As a country that has too often found itself confronting the futility of its force in the post 9-11 world, the patient, well-executed US Navy mission that freed Captain Richard Phillips came as a welcome ending to the five-day standoff.

Navy Seals shot three of the pirates saying that Phillips was in “imminent danger.” A fourth pirate was detained. It turns out that President Obama had given clear orders to use lethal force if necessary to protect Phillips. And in doing that Obama has successfully navigated his first significant international crisis. It was a small confrontation in relative terms given that Iraq and Afghanistan loom so large. But small failures can have big consequences as Presidents Carter and Clinton learned all too well in their first terms.

Obama said he is “resolved to to halt the rise of piracy.” And yesterday he backed up that resolve with action and saved the life of a man whose crew see him as a hero for sacrificing his own life to save theirs. We don’t have a chance to write about too many heroes these days. But the story of the drama in the Gulf of Aden gave us a chance to do just that.

The Honorable Barack Hussein Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW

Washington, DC 20520

Paris, February 17, 2009

Dear Mr. President:

Dear Madam Secretary of State

Reporters Without Borders, an international press freedom organization, would like to draw your attention to the situation of journalists in a number of countries now ranked as diplomatic priorities for the U.S. government. Mr. President, you appointed yourself to be the spokesperson in the fight for the right to inform and to be informed while visiting the Sudan in 2006, when you stated: “Press freedom is like tending a garden, it’s never done.” These words are somewhat reminiscent of those spoken by President Thomas Jefferson: “Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that limited without danger of losing it.”

We consider it essential that the country of the First Amendment actively participate in promoting human rights within the international community, and especially in those regions of the planet in which these rights are being repeatedly violated. The executive order signed on January 22, 2009, which was aimed at putting an end to the humanitarian and legal scandal represented by the Guantanamo detention camp sent, in our opinion, an important signal. Moreover, we are expecting the new Congress to finally approve a “shield law” guaranteeing journalists federal protection for the privilege of source confidentiality, thus sparing the latter from prison terms like those handed down under the previous administration-a period characterized by a decline in public freedoms. What is at stake is not only the preservation of a basic principle of investigative journalism, but also of the quality of information that the American public has a right to expect.

The fact that the United States of America is speaking on behalf of human rights obviously implies that you must keep a particularly close watch in regions where you have established a military presence. The war that began in Iraq in 2003 has been the bloodiest of all time for local and foreign journalists, and the U.S. Army bears the heavy burden of responsibility for some of these tragedies. The necessary withdrawal of the troops that you plan to successfully carry out by 2011 must be accompanied by guarantees essential to peace. In Afghanistan, too, the U.S. Army has too often hindered journalists’ work, and Bagram Prison remains closed to the media. As a Reporters Without Borders’ delegation realized during an on-site mission there in January 2009, American support of early efforts to further a democratic process have in no way prevented violations of the freedom to inform and to be informed by Afghan courts. Case in point: Perwiz Kambakhsh’s 20-year prison sentence, upheld on appeal, for having downloaded “blasphemous” material on the condition of women in the country.

Your decision to promote dialogue with certain powers cannot fail to take into account this necessity, either. In China, the Olympic Games did very little to further the progress of freedom of expression. We hope, Madam Secretary of State, that your next visit to the country, February 20 to 22, will induce Chinese authorities to release prisoners of conscience. The “comprehensive dialogue” that you wish to initiate must keep its promises by venturing beyond economic and trade considerations. In the world’s biggest prison for freelance journalists and cyberdissidents, it is nearly impossible to pick up broadcasts from such stations as Radio Free Asia or Voice of America, and websites of American daily newspapers like The New York Times are still blocked. Your “extended hand” to Iran, whose Internet connection capacities rely upon U.S. companies, calls for a relaxation of the filtering now being imposed on foreign media websites and an end to the legal harassment of human rights and gender equity activists such as lawyer Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Founder of the Circle for the Defenders of Human Rights.

History has shown it, and you have understood it: placing a ban on countries subject to the most repressive regimes has often exacerbated their isolation without changing the attitude of their leaders. That is why we are particularly focusing on the State Department’s desire to mediate in favor of a genuine sharing of power between the political forces present in Zimbabwe. The participation of Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC in the government is an essential precondition for reinstating freedoms, for an in-depth reform of press laws and for foreign journalists to gain access to a country in chaos. Although Western chanceries have spoken out against Robert Mugabe and his regime, their silence in the face of the tyranny prevailing in Eritrea is all the more incomprehensible.

Moreover, being aware of your personal attachment to East Africa, Mr. President, you cannot tolerate the fact that the Asmara government, some members of which also possess American citizenship, is targeting Eritrean exiles – of whom there are many in the United States – for extortion and threatening them with reprisals against their friends and relatives remaining in the homeland, who are already being terrorized. For many years, Reporters Without Borders has been urging that the assets of certain identified leaders be frozen, that they be prohibited from entering the U.S., and that the Eritrean Ambassador to the United States be summoned without delay. The same sort of pressure needs to be placed on the Gambian government, which continues to ignore appeals from the international community, and the injunctions issued by the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) concerning the disappearance, in July 2007, of “Chief” Ebrima Manneh, a reporter for the Daily Observer. Pursuing this logic, it would be in the best interest of U.S. intelligence services to make public the information they have on the circumstances surrounding the murder, in 2004, of Deyda Hydara, editor-in-chief of Gambia’s private daily newspaper, The Point. Our organization, which had conducted two in-depth investigations on this matter, has certain details that placing the security services surrounding President Yahya Jammeh under strong suspicion.

Worldwide, there are too many of these closed-off States adept at double talk and ready to exchange a strategic position in return for impunity. How can any serious diplomatic relations-ones which truly promote peace and security-be established with regimes that are exercising draconian control over information? Syria cannot claim that it should be considered a reliable negotiating partner in the Middle East if, at the same time, it continues to violate the principles that this ambition demands. It must provide proof by releasing cyberdissidents Homam Hassan Haddad, Habib Saleh, Tariq Biasi, Kareem Arabji, Firas Saad, Muhened Abdulrahman and journalist Michel Kilo, who are being held arbitrarily. This requirement also applies to Myanmar, where dozens of recently arrested journalists and political opponents are serving their sentences under disgraceful conditions. The United States has everything to gain by strengthening the UN mandate in this country, without which contacts with the ruling junta may be permanently broken off. A dangerous isolationism, conducive to the worst kinds of human rights violations, is also at work in the strategic region of the Central Asian Republics, where Russia has regained its influence, to the detriment of that of Western countries.

The consistency and credibility of U.S. foreign policy will depend upon the ability of your administration to demonstrate the same vigilance in relations with your partners and allies. As a member of the UN Security Council and a key actor in what has become a multipolar world, Russia merits special attention. Disarmament constitutes a necessary yet inadequate step to ensure that the Kremlin can inspire confidence in the international community. The rejection of transparency by Moscow’s leaders can be seen in the troubling repression against civil society and the opposition. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006, undoubtedly paid with her life for having informed the world of the horrors committed by Russian troops in Chechnya. No democracy can withstand the scrutiny of the international community and its media when it yields to the temptation to act for the worst. The Israeli offensive in Gaza, which led you to appoint a new U.S. envoy in the person of George Mitchell, reminded us of this.

Like other countries whose populations have grown mainly as a result of immigration, the United States must prepare itself to accommodate journalists fleeing oppression and terror, and grant them asylum. Afghans, Iranians, Eritreans-they are also coming in from neighboring countries, like Mexican Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, unjustly detained for seven months by the immigration services in El Paso, Texas, merely for having sought to save his own life and that of his young son. This case is the consequence of the deadly drug cartel war, intensified by the violence of the authorities, which is grieving Mexico. As you promised, Mr. President, during a meeting with President Felipe Calderón prior to your inauguration, the American and Mexican governments need to join forces if they are to secure the border between the two countries, without which no Rule of Law can exist there.

Elsewhere in Latin America, the havoc wrought by the drug traffic and paramilitarism are draining all sense from the constitutional principles previously taken for granted. In this respect, like certain members of the U.S. Congress, we would ask that Plan Colombia’s funding – so costly for the American taxpayer – be reviewed in proportion to the actual efforts being made by Bogota authorities on behalf of human rights. President Alvaro Uribe has too often connived and made irresponsible statements that have placed in jeopardy journalists of whom he did not approve, or forced them into exile. Finally, your willingness to relax the clauses of the embargo imposed since 1962 on Cuba -the only country of the continent with no free press, and in which there are 23 journalists listed among its 200 political prisoners – may persuade Havana authorities to comply more closely with the international community’s expectations. The embargo, challenged in its principle by virtually all members of the UN’s General Assembly, has done nothing but strengthen the Castrist regime, to the detriment of the Cuban people. It must be raised one day. The island’s future depends upon it.

Mr. President, Madam Secretary of State, we look forward to your response, and thank you for your consideration. I am at your disposal, as is Lucie Morillon, our Washington D.C. bureau director, should you have any questions or desire further clarification regarding the situation of journalists and press freedom around the world.

Yours very respectfully,

Jean-François Julliard

Reporters Without Borders
Secretary-General

And there couldn’t have been a more perfect vignette for the theme of our Sports columnist Mark Starr’s excellent piece on football as the metaphor for America. Starr argues that in the end of the day the gridiron doesn’t work as the organizing principle that captures who we are. We are just too complex a country, Starr writes, to be defined by any one sport. And after all the new President is all about basketball.

Petraeus is a man who captures the complexity of America, and who understands the complexity of the challenges the military faces in its struggle against terrorism. I watched Petraeus standing at mid-field at the start of the game and couldn’t help but think, he is about to toss a much more important coin in Afghanistan.

The planned troop surge in Afghanistan is a mission of chance in which he is hoping that it might help stabilize The Forgotten War. For the last six years, George W. Bush’s administration neglected the situation in Afghanistan, leaving the intelligence gathering and special operations to what was at best the B-team. President Obama has vowed to change course and double the number of US troops in Afghanistan. General Petraeus, as the head of Central Command, is completely supportive of the move and indeed had been pushing for it behind the scenes in the Bush presidency for a long time.

In the last six years, I have had a chance to observe General Petraeus up close. I was covering his 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in the first phase of the war; I met with him again in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where he and his team re-wrote the military counter-insurgency manual, I was embedded with some of his troops during the surge in Baghdad in March 2008; and I interviewed him in Washington where he unflinchingly stood before congress and told a bitterly divided country that there was no military victory in Iraq to be achieved, only a “political solution.” The surge, he said, would be the only way for the US to help Iraq find that political solution.

And Iraqi voters who safely made their way to the polls this time walked in a path cleared by the successes of Petraeus’ surge. It was Petraeus’ military leadership that made yesterday possible, and that should be recognized in all the analysis that will be going on about the results.

Our two correspondents in the field, Tom Peter and Jane Arraf, have done an outstanding job keeping us up to date on the details on the ground.

Arraf, who is also there reporting for the Christian Science Monitor, is our regional editor for the Middle East. She brings to our coverage the eye of an experienced veteran who has covered Iraq since the US led invasion in 2003 and many years before that. Her Reporter’s Notebook today from northern Iraq is a fine example of what it is to gather ‘ground truth.’

So keep checking on GlobalPost coverage of Iraq for Jane’s big-picture, election analysis which will be coming in the next few days.

The voting in Iraq came on the last day of a month in which Iraq recorded its lowest levels of violence and killing since the US led invasion began in 2003.

According to the AFP, January’s death toll was down 42 percent from December, which was at the time the lowest figure for three years. Iraq is still a very dangerous place with a total of 191 civilians, soldiers and police killed during the last 30 days. Eight candidates were killed in the run-up to the vote. And some analysts have argued that the relative calm may also be simply because those insurgents and other groups still fighting had decided not to strike. Voter turnout was low at about 55 percent. Still, who could deny that Iraq is on the road to stability even if it is not yet there?
The country has undeniably seen a turn around since the execution of the surge strategy which was conceived by Petraeus, who more than any other military leader in America has the intellectual capacity and sheer stamina to confront the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead for the US and its diminishing role in Iraq and its new level of engagement in Afghanistan.

Whether Petraeus’ newly forming strategy to increase troop levels can succeed in Afghanistan the way his surge appears to be succeeding Iraq is, well, a coin toss.

It was Napolean who, when asked what kind of generals he wants, answered, “Lucky ones.”

Let’s hope Petraeus calls it right in Afghanistan.

At the stroke of midnight, we officially launch.

Welcome to GlobalPost. And welcome to GroundTruth.

This blog is a place where you can come every day to be taken behind the scenes of GlobalPost and hear about what our correspondents are working on and how they managed to unearth great stories.
Here I will be highlighting reporting from the field by our 65 correspondents who live in the countries about which they write. Every day they will be out there finding and reporting the kind of stories that are close to the ground and can enlighten you about the corner of the world they cover.

We call that “GroundTruth.”

Starting tomorrow, I will use the blog to provide you with a guide on how to navigate the site. I want to take you through how it works. There are “Dispatches,” which are our correspondent feeds from the field, and “Latitudes,” which are areas of coverage that cut across national boundaries and connect us all. The “Latitudes” are themes such as global health, climate change, diplomacy, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), cars and their relationship to the world, sports, and more. Each of them has a veteran correspondent assigned to them who you can follow week in and week out.

I also want to draw your eyes to the “Timelines,” which are on most of the country pages. Here we have tried to offer you the historical and current context that is required to understand the news. These ”Timelines” are interactive tools for you to have facts and the sweep of history at the click of a button. We’re very proud of these Timelines and we hope you will explore the world and its history through them. Twenty-five of them are up on the site now and more will be rolled out over the next few months.

I also hope you will take some time to view the “Go there” multimedia player that is located on our homepage. The lead video on the home page for our first day is titled “Afghanistan: An Accordion Journey” by Gregory Warner. Greg, a writer and freelance reporter for NPR whose work has appeared on This American Life and Radio Lab, combined his audio recordings for public radio with video he shot on his own to produce a GlobalPost multimedia essay that is mesmerizing and funny and ultimately a great story about a journey through Afghanistan. It’s exactly the kind of storytelling that we want to do here at GlobalPost.

This video is part of our series “For Which It Stands.” And there is a guide to the “For Which It Stands” series available for you to navigate what is a large body of work focused around a single question: “What does the idea of America mean to the world?” The series begins at launch and will culiminate with the inauguration of President Obama and continue through the first 100 days of his presidency.

In the coming days, I will go deeper into the series and the great writing, photography and videography that has gone into it.

For months, I’ve been blogging about the process of our launch from my journey around the world this fall recruiting correspondents to the count down in the last few days as our web development team and editorial staff worked almost around the clock to be ready for this launch. And we are ready.

We are officially launched as of this moment, but our ace web developer Jason Oliver of Mochila actually pushed the button to transfer over our beta site to go live on Saturday night. It was precisely 11:11 PM EST on January 10. 2009 when he began the propagation of the GlobalPost.com domain name, or URL, to the web.

As a heavy snow fell silently over Boston, the physical act of launching the site was only represented by the clattering of a keyboard and Jason’s announcement, “Okay, I just hit the button. We’re live! Congratulations.”