You probably already know that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is an amateur history buff, and that one of the ways he tantalizes the public is by authoring weirdly prescient histories of modern political conflicts. Thus, his 1998 book All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime featured an odd foreshadowing of the debate we've been having about executive power and national security since 9/11, and his 1992 book Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson popularized impeachment, long before the idea of impeaching President Clinton was cool.

US special forces troops have arrived in several north African countries over recent months amid Pentagon warnings that the region runs the risk of becoming an al-Qaida recruiting ground and a possible back door into Europe.