"Viewed from across the pond, the U.S. Congress seems at best incompetent and at worst a joke," Alex Massie argues. And that perception is not without consequence.

Thanks to renewed transatlantic cooperation, President Barack Obama is one small step closer to keeping his campaign promise to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention center.

Blogger Andrew Sullivan has likened torture to a cancer on America’s democracy, that “metastasizes quickly and poisons everything it touches.”

Spain’s Attorney General today rejected a judge’s decision to open an investigation against six Bush Administration officials. The AG’s recommendation was sought by a group of human rights lawyers and the judge hoping to bring cases against “The Bush Six” for their alleged sanctioning of torture.

Atlantic Council president and CEO Frederick Kempe was a guest on Morning Joe at MSNBC.  He talked about the planned closure of Gitmo, among other issues.

In one of his first acts as president, Barack Obama signed an executive order closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp within a year.  According to a new paper published by the Atlantic Council, Beyond Closing Guantanamo, this is a step in the right direction, but the new U.S. administration should undertake several additional measures aimed at restoring the United States as a leader in the international legal system.

Senator James M. Inhofe is the second ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee and is a former chairman of (and now ranking Republican on) the Environment and Public Works Committee.  I had the opportunity to get his thoughts on some key issues of interest to the Atlantic Council community.

The foreign ministers of several EU members say that will consider taking prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay, provided that the United States can prove to a degree of absolute certainty that they are not dangerous.