What's the difference between murder and massacre? The answer is Terry Halbardier, whose bravery and ingenuity as a 23-year-old Navy seaman spelled the difference between the murder of 34 of the USS Liberty crew and the intended massacre of all 294. The date was June...
Watching retired Gen. Colin Powell cite Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan during Sunday's Memorial Day ceremonies on the Mall in Washington, it struck me that Powell was giving hypocrisy a bad name. Those familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan and the...
If we hear in the coming days that former vice president Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters – or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz – it will be clear why. Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an inadvertent...
The announcement in mid-March that CIA Director Leon Panetta had picked former Sen. Warren Rudman to act as CIA "liaison" with the Senate Intelligence Committee during its "review" of interrogation and detention practices has drawn virtually no...
The prose of the recently leaked report of the International Committee of the Red Cross [.pdf] on torture seems colorless. It is at the same time obscene – almost pornographic. The 41-page ICRC report depicts scenes of prisoners forced to remain naked for long...
