cites MSNBC, and do the math.

"because the vast majority of the Muslims.... live in tribal and honor cultures and they only respect the strong horse"

Nice placement of a UBL "strong horse" reference there.

"the hated cowboy W because say what you want about him, he would kick your ass if you crossed him"

I believe it was the Kennedy administration which followed the adage "Don't get mad, get even." Words to govern by.

re: "The Media Turns On Obama, And My Head Is Spinning"

Thanks to TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") for the link and the mention:

"I've been following Consul-at-Arms and cheering as he defends the Constitutional powers of Congress against the administration's interpretation dismissal of the War Powers Act."

I'd quibble about my defending Congress, exactly. I feel like I've been as critical of Congress (for not defending its Constitutional perogatives) as I've been of the executive branch for continuing to push the envelope of its own Constitutional perogatives.

Money quote(s):

"President Obama started the Libyan action with a March 21 letter to Congress that cited the requirements of the War Powers Act ("I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution. I appreciate the support of the Congress in this action") but, when the May 20 deadline for withdrawal approached, he changed his mind about those requirements.This morning, as I caught up on my reading, I saw that both the New York Times and the Washington Post have attacked the administration's position that the War Powers Act no longer applies to its military action in Libya. The Mainstream Media in a united front with CAA? I must be dreaming." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

He had to take a lie down until the dizziness passed.

re: "President Obama To Congress: War Powers Act Doesn’t Apply To Libya"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") considers the question.

Money quote(s):

"Taking a position that is certain to raise eyebrows, the White House sent a response to Congress today regarding the request for further information about the military action in Libya that argues that the War Powers Act is inapplicable to current American involvement there"

Curious. Mr. Mataconis quotes from the New York Times article explaining this position before continuing.

"The question then is whether United States United States military forces are still involved in “hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.” There seems to be no real contention by anyone that American forces, or NATO forces for that matter, are actually on Libyan territory or in Libyan territorial waters. The Administration seems to be arguing that since there are no American ground troops and no American fighter planes involved in action over Libya, then the answer to that question is no. As John Cole notes, though, we are using Predator drones to launch missiles at Libyan target on an as-needed basis, so the idea that we’re completely off the grid on this mission isn’t entirely true."

&

"(F)or the Obama Administration it’s not just a question of how Congress reacts, but also how the public reacts. A response like this could potentially be spun as the Administration trying to get around the requirements of the law by means of a technicality. The fact that we are still engaging in offensive action in Libya, albeit in a limited fashion that doesn’t endanger American forces, makes this kind of legal argument hard to sell — it’s a war they’re saying, but not a war war. That doesn’t strike me as something that’s going to play very well with the public, especially given how unpopular the Libya mission is to begin with."

re: "Good Hunting"

Grim at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") gives credit where it's due.

Money quote(s):

"More and more I find myself writing positive things about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has come through once again."

&

"Assuming the New York Times' coverage is accurate -- a leap of faith better fit for a Sunday -- it was Secretary Clinton who corrected our course this time. We are fortunate to have her in her current post: for my money she's a far better secretary of state than any of her recent predecessors. I only regret that she wasn't successful in 2008 in seeking a higher post. Well done, Ma'am."

re: "Should the Media Be Prosecuted for Espionage, Too?"

Kevin Jon Heller at Opinio Juris is a sharp cookie. I like the way he thinks.

Money quote(s):

"The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Le Monde, and El Pais — all are just as guilty of violating the Espionage Act as WikiLeaks. There is no “we redacted some of the documents” defense in the Act, and prosecuting a news organization after it has published documents does not create prior restraint problems. Moreover, given that those newspapers have a vastly wider readership than the WikiLeaks website, they have arguably harmed America’s national-security interests far more than WikiLeaks itself. (And let’s not forget, WikiLeaks did not steal the documents; it obtained them from the person who did. So there is no relevant difference between the newspapers and WikiLeaks in that regard; the “espionage” is simply one level removed with the newspapers.)"

NYT - Bill Targets Citizenship of Terrorists’ Allies

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times

Bill Targets Citizenship of Terrorists’ Allies

By CHARLIE SAVAGE and CARL HULSE

Published: May 6, 2010

WASHINGTON — Proposed legislation that would allow the government to revoke American citizenship from people suspected of allying themselves with terrorists set off a legal and political debate Thursday that scrambled some of the usual partisan lines on civil-liberties issues.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The Terrorist Expatriation Act, co-sponsored by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, would allow the State Department to revoke the citizenship of people who provide support to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or who attack the United States or its allies."

"Identical legislation is also being introduced in the House by two Pennsylvania congressmen, Jason Altmire, a Democrat, and Charlie Dent, a Republican. The lawmakers said at a news conference that revoking citizenship would block terrorism suspects from using American passports to re-enter the United States and make them eligible for prosecution before a military commission instead of a civilian court.
Citing with approval news reports that President Obama has signed a secret order authorizing the targeted killing of a radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, Mr. Lieberman argued that if that policy was legal — and he said he believed it was — then stripping people of citizenship for joining terrorist organizations should also be acceptable.

Several major Democratic officials spoke positively about the proposal, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Noting that the State Department already had the authority to rescind the citizenship of people who declare allegiance to a foreign state, she said the administration would take “a hard look” at extending those powers to cover terrorism suspects."

&

"The proposal would amend an existing, although rarely used, program run by the State Department. It dates to a law enacted by Congress in 1940 that allowed the stripping of citizenship for activities like voting in another country’s elections or joining the army of a nation that is at war with the United States. People who lose their citizenship can contest the decision in court.

The Supreme Court later narrowed the program’s scope, declaring that the Constitution did not allow the government to take away people’s citizenship against their will. The proposal does not alter the requirement of evidence of voluntariness.

That means that if the proposal passed, the State Department would have to cite evidence that a person not only joined Al Qaeda, but also intended to relinquish his citizenship, and the advantages it conveys, to rescind it."

NYT - Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times

Russian Orphanage Offers Love, but Not Families

James Hill for The New York Times


A child at Orphanage No. 11. Of the 45 to 50 children there, just one has been adopted this year.


By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: May 3, 2010


MOSCOW — There is nothing dreary about Orphanage No. 11. It has rooms filled with enough dolls and trains and stuffed animals to make any child giggly. It has speech therapists and round-the-clock nurses and cooks who delight in covertly slipping a treat into a tiny hand. It has the feel of a place where love abounds.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The case of a Russian boy who returned alone to Moscow, sent back by his American adoptive mother, has focused intense attention on the pitfalls of international adoption."

&

"Ms. Mizulina noted that for all the complaints about the return of the boy, Artyom Savelyev, by his adoptive mother in Tennessee, Russia itself has plenty of experience with failed placements. She said 30,000 children in the last three years inside Russia were sent back to institutions by their adoptive, foster or guardianship families."

NYT - Iran: 3 Americans Accused of U.S. Intelligence Link

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times

Iran: 3 Americans Accused of U.S. Intelligence Link

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 8, 2010

Iran’s intelligence minister accused three Americans jailed since crossing the border from Iraq in July of having links to United States intelligence services, state television reported Thursday.

Read the whole article here.

re: "Pissed!"

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") was pissed. And so was I.

Money quote(s):

"(W)hile we value all American life, and indeed, all human life, we are talking about people who are in a place at the service of the Nation. It is the ultimate sacrifice of service, not an unfortunate tragedy befalling a tourist or a duel national. More Americans besides Victoria DeLong were killed in Haiti, but she died in the service of our country."

&

"What the hell is the New York Times thinking putting a picture of the two dead Americans online?!"

re: "Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants"

Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal ("dedicated to the dissemination of conservative views, based on a solidly and consistently conservative world view, on matters political and military") cuts to the heart of this: money.

Money quote(s):

"So the story line is that Jordan and his cohorts were hired to build and maintain a web site similar to Iraq Slogger, except for Afghanistan. I don’t believe that charging for content on Iraq Slogger worked out very well, and they apparently worked a deal with the DoD to fund this new web site with tax dollars. Some of “their” money got diverted to use in actually developing real intelligence and killing the enemy, and they went to The New York Times, complaining and moaning about lost revenue.

Since I have gone on record demanding a covert campaign to foment an insurgency inside of Iran (as well as advocated targeted assassinations of certain figures such as Moqtada al Sadr and others), it should come as no surprise that I have no problem with dollars being spent wherever they are best utilized. It’s amusing that a government official said “no legitimate intelligence operations got screwed up.” No, to the contrary, these dollars redounded to success. There is a lesson in this."

&

"(T)here is the moralistic element to this account. It’s an outrage: his information was “being used to kill people,” intoned the flabbergasted Pelton. This is the same preening, holier than thou, sanctimonious crap that we heard from the anthropologists who weighed in against the use of human terrain teams – as if war isn’t a legitimate application for anthropology. Every enlisted man and officer in war practices anthropology every day."

NYT - U.S. Consular Aide and Husband Killed in Mexico

Bad news from the border:

New York Times

U.S. Consular Aide and Husband Killed in Mexico

By MARC LACEY and GINGER THOMPSON

Published: March 14, 2010

LA UNIÓN, Mexico — Gunmen believed to be linked to drug traffickers shot a pregnant American consulate worker and her husband to death in the violence-racked border town of Ciudad Juárez over the weekend, leaving their baby wailing in the back seat of their car, the authorities said Sunday. The gunmen also killed the husband of another consular employee and wounded his two young children.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The shootings appeared to be the first deadly attacks on American officials and their families by Mexico’s powerful drug organizations."

"The killings followed threats against American diplomats along the Mexican border and complaints from consulate workers that drug-related violence was growing untenable, American officials said. Even before the shootings, the State Department had quietly made the decision to allow consulate workers to evacuate their families across the border to the United States."

"The F.B.I. was sending agents to Ciudad Juárez on Sunday to assist with the investigation and American diplomats were also en route to meet with their Mexican counterparts, said Roberta S. Jacobson, the American deputy assistant secretary of state who handles Mexico."

"Officials with the state of Chihuahua issued a statement Sunday night saying that initial evidence, corroborated by intelligence from the United States, pointed to a gang known as Los Aztecas. American interests in Mexico have been attacked by drug traffickers before but never with such brutality. Attackers linked to the Gulf Cartel shot at and hurled a grenade, which did not explode, at the American consulate in Monterrey in 2008, Mexican authorities said.

The shootings in Ciudad Juárez took place in broad daylight, within minutes of each other on Saturday as the victims were on their way home from a social gathering at another consulate worker’s home."

"Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, 37, the husband of a consular worker, was found dead in a white Honda Pilot, with bullet wounds to his body, the authorities said. In the back seat were two wounded children, one aged 4 and one 7. They were taken to the hospital.

Shell casings from a variety of caliber weapons were found at the scene.

Another call came in 10 minutes later, several miles away. This time it was a Toyota RAV4 with Texas plates that had been shot up, with two dead adults inside and a baby crying from a car seat in the back. Mexican officials identified the couple as Lesley A. Enriquez, 25, a consulate employee, and her husband, Arthur H. Redelf, 30, from across the border in El Paso.

Ms. Enriquez, an American citizen, was shot in the head. Her husband was shot in neck and left arm. A 9 mm bullet casing was found at the scene."

&

continued

(Page 2 of 2)

"Concerned about the rising violence, the State Department had decided that employees at a string of consular offices along the Mexican border — Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros — could temporarily evacuate their families to the United States. That decision was not formally announced until Sunday."

_____
Marc Lacey reported from La Unión, Mexico, and Ginger Thompson from Washington. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington, and Elisabeth Malkin and Antonio Betancourt from Mexico City.

NYT - When Travelers Take Too Many Risks

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times

When Travelers Take Too Many Risks


August 6, 2009, 7:13 pm


By The Editors


As former President Bill Clinton was working to win the release of two American journalists held in North Korea, the Iranian government was questioning three young Americans hikers who had been arrested for crossing the Iraqi border and illegally entering Iran.

Read the whole article here.

NYT - A Fatal Ending for a Family Forced Apart by Immigration Law

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times


A Fatal Ending for a Family Forced Apart by Immigration Law

Ángel Franco/The New York Times


Elizabeth Encalada, a widow on Long Island with her children, from left, Griffin, Alanna, Selena and Hailey.


By NINA BERNSTEIN


Published: February 11, 2010



WEST BABYLON, N.Y. — Elizabeth Drummond was a single mother from a hardscrabble family whose roots go back to the Mayflower and an American Indian tribe. The man she married, Segundo Encalada, was a relative newcomer to the United States, sent illegally by his parents from Ecuador when he was 17.
Ángel Franco/The New York Times

Many if not most visa ineligibilities do not attach to minors under the age of 18. Once Mr. Encalada reached age 18 the clock started and after age 18 and 6 months he would have acquired a three-year bar to re-entry. By the time he reached age 19 he would have earned a ten-year bar to re-entering the U.S.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"(I)n July 2006, when Mrs. Encalada was pregnant with their third daughter and immigration crackdowns were sweeping the country, her husband was ordered by immigration authorities to take “voluntary departure” back to Ecuador."

"Under laws affecting those who married after April 2001, foreign spouses who entered without a visa must leave and seek one from a United States Consulate in their native land."

"(A)fter she flew to Ecuador for a joint interview at the United States Consulate in Guayaquil, officials there rejected the couple’s application with a form letter saying they had “a marriage of convenience.” "

"(F)acing another Christmas far from his family, he drank poison."

"Adriana Gallegos, a spokeswoman for the State Department, would not comment on the case. “It’s against the law to talk about visa records,” she said. “We can’t explain why it was denied or what was the process.”"

continued

"Mrs. Encalada and her parents said the family’s troubles started with a gathering at her mother’s house one Friday night in July 2004, when a drunken guest meddled in a family dispute, then summoned the police, claiming Mr. Encalada had threatened her. Mr. Encalada eventually pleaded guilty to harassment in the case, a misdemeanor, and served 30 days in jail in 2006."

&

"Only after the consulate denied the validity of their marriage, when Mrs. Encalada consulted a new lawyer, did the couple learn about a separate hurdle. The law imposes a 10-year ban on re-entry for having stayed a year or more in the United States without permission; it can be waived only through a show of extreme hardship.

The second lawyer had started that process when Mr. Encalada gave up."

A good immigration attorney would have told him this before he ever left the U.S. Also, a good immigration attorney would have told him that waivers for extreme hardship are quite often granted by DHS for spouses of U.S. citizens, although the process can take six months or more.


_____
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: February 15, 2010
An article on Friday about a family forced apart by immigration law misspelled the name of the city in Ecuador where the United States consulate denied the man a visa, saying the couple, Elizabeth and Segundo Encalada, had “a marriage of convenience.” It is Guayaquil, not Guyaquil.

HB - U.S. lifts travel ban on scholars

From my archive of press clippings:

Houston Belief

U.S. lifts travel ban on scholars


By DANIEL BURKE RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

Jan. 28, 2010, 5:56PM

WASHINGTON — The State Department said recently that two prominent Muslim intellectuals will no longer be barred from traveling to the U.S. based on past accusations that they had supported terrorism.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed orders allowing Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib to reapply for U.S. visas, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley."

&

"He had donated about $1,000 to a Swiss-based charity that gave funds to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group, according to The New York Times, but denied knowledge of the charity's ties to Hamas."

NYT - Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity

From my archive of press clippings:

New York Times

Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity


By RON NIXON

Published: November 8, 2009

As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.

DIFFERENT Kim Eun Mi Young in an undated photo with her brothers, David, left, and Shawn. Growing up, she says, “at no time did I consider myself anything other than white.”

J. Michael Short for The New York Times

Kim Eun Mi Young in her San Antonio home with family photographs and mementos.

When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.

Growing up in Georgia, Kansas and Hawaii, in a military family, she would date only white teenagers, even when Asian boys were around.

Read the whole article here.