Like a bad penny, Newt Gingrich is back, this time demanding that Tea Partiers grab their muskets for the next revolution – in fact it's a World War – looming on the horizon. While it sounds farcical, Gingrich's usual demagoguery and naked opportunism have taken on an...
Taking a Look at New ‘Antiwar’ Republicans
Post-9/11 Militarism Helps BP, Hurts America
Down on the bayou, reporters and activists have been pulled over and questioned by British Petroleum security guards and local police because they might be “terrorists.” Journalists have been kicked off public property, detained, harassed, and forced to hand over...
The Dark Legacy of Gen. McChrystal
Gen. Stanley McChrystal might have left town through the back door with his four stars barely intact, his 35-year career in the Army humiliatingly cut short by a lack of judgment with a counterculture magazine. But in reality, he got off easy. As a four-star popular...
Exum’s Challenge: Game On!
As the dust was settling on what has been glibly called the “Rolling Stan” affair, it became apparent that the biggest damage that reporter Michael Hastings wrought was not in exposing Gen. Stan McChrystal and his staff for their impolitic grumblings, but in...
Obama Is No Superman
As the ecology in the Gulf circles the sticky tar drain of evolution, and countless livelihoods spanning at least four states going down with it, Americans are wondering where their Superman is. The disappointment that President Barack Obama seems stuck in the phone...
COIN Think-Tank Jumps Shark
The first thing one noticed about this year's annual conference for the Center for a New American Security – the think-tank for the Washington defense and foreign policy establishment today – is how un-newsworthy it was. In fact, Google it, and pretty much nothing...
Wali Karzai: A Deal We Should Refuse
There is a “chubby” man with a big smile on his face sitting in the middle of the crossroads at Kandahar. He is smiling, no doubt, because he knows he has the power to influence the success or failure of the international military mission in Afghanistan today. And he...
Reflections on Rolling Thunder
WASHINGTON – It is all too clear why we can't seem to protest our way out of this war. And as a result, the war itself may never end. In fact, Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently suggested that “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan may be just that – “enduring” –...
Rand Paul Drinks Tea, Turns Into Hawk?
"When it is said that nothing, including a nuclear strike, is off the table on Iran, are those who say it not also threatening genocide?" - Rep. Ron Paul, May 22, 2007 “I don't think you take [nuclear weapons] off the table.” - Rand Paul on Iran, The O'Reilly Factor,...