World War 4 Report has been keeping a dispassionate record of Barack Obama's moves in dismantling, continuing and escalating (he has done all three) the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) established by the Bush White House. On the second anniversary of his inauguration, we offer the following annotated assessment of which moves have been on balance positive, neutral and negative, and arrive at an overall score:

The Obama administration may increase its use of controversial military commissions for Guantánamo Bay detainees, according to a New York Times report Jan. 20. Per the report, administration officials plan to rescind an order issued on Obama's first day in office that halted military commission proceedings and continues to block the government from initiating new cases under the system. If done, filings are expected within weeks, which would represent the first time that new charges are brought against detainees during the Obama administration. Officials are also reportedly drafting a new executive order that would establish mechanisms by which to review the cases of those detainees held without trial.

US troops will stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, with Kabul's permission, Vice President Joe Biden said last week. While insisting the US does not intend "to govern or nation-build" as that "is the responsibility of the Afghan people and they are fully capable of it," Biden added: "We stand ready to help you in that effort ... after 2014." Biden's comments come a month after he told NBC's "Meet the Press" that the US would be "totally out" of Afghanistan by 2014 "come hell or high water."

Neo-Nazis have taken over the entire village of Jamel in Germany's northeastern Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. "The police, the authorities, no one dares to intervene," Uwe Wandel, mayor of the district that includes the village, told Der Spiegel. Jamel is home to Sven Kruger, a leader of the ultra-right National Democratic Party, an openly Hitler-nostalgist outfit that has had seats in the state parliament since 2006. Kruger and his allies have bought up nearly the whole village and driven others out, the magazine reports. Horst Lohmeyer, one of the few residents to oppose the extremists, said, "They see Jamel as a 'nationally liberated zone'"—meaning a place foreigners and anti-fascists must fear to tread. (UPI, Jan. 3)

The neocon conspiracies can't be far behind now. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (proudly billing itself "A Global Think-Tank") notes the suddenness with which the moniker "Jasmine Revolution" has been adopted (and mostly by intellectuals abroad, not protesters in Tunis). But he notes the differences between Tunisia and Georgia ("Rose"), Ukraine ("Orange") and Kyrgyzstan ("Tulip"). Requisite Sorosphobobia is already in evidence. Dr. KR Bolton asks in Foreign Policy Journal: "Tunisian Revolt: Another Soros/NED Jack-Up?" But his screed makes no mention of George Soros or National Endowment for Democracy programs in Tunisia—only in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan.

Former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier was charged Jan. 18 with corruption, theft, misappropriation of funds and other unnamed crimes. Duvalier underwent several hours of questioning, and, although he was released, he does not have the right to leave Haiti. Duvalier returned to Haiti from exile in France on Jan. 16, stating that he had come to offer assistance to help the country recover from last year's earthquake. On Jan. 17, Amnesty International called for Haitian authorities to prosecute Duvalier for human rights violations committed during his time in power. Amnesty claimed Duvalier and his regime committed acts of "systematic torture," including the disappearance or execution hundreds of pro-democracy activists at the hands of Haiti's armed forces and paramilitary force, the Tonton Macoutes. There has been no comment from Haitian authorities as to whether Duvalier will eventually be charged on these rights violations.

For the second year in a row, a federal court in Columbus, Georgia, has sentenced activists to six-month prison terms for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base during protests against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). This is the maximum sentence for the offense, and US federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth surprised observers when he imposed the penalty on three activists in January 2010.

On Jan. 14 Guyana's Foreign Ministry announced that the country was recognizing Palestine as an independent nation in the hope that "that the increasing recognition of the state of Palestine will contribute to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the creation of lasting peace and stability in the region." Guyana is the sixth South American country to recognize Palestine in a little more than a month. (Haaretz, Israel, Jan. 14)