As a child, I sometimes browsed magazines in my doctor’s waiting room. One day while flipping through the pages I came across a photograph of a beaming young woman enjoying a picturesque view of a meadow. Underneath the photo in a small box was a message in black and white — issued, I thought, by …
Continue reading “The Curious Case of Omar Khadr”
Robyn Blumner: should defense lawyers need a license?
A recent exposé in the Washington Post shows that if you have a security clearance and are comfortable being part of a lucrative "self-licking ice cream cone" — a process that offers few if any benefits while perpetuating its own existence — then the "war on terror" is definitely for you! The conclusion that the Long War …
Continue reading “Terror’s Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone”
Pena on what $7 billion buys us
BRUSSELS – Private information on innocent citizens will be handed over to U.S. law enforcement authorities under an agreement slated for approval by the European Parliament this week.In February, members of the Parliament (MEPs) rejected a plan to allow data on everyday bank transactions be given to the U.S., citing concerns over fundamental civil rights. …
Continue reading “European Parliament Set to Approve Snooping Bill”
Barack Obama may not have come into office pledging to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan, but he did pledge one thing: to close the Bush-era prison at Guantánamo within a year. That couldn’t have been clearer. And as I wrote back then, it was also a reasonable basis on which to judge whether a …
Continue reading “Plotting Terrorism”
Statement in the House by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas on funding the war in Afghanistan. In January 1991, we went to war in the Middle East against Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s dictator who was our ally during the Iran-Iraq war. A border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq broke out after our State Department gave a …
Continue reading “The War That’s Not a War”
Since the invasion of Afghanistan for the purpose of overthrowing its government, I have wondered what to call the stupidity of the operative theory. There is no superior strategy for getting Bin Laden than the strategy of getting Bin Laden. Anything other than that is hoping he will be hit by a stray bullet. The …
Continue reading “The Stray Bullet Theory”
Breaking from President Barack Obama’s insistence on "moving forward, not backward" in investigating U.S. detainee torture, the British government appears poised to investigate its own complicity with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in "rendering" British citizens and residents and subjecting them to "enhanced interrogation" techniques. The British newspaper, The Guardian, is reporting that Prime …
Continue reading “Britain to Probe Collaboration with CIA Renditions”
Ten U.S. citizens or lawful residents are suing the government for placing them on the "no-fly" list without notice or due process and then giving them no way to get their names off the list. The first-of-its-kind lawsuit was filed seeking relief for the plaintiffs who are prohibited from flying to or from the United …
Continue reading “Stuck in No-Fly Limbo” 
