Via Ma'an News, Israel is close to carrying out plans to forcibly displace tens of thousands of Bedouin Palestinians in southern Israel, demolishing their villages, and erecting new Jewish settlements in their place. Israel's Prawer Plan calls for the relocation of...
Barton Gellman Vs. Michael Hayden
The Washington Post's Bart Gellman, one of the journalists in possession of the full cache of Edward Snowden's leaked NSA documents, debated former NSA/CIA chief Michael Hayden yesterday. Lengthy, but worth watching.
November 11 Should Still be Called Armistice Day
The British and the Canadians call today Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day. In the United States, it's been known as Veterans Day since the end of the Korean War. Americans are much more divorced from WWI than people in Europe or Canada. Understandable, since the...
Bush Called Them ‘Unlawful Enemy Combatants.’ Obama Calls Them ‘Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents.’
The Washington Post reported last week that hundreds of Afghan detainees held at Bagram airbase were transferred to Kabul's control, as per earlier agreements, and hundreds were simply released. At Lawfare, Robert Chesney was none too happy about this, arguing they...
Why Did France Torpedo the Iran Negotiations?
The big news coming out of the Iran negotiations at the end of last week was that France took an unexpectedly rejectionist stance in the talks and refused a deal that was all but agreed upon. One of the reasons this was a huge deal is that the P5+1 and Iran really did...
Will Jeh Johnson Make the Homeland More Secure?
Jeh Johnson, President Obama’s pick to replace outgoing Secretary Janet Napolitano as head of the Department of Homeland Security, will appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee this week for his confirmation hearing. Johnson is an obscure figure to the...
Former NSA Chief: I Can’t Prove Any Harm to National Security From Snowden Leaks
The public editor at the New York Times reported the following: [Former director of the NSA Michael] Hayden told me that he can’t prove any harm to national security from the publication of the eavesdropping stories... That must have been when he wasn't toeing the...
Why Netanyahu Is So Enraged by a Deal with Iran
Secretary of State John Kerry's last minute decision to make a surprise visit to Geneva, Switzerland, where negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran are rapidly progressing, led to an enormous amount of speculation that a first-step deal was imminent and may even be...
US Soldiers Participate in Torture of Afghan Detainees
The Rolling Stone's Matthieu Aikins, who reported on alleged U.S. war crimes of torture, executions, and disappearances in Afghanistan, has posted another short piece and a video depicting U.S. soldiers standing by as Afghan forces whip a detainee. Aikins: The scene...
