In yet another dose of doublespeak from the US military, Admiral Mike Mullen said of the recent increase in violence in southern Afghanistan, There are going to be these kinds of spikes, in particular these spectacular assassinations. There are some who believe this...
Human Rights Watch recently drew our attention to a recent spate of killings by armed groups in Colombia, gone virtually unreported here. On July 2, members of the Marxist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) murdered seven civilians. FARC is...
Jeffrey Goldberg apparently doctored his Friday post on the Norway attacks to make himself look less bigoted and ridiculous. Read "Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, and Journalistic Ethics" and "No Shame at The Atlantic?" for details. I'll go ahead and resolve that...
As I've written earlier, al-Shabaab is competing for the title of "Terror Group of the Month" with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Thanks to America's collective, short-term memory loss, the Underwear Bomber and printer bomb plot have been all but forgotten....
Today I spoke with Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio about this week's Viewpoints and my criteria for selecting opinion pieces (no link yet). Here are some of the pieces we discussed: David J. Theroux: "Ending Invasive Wars" Gene Healy: "Lessons From Norway's Horror" Jeff...
A couple weeks ago, Human Right Watch issued a report calling for a criminal investigation of Bush administration officials for the illegal regime of torture and detainee mistreatment implemented following the attack of September 11th. The report recommends the...
Jason Ditz reported today on the contradictory claims simultaneously coming from the government about al Qaeda's strength or weakness now and going forward. Chris Preble has a related post up at Cato: A front-page story in today’s Washington Post reports that al Qaeda...
If your representative has not signed Lee-Jones letter on Iraq, please call his or her office now. The Capitol Hill Switchboard line is 202-225-3121. The list of current signers to "Bring all U.S. Troops and Military Contractors in Iraq Home by Dec. 31, 2011" is...
In yet another attempt at destabilizing Iran, Hillary Clinton will soon announce a decision by US State Department on whether or not to remove Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or "the people's holy warriors," from its terrorism registry. Trita Parsi, president of the National...
Last week I reported on an "audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction [which] concluded that lack of oversight or control of where money is disbursed has left vast sums of U.S. aid “vulnerable to fraud or diversion to insurgents.” Today...
