As Eric mentioned on the blog last week, Charley Reese has passed away. He was one of the nation's best newspaper columnists. I never met him in person but he and I exchanged a few letters. He struck me as the incarnation of a thoughtful, considerate, Southern...
NSA Whistleblower: Obama’s Attacks on the Press Indicate a ‘Soft Tyranny’
In an interview with The Daily Caller, NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake the Obama administration's targeting of journalists, their sources, and government whistleblowers is an attack on the First Amendment. “[R]eporters have shared with me privately that some of their...
Meet the Post-AUMF Executive War Powers, Same as the Old Ones
There's a discussion over at the Lawfare blog about whether or not finally repealing the expansive war powers authorized in the 2001 AUMF will actually do anything to constrain Obama and future U.S. presidents. Mind you, the Lawfare crowd includes former Bush...
Don’t Arm Syria’s Rebels: The ‘Vetting Process’ Is A Lie
According to Angel Rabasa of the RAND Corp., we really need to start directly arming the Syrian rebels. How do we do that without bolstering the influence and lethality of extremist groups? Simple, he says: just "establish as soon as possible a task force to organize...
How Should We Memorialize the War Dead?
In the U.S., our job for today is clear. It's Memorial Day and there are a solemn thoughts to have and wreaths to lay. "Ultimate sacrifice" must be repeated again and again. And as MSNBC's Chris Hayes learned last year, best not to raise even the smallest question of...
Memorial Day Perspective
From the Facebook page of Robert Higgs, a photograph of an injured Iraqi boy and an important reminder: If this is what must to done to "protect my freedoms," I greatly prefer that my freedoms be left for me to protect. Of course, it's all pretentious rubbish. The...
‘Limited Intervention’ in Syria Won’t Work Either
Advocates of U.S. military action in Syria have grown fond of responding to opponents of intervention with what they seem to think is a 'gotcha.' Opponents of intervention keep warning of the potential catastrophe of getting involved in another Middle Eastern conflict...
How to Spin a Genocide
The Rios Montt trial set back a month and will now likely collapse, a sad day for international justice. But for neoconservatives, the decision is good news, because Reagan’s shady connections with Montt have been exposed (for the few willing to discover them). And...
Michael Hastings Calls Shenanigans on Obama’s Drone Speech
Iran War Weekly | May 26, 2013
Per Frank Brodhead's Iran War Weekly: While huge majorities of the US public oppose war with Iran or US intervention in Syria, Congress and the mainstream US media have stepped up the pressure for a more aggressive stance on both fronts. With these factors in mind, we...


