If this question had been asked by a fictional character in a spy thriller, it might intrigue you, but you wouldn’t imagine that it could be true in reality. If the Constitution means what it says, you wouldn’t even consider the plausibility of an affirmative answer. After all, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution was …
Continue reading “Is the CIA in Your Kitchen?”
Think about it for a minute. People who passionately want the United States to go to war should have to accept that there will be consequences for themselves personally. This is why the U.S. Constitution mandated that only Congress could vote to go to war, denying the authority to do so to the office of …
Continue reading “The No-Fault March to War”
Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi alleges the government tortured one of his bodyguards to death while in detention. Meanwhile, at least 22 Iraqis were killed and 30 more were wounded.
Last week I spent two days in court for a pretrial motions hearing in the court martial of Bradley Manning, the private accused of leaking documents to WikiLeaks that showed widespread unethical and illegal behavior by the Department of Defense and State Department. Manning has suffered the fate the Queen put on Alice when she …
Continue reading “Dismissal Is the Only Option in Bradley Manning Case”
Despite strenuous efforts by prominent neoconservatives and other hawks, a war-weary U.S. public is clearly very leery of any armed intervention in what many experts believe is rapidly becoming a civil war in Syria, according to recent polls. In a survey released last week, the Pew Research Center found that only 25% of respondents said …
Continue reading “Poll Shows Little US Support for Syria Intervention”
Attorney General Eric Holder is to be lauded for looking into the constitutionality of the New York City Police Department’s wholesale snooping into the lives of people based purely on their Muslim faith. Because Holder is a busy man, he could save a lot of time by just pulling out the U.S. Constitution and reading …
Continue reading “NYPD Should Leave Muslims Alone”
We’ve heard all about staff sergeant Robert Bales, who murdered 16 Afghan civilians – most of them children – and is now being held by the US military, although he has yet to be formally charged. We’ve heard about his alleged PTSD, his marital problems, his “good deeds,” the shock and surprise of his friends …
Continue reading “George Packer and the Unfathomable”
Math has never been my strong suit, but even I can see that the Pentagon — whose officials treat “weapons program” and “cost overrun” as synonyms — has a monster math problem. Not surprisingly, it’s also a place that has never successfully passed an audit. Its top officials have talked endlessly about the giant cuts …
Continue reading “Republican Math and the Pentagon Budget”
VIENNA — The first detailed account of negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran last month belies earlier statements by unnamed Western officials portraying Iran as refusing to cooperate with the IAEA in allaying concerns about alleged nuclear weaponization work. The detailed account given by Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar …
Continue reading “Details of Talks with IAEA Belie Charge Iran Refused Cooperation”
At least 63 Iraqis were killed and 257 more were wounded in a series of attacks that took place a day after the ninth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. While the date may be significant, the attacks could also be a simple prelude to Arab League related violence.
