General Stanley McChrystal told journalist Michael Hastings that he wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone and so he was. The resulting story—describing an alcohol fueled dinner in Paris and the General’s staff mocking the Obama Administration—ended McChrystal’s tour as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan and his military career.

The Defense Department has identified the four Marines who urinated on dead Taliban soldiers in an infamous video that turned up this week. The military may charge the Marines with war crimes, though a final decision has not been made.

A variety of links to articles/interviews to current topics that may, or may not, be of interest.

The Taliban has agreed to open an office in Qatar, seen as a precursor to peace talks in Afghanistan. The Taliban want release of their prisoners from Guantanamo as part of a goodwill gesture preparatory to peace talks. Congress is going ballistic, and because of the NDAA and other bills, the process for getting clearance to release Guantanamo detainees is almost impossibly complex.

The release of Fazl and other Taliban may just be a Hail Mary pass, however. Talks have been suspended at the request of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. Though asking for a prisoner release previously , Karzai doesn’t favor it now. We may get the establishment of a Taliban office in a neutral third country, with talks continuing there on a reconciliation. But Karzai stopped the talks when he found out that the US was negotiating directly with Taliban officers to use Qatar as the third country, recalling the Afghan ambassador there.

Barry Steven’s documentary Prosecutor focuses on the efforts of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, as he begins to try the ICC’s first case ever against Thomas Lubanga, the Congolese leader who stands accused of conscripting and enlisting children into his army. A warrant has also been issued for the arrest and trial of Sudan’s leader, Omar al-Bashir; but with no police force to enforce the warrant the ICC must rely on member states to cooperate. Today Reuters reports that:

“Hell and Back Again” Danfung Dennis’ hypnotic, compelling documentary follows the return of a badly injured Marine from Afghanistan, inter-cutting footage from the battlefield with scenes from 25-year old Sgt Nathaniel Harris’ life back in North Carolina.

The UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) has released its October 2011 report on “Treatment of Conflict-Related Detainees in Afghanistan” (PDF). Ten years after the US invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime, and ostensibly dismantle the Al Qaeda forces linked to the 9/11 attacks, the regime in place is not only hopeless corrupt and unable to provide security for its citizens, Afghan security forces in the National Security Directorate (NDS) have been charged by UNAMA with “systematically” torturing “detainees for the purpose of obtaining confessions and information” at a number of provincial facilities.

The report alleges that fully 46 percent of prisoners held by security forces, and approximately one-third held by Afghan national police (ANP), are tortured. Furthermore, “[n]early all detainees tortured by NDS officials reported the abuse took place during interrogations and was aimed at obtaining a confession or information.” Until last month, the U.S. routinely turned prisoners over to Afghan security forces, while NATO stopped turning over prisoners to a number of different Afghan facilities last July.

To mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the ACLU released a report that looks at how “ever-expanding claims of national security” have subverted freedoms and justified an assault on civil liberties.

The report scrutinizes racial and religious profiling, the expansion of the surveillance state, the impunity of the Bush administration officials who created a legal justification for torture and the framework that has dominated America since the attacks: the belief that America is in an “everywhere and forever war” which justifies any program, regardless of how it undermines civil liberties or the rule of law.

The late-night Chinook helicopter crash in Afghanistan that killed up to 31 Americans and 7 Afghans killed over 20 Navy SEALs, including members of Seal Team Six, the same unit that participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.