PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP

Here's an intriguing proposal from Belgium's Anne-Marie Lizin, a prominent European critic of the U.S. prison facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Lizin says that countries want to shut Gitmo down should take the prisoners off the United States' hands themselves.

But why not take this a step further and just pay Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the International Red Cross to actually operate Guantánamo or its equivalent? Then they could hire subcontractors like CACI to handle the interrogations, and provide any resulting information to the U.S. government. Surely, these organizations would be trusted to ensure that prisoners wuold be treated humanely.

Or better yet, draw up an RFP and open up the bidding process to anyone willing to adopt a Guantánamo prisoner. After all, the U.S. government outsources everything else nowadays. Why not this?

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China has been working with its neighbors lately to step up the fight against terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious extremism, a triumvirate Beijing calls "The Three Evil Forces." It sounds like something out of Tolkien, but "The Three Evil Forces" is no fantasy. In fact, Beijing is using the phrase both to promote cooperation and to rally China's western neighbors against nascent independence movements like that in restive Xinjiang province.  

China and its fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (or SCO, which includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) are gearing up for unprecedented joint military exercises in August. According to the China Daily, these exercises "will demonstrate the determination and capability of SCO member countries to combat 'The Three Evil Forces'." Meanwhile, Chinese Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang recently reminded the Pakistani government of its commitment to fight these evils. The upshot? Pakistan invaded the Red Mosque.

We can laugh about the language being used, but Chinese diplomacy is actually becoming pretty sophisticated. With the strong states of Central Asia, Beijing's message is about combating evil and crushing dissent. In Africa, China's tag line is "Friendship, Peace, Cooperation and Development," while in Southeast Asia—where people are wary of a historically imperial China—the Chinese talk about "trade and trust." Beijing carefully selects each of these slogans to suit the circumstance, as none would work as well in any other part of the world. It's a diplomatic strategy that has been quite successful, as we can see from China's booming trade and burgeoning popularity in all these regions.

Maybe even Washington could learn something from China about how to make friends.

JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP

Russia's moves on missile defense and its decision to back out of a key arms control treaty are understandably gobbling up most of the news space devoted to Eastern Europe. But keep an eye on relations between Poland and Belarus, which claims to have busted up a Polish spy ring:

Belarus says it has smashed a spy ring which was passing information to Poland about a joint Belarussian-Russian air defence system, called the S-300. The head of the Belarus KGB security service, Dmitry Vegera, said four former Belarussian army officers and a Russian officer had been arrested.

The missile shield has clearly exacerbated relations between the two countries, but there are a host of other nettlesome issues. For months now, Poland has been broadcasting news into heavily-censored Belarus and accepting students who have been kicked out of Belarus's universities for political reasons. In their attacks on the thuggish and unpredictable Belarussian president Alexander Lukashenko, Poles frequently invoke their own legacy of Solidarity. Why does this matter, you ask? Because Poland is a member of NATO, more serious unpleasantness between the neighbors could quickly become another crisis between Russia and the West. And then things would really get interesting.

Forgive me for being a few weeks, perhaps even a few years, late to this story, but who knew that Pakistani intelligence and the CIA held the sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, aged seven and nine at the time, both before and after his father's capture?

Earlier this month, six human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, released a report on 39 'disappeared' detainees believed to be in U.S. custody somewhere in the world. The report also names wives and children of detainees who have been held and interrogated.

In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid (then nine years old) and Abed al-Khalid (then seven years old) were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was successfully apprehended several months later [...]

After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan in U.S. custody. The children were allegedly being sent for questioning about their father’s activities and to be used by the United States as leverage to force their father to co-operate with the United States. A press report on March 10, 2003 confirmed that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that: "We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care."

Their father is, obviously, a mass murderer. But what legal grounds exist for states to transfer children out of the country, particularly without parental permission (obviously lacking in this case)? Were the younger Mohammeds really transferred to the United States? What happened to them? Details are incredibly sketchy. The Guardian reported earlier this month that family members haven't seen the kids since they were apprehended.

Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who just finished a stint as the U.S. military's man in charge of training Iraqi security forces, told a Congressional committee yesterday that Iraq's security forces have suffered the attrition of 32,000 men in the last 18 months.

That's a loss in manpower roughly equivalent in size to the entire NYPD.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for Dick Cheney, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice in the so-called "CIA Leak" case. Judging by some of the letters of support he received from Washington heavyweights, it's not hard to see why clemency was not in the cards for Scooter.

For instance, here's a howler from Henry Kissinger's letter:  

Having served in the White House and under pressure, I have seen how difficult it sometimes is to recall precisely a particular series of events." 

And here's one from Paul Wolfowitz:

Despite some of the malicious gossip about him, I know that Mr. Libby is one of the least partisan individuals you will find in Washington. Although he has served in three Republican adminstrations, some of his closest friends were senior officials in the Clinton administration.

The proliferation threat from rogue states and terrorist groups has to concentrate the mind of any senior U.S. official in the national security area. [...] In the face of all these demands, keeping every detail straight is impossible. [...] I have myself been to meetings after which I could not remember what agency or Department most of the people worked for, or even why they were there. If there is anyone who fully understands our "system" for protecting classified information, I have yet to meet him.

The Libby children are not little now. [Name withheld] is entering that time when girls grow and change startlingly quickly [...]

One of my many enduring and endearing memories of Scooter is of his universal love of families. [...] One of our early "undisclosed location" work trips coincided with Halloween, which I am sure you know is the favorite event of most children's lives. The Cheney grandchildren were required to accompany us on this particular trip, yanked out of school and away from their much-awaited night of Trick or Treating. Their disappointment at being trapped in the desolate, nothing-to-do location was heartbreaking, as was our own, missing our small children that night. While I was working up a pretty annoying whine, Scooter flew into action, finding treats, creating costumes and arranged an ad-hoc trick-or-treat and Halloween games for the kids. [...] It took hours of creative effort on his part. 

Needless to say, the judge wasn't quite swayed by these heartfelt appeals.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 

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According to the 2006 General Social Survey of the University of Chicago, gun owners in the United States are a "shrinking minority." The actual number of firearms per U.S. household is controversial, but it seems that the share of gun owners has dropped from an all time high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006.

But if gun love is headed downhill in the United States, this is certainly not the case for Yemen. Doomed by a scarcity of natural resources, a bursting population, and domestic sectarian rivalries, Yemen ranks 150 out of 177 countries on the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index. Its weapons market, however, has been flourishing for more than a decade. A recent Reuters article published by Al Jazeera English reports that Yemenis may own as many as 60 million weapons. Even the conservative estimate is a staggering 20 million guns, about one gun per Yemeni.

As part of its post-9/11 anti-terrorism efforts, the Yemeni government has resolved to address the gun glut, and has recently begun spending millions of dollars to take weapons out of the hands of ordinary Yemeni citizens. It's not BB guns we're talking about, according to the Reuters article:

The arms bought included mortars, surface-to-air missiles, anti-tank shells, rocket-propelled grenades as well as large quantities of mines, explosives and ammunition.  

The government isn't targeting smaller firearms such as handguns and rifles, which have become a pillar of the local culture since the 1994 civil war. As a Yemeni professor told the BBC:

Just as you have your tie, the Yemeni will carry his gun.

 Charlton Heston would be proud.

The cover (sub req'd) of next week's Economist says it all: The United States is shaken up by China's rise. The Economist argues that "China is a far-from-cuddly beast; but bashing it is a bad idea." And the bashing comes from all sides, because there's plenty of material for all sides to mine. Hawks on the right worry about satellite missile tests, advanced submarine warfare capabilities, and booming military budgets. On the left, labor activists and Democrats in Congress fret about currency manipulation and the offshoring of increasingly higher job functions. The Economist, meanwhile, fears that all of this worrying will make it harder to tackle genuine problems—and opportunities—in the U.S.-China relationship.

Where you stand on China usually depends on where you sit. Consider, for instance, the panel for this sold-out "Intelligence Squared" debate event that took place in New York last night. The question up for discussion, Oxford-style, was whether "a booming China spells trouble for America."

The "trouble" side was all prominent security types: Bill Gertz, Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Times, John Mearsheimer, realist IR scholar and FP contributor, and Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant and China über-hawk who was reputedly close to Donald Rumsfeld.

On the "not trouble" side of the debate were all distinguished economic and diplomatic types: Institute for International Economic fellow Daniel H. Rosen, former Dow Jones China chief James McGregor, and former U.S. Ambassador to China J. Stapleton Roy.

The transcript of the debate is not yet available, so I don't know what was said. But my guess is that the two sides—military and economic/political—talked past one another, and listeners were left weighing security apples against economic oranges. The essays by Gertz vs. Rosen that ABC published before the debate suggest that to be the case. The purpose of these debates, which are funded by the Rosenkranz Foundation, is to "raise the level of public discourse on our most challenging issues." That's admirable, and the series is certainly thought-provoking. But wouldn't a nervous U.S. public be better served by head-to-head matchups (hawkish military analyst vs. dovish military analyst, for instance) so they can better judge who's right?

AFP

NATO is considering sending its armed forces to protect oil and gas facilities in the developing world. Jamie Shea, director of policy planning at the office of NATO's secretary general, made the announcement at a press conference in London earlier today. 

[W]e are looking very actively at using our maritime resources... [NATO wants to see] how we can link up with oil companies."

Shea revealed that NATO had discussed the idea with private oil companies such as Dutch Royal Shell and British Petroleum (BP), the second and third largest western oil firms respectively. He also admitted to raising the idea of NATO forces protecting natural gas facilities in Qatar.

On the list of bad ideas in world relations, this ranks pretty high. When the people of a desperately poor nation (such as Nigeria) see western firms leeching their nation's mineral wealth away, they tend to draw a simple conclusion: These companies are heartless profit-seekers with no regard for human life or welfare. Sending NATO forces to protect such corporations would cement the perception that western countries care only about securing energy supplies. After all, we've tried this experiment before; the whole concept harks back to the disastrous gunboat diplomacy of the 19th century. Think again, Mr Shea!

Back on March 27th, we highlighted the fact that shortages of processed uranium have been driving the price of nuclear fuel to near-record levels in recent months. Now, The Washington Times reports that the price of uranium has jumped another 19 percent in just the last two weeks.

It hasn't been the best week for the nuclear industry. The Washington Post reports:

More than 500 security guards at the nation's only nuclear weapons assembly plant walked off the job just after midnight yesterday to protest what they said is a steep deterioration in job and retirement security since the government changed fitness standards for weapons-plant guards in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The contractor at the plant, BWXT Pantex in Carson County, Tex., replaced the striking guards with a contingency force that it says will secure the plant's weapons, nuclear materials and explosives as long as necessary.

"Contingency force?" That's reassuring. I guess it sounds better than "second string" or "substitute."

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Despite efforts to stem the global trade in narcotics—indeed, often because of them—new trade routes are emerging around the world, posing challenges to authorities and local populations alike. In this week's List, FP takes a look at the newest battlegrounds in the global war on drugs.

They include new transit points for cocaine bound for the United States and Europe, such as Venezuela and West Africa, new production locales for methamphetamines in Mexico, and a familiar foe that's using the heroin trade to regain a foothold in Afghanistan. All these new fronts are leaving a trail of addiction and violence in their wake. And all exemplify one of the most frustrating dilemmas of international counter-drug efforts: Just as one area seems safe from the cartels, another battle is always around the corner. Check it out.

Wired's defense blogger Noah Shachtman reports some astonishing news:

Torrential rains wiped out a quarter of the U.S.' intercontinental ballistic missile interceptors in Ft. Greely, Alaska last summer --  right when North Korea was preparing to carry out an advanced missile launch, according to documents obtained by the Project On Government Oversight.

What happened? Massive flooding damaged the missile silos that house the missile interceptors. Nobody expected torrential downpours to be an issue in Ft. Greely, Alaska, and so the silos weren't adequately protected.

As for Boeing, the chief contractor for the site, Shachtman notes that the goof may actually work in its favor: 

POGO blames Boeing for being "at least partly responsible for failing to protect the silos" from the elements.  Nevertheless, the watchdog group observes, the company "will most likely still receive an estimated $38 million to repair the silos and a $100 million no-bid contract to build more silos. Boeing would also receive a $7 million award fee added to the contract."

That's probably par for the course in the U.S. defense contracting business, which bears an increasing resemblance, at least superficially, to the old Soviet procurement system. The real question is: How many other critical U.S. defense systems are vulnerable to freak weather incidents? Because if the scientists are right about global warming, we may see a lot more of these types of problems.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out Missile Defense Agency spokesman Rick Lehner's response and POGO's rebuttal.

The BBC aired an interview yesterday with General Abdul Hussein Al Safee, chief of the Dhi Qhar province police forces in Iraq's Shiite south. Safee complained that at least one third of his forces are impossible to control because they're loyal to local militias, and that 300 to 400 of his officers were completely illiterate.

Army Colonel Ed Brown, the British officer in charge of "strategic oversight" of Iraqi police in the province, takes the long view:

There is a level of violence here, but that is life in Iraq. It's been like this for thousands of years. It's not going to change." 

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With 40,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan and U.S. "lily-pad" bases scattered over Central Asia, that region is pretty much closed to renewed Russian expansion, right?

Not quite. While the West has committed much blood and treasure to trying to secure Afghanistan with mixed success, the Russians have been quietly building support among other regional governments. One vehicle has been the Moscow-based Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The grouping has moved ahead with plans to establish a regional air defense system, according to Euraisanet's Sergei Blagov. And it's developing tighter military and political ties in general, à la NATO. Now it's also in discussions with Afghanistan to train military and police personnel in Russia and sell it Russian-made weapons:

If the intensified cooperation between Kabul and the security organization unfolds as envisioned by CSTO officials, it would mark a significant geopolitical setback for US interests in Central Asia ... US inattention to Afghan reconstruction has played a role in the revival of the Taliban insurgency in the country. This, in turn, has created an opening for Russia to establish a security presence in the country ...

The big open question, though, is: what's China's role? It's interesting that Russia is pushing forward the CSTO; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a different group with a mostly overlapping membership but dominated by Beijing, has in the past been much more active. Is China being shouldered aside in Central Asia too?