In yet another dose of doublespeak from the US military, Admiral Mike Mullen said of the recent increase in violence in southern Afghanistan, There are going to be these kinds of spikes, in particular these spectacular assassinations. There are some who believe this is all they can do, given the challenges that the Taliban have [...]
Human Rights Watch recently drew our attention to a recent spate of killings by armed groups in Colombia, gone virtually unreported here. On July 2, members of the Marxist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) murdered seven civilians. FARC is very much against the U.S.-supported government of Colombia and has been wreaking havoc [...]
Jeffrey Goldberg apparently doctored his Friday post on the Norway attacks to make himself look less bigoted and ridiculous. Read “Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, and Journalistic Ethics” and “No Shame at The Atlantic?” for details. I’ll go ahead and resolve that question mark by directing you to this.
As I’ve written earlier, al-Shabaab is competing for the title of “Terror Group of the Month” with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Thanks to America’s collective, short-term memory loss, the Underwear Bomber and printer bomb plot have been all but forgotten. Al-Shabaab is the young, rising star. Pushing it to further prominence was a [...]
Today I spoke with Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio about this week’s Viewpoints and my criteria for selecting opinion pieces (no link yet). Here are some of the pieces we discussed: David J. Theroux: “Ending Invasive Wars” Gene Healy: “Lessons From Norway’s Horror” Jeff Huber: “Iran Ate My Homework. Again.” Anthony Gregory: “Illusions of Security [...]
A couple weeks ago, Human Right Watch issued a report calling for a criminal investigation of Bush administration officials for the illegal regime of torture and detainee mistreatment implemented following the attack of September 11th. The report recommends the investigation of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director [...]
