Last month in this space we discussed the role of top foreign policy/national security think tanks as standard-bearers for the military establishment and political status quo in Washington. It’s a dizzy game that is no doubt taken seriously by many scholars who are quite earnest and impassioned about their respective fields of research, but it …
Continue reading “The Hive and the Heterodoxy”
Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi again claimed that his guards have been tortured while in detention on trumped-up terrorism charges. Meanwhile, at least eight Iraqis were killed and 27 more were wounded.
A Russian general has threatened military action if the US and its NATO allies go ahead and build a “missile shield” in Eastern Europe: “A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens,” say Russian chief of staff Nikolai Makarov. That the “shield” is of dubious effectiveness, and is mainly …
Continue reading “Foreign Policy Theater of the Absurd”
A year after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs, letters written by al-Qaeda’s former leader paint a picture of an organization that was a shadow of its former self — certainly not the terrorist group with global reach that was able to attack America on Sept. 11, 2001. Addressing the nation after …
Continue reading “Stick a Fork in al-Qaeda”
A letter on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was released to the public through a state newspaper yesterday. Four senior politicians, who had met last month in Kurdistan, sent the letter summarizing coalition demands to Maliki’s political bloc. Meanwhile, light violence over the weekend left eight killed and nine wounded.
Andrew Napolitano on the drone war
Uri Avnery on an Israeli ‘coup’
At least six Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded in new violence. Also, several attacks against political targets failed to leave casualties.
A few days after US Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a "senior intelligence official" briefing reporters on the materials seized from bin Laden’s compound said the materials revealed that bin Laden had "continued to direct even tactical details of the group’s management." Bin Laden was, "not just a …
Continue reading “The Truth Behind the Official Story of Finding Bin Laden”
The Taliban won anyhow, says Pat Buchanan
