Dan Simpson, a retired U.S. Ambassador and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist/associate editor, penned a great opinion piece on "extraordinary rendition" and the betrayal of U.S. principles in Wednesday's Post-Gazette.

Money quote:

For me, it takes me back to the days of working in U.S. embassies with repressive governments that showed little respect for the rule of law. These were countries such as Burundi, apartheid-era South Africa, Bulgaria, Zaire and the Central African Republic. In those places, the United States tried hard to keep tabs on political prisoners -- people whom the host governments detained, locked up and frequently never brought to trial. In many cases, the American embassy, the prisoners' families and local human rights groups -- if there were any -- were the only ones trying to monitor these people so that they would not just disappear from view, perhaps to die.

The idea that it is now the United States doing such things -- and that it is American human rights groups who are working with the families and friends of people to see that they don't just disappear into a CIA jail in Poland or Romania, or into the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, or, perhaps worst of all, into some prison in Iraq or Afghanistan, never to be seen again -- is painful and shameful.

What are we doing? What are we becoming?

With "Mr. Right" set to make his bid for the Republican Presidential nomination official in the next few weeks, "America's Mayor" has entered a 12-step program, or so I thought until my morning coffee kicked in.

On Tuesday, June 12, the House Appropriations Committee approved the State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill for FY 2008, which determines the funding levels for the federal government's international programs and contributions to international organizations. This bill marks an important signal of the global priorities of the democratically controlled House.

First the good news:

John B. Bellinger III, the Legal Adviser at the State Department, indictated in a speech he gave at The Hague that a thaw in U.S. relations with the ICC is a real possibility (mostly because of Darfur). Bellinger has been pushing for a more rational policy re: the Court and finally seems to be winning this fight.

Alas there is also some bad news to share.