Ryan McCarl

Ryan McCarl is a writer and student at the University of North Carolina School of Law. He writes about education at WideAwakeMinds.com.

Use of Predators Sets Dangerous Precedent

In May, as an intervention that was slated to last “days, not weeks” approached its third month, President Obama quietly authorized the use of unmanned Predator drones against Libyan government troops. This news was greeted with indifference by the American press and public, suggesting that many Americans have stopped asking questions about how the costly, … Continue reading “Use of Predators Sets Dangerous Precedent”

Rolling the Dice in Libya

President Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination in 2008 partly by reminding the party’s base of his early, prescient criticisms of the ill-fated decision to invade Iraq. “What I am opposed to is a dumb war … a rash war,” then-Senator Obama explained in 2002. Obama was right to call the Iraq War “dumb” and … Continue reading “Rolling the Dice in Libya”

Resist the Urge to Confront Kim Jong-Il

The more one learns about North Korea – its unconscionable human rights violations, its gulags and summary executions, the way it locks its citizens in and tortures or kills them when they try to escape over the Chinese border, the way every foreign visitor must follow a strict itinerary and be accompanied by a government … Continue reading “Resist the Urge to Confront Kim Jong-Il”