If you prefer charade to reality, inquisition to investigation, trees over forest — the House Government Oversight Committee hearing last Tuesday on “Security Failures of Benghazi” was the thing for you. The hearing was the latest example of the myopic negligence and...
Silence of the Drones
Several friends of mine are among the 35 American activists assembling in Pakistan in recent days in an effort to seek ground truth on the impact of U.S. drone strikes on civilians there. I will be holding them and their Pakistani hosts and co-travelers in the Light,...
Netanyahu Backs Off on Iran
The main takeaway from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s U.N. speech was the inference that he has been forced to relent on the possibility of military action against Iran, with his threats deferred past the U.S. election on Nov. 6 and off into next spring...
Why the Mideast Exploded
“Why Is the Arab world so easily offended?” asks the headline atop an article by Fouad Ajami, which the Washington Post published online last Friday to give perspective to the recent anti-American violence in Muslim capitals. While the Post described Ajami simply as a...
Obama Ruling Shields Torturers
When Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu said last week that the ex-leaders of the U.S. and U.K. should be made to “answer for their actions” in attacking Iraq on the basis of lies, Western savants and pundits greeted the remarks from the retired archbishop of South Africa...
Israel’s ‘Bomb Iran’ Timetable
More Washington insiders are coming to the conclusion that Israel’s leaders are planning to attack Iran before the U.S. election in November in the expectation that American forces will be drawn in. There is widespread recognition that, without U.S. military...
A Persian Gulf ‘Hotline’ Proposed
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity SUBJECT: Avoiding Spiraling Violence in the Persian Gulf We write respectfully to call your attention to the clear and present danger of escalation in the Persian Gulf and to suggest...
Will Downing Street Memo Recur on Iran?
Recent remarks by Sir John Sawers, who heads Britain’s MI6 (the secret intelligence service that is Britain’s CIA counterpart), leave us wondering if Sawers is preparing to “fix” intelligence on Iran, as his immediate predecessor, Sir John Scarlett, did on Iraq....
The Mystery of Arafat’s Death
We may never know with complete certainty whether the still unexplained health crisis that suddenly did in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was due to natural or unnatural causes. But the recent discovery of polonium on Arafat’s clothing, added to a considerable body...


