Violence is rising in Iraq: Eight people, including four policemen, and 27 wounded Tuesday when insurgents burst into the offices of the Diyala provincial council north of Baghdad, police said. The attack was similar to the assault in March on the officials of the...
Qaddafi forces shelled an oil refinery in the rebel stronghold of Misrata yesterday. It's likely this was an intentional target, hit in order to undermine an important American interest in the country. On another note, here's an interesting read from Foreign Policy on...
From the WSJ: A U.S. plan to fund the democratic transition in Egypt has led to a confrontation with the country's new rulers, who are suspicious of American aims and what they see as political interference in the aftermath of President Hosni Mubarak's downfall....
Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation: As we debate an exit from Afghanistan, it’s critical that we focus not only on the costs of deploying the current force of more than 100,000 troops, but also on the costs of maintaining permanent bases long after those troops...
This perfectly exemplifies the intensity of American nationalism, which makes U.S. officials incapable of recognizing the principle of universality. Hypocrite is a much simpler term: focus on the crimes of others, ignore your own. During an hour and 40 minute meeting...
Glenn Greenwald has a brilliant piece up today on what seem to be the real reasons behind the war in Libya: oil. Much of the war has actually seemed extremely odd, as if it didn’t match up. There seemed to be many more reasons for the administration not to get...
The horror the Assad regime is unleashing on the Syrian people is the culmination of some of the worst atrocities in this Arab Spring. Details like body counts are occasionally available from elsewhere in Syria, but in Jisr al-Shughour, where thousands of Syrian...
With the 40-year-late full release of the Pentagon Papers, CNN conducted an interview with the famous whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg. To me, this was the central question: On June 23, 1971, in an interview with CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, you said, "I think the...
The decision to make Leon Panetta Secretary of Defense was a very conscious one. Fundamentally, it wasn't so much a strategic change in personnel, but rather a calculated decision to expel the American people from any consciousness of foreign policy. It is easier to...
In Singapore last week, Defense Secretary Gates spoke at an International Institute for Strategic Studies meeting and argued for “sustaining a robust [U.S.] military presence in Asia.” He spoke of overcoming “anti-access and area denial scenarios” that the U.S....
