Rosa Brooks writes in Foreign Policy about our "socialist military." According to the Congressional Budget Office, the average member of the military is paid better than 75 percent of civilian federal workers with comparable experience. Members of the military and...
‘A Rogue CIA’ That Can Bully the President
Via Andrew Sullivan: Assuming Mayer's account is correct, consider the implications of the country's main intelligence agency - an unaccountable group whose actions are secret mostly because they're illegal - bullying a new president into not applying the rule of law...
Drones and Due Process
An excerpt of Noam Chomsky's latest contribution to TomDispatch: The concept of due process has been extended under the Obama administration’s international assassination campaign in a way that renders this core element of the Charter of Liberties (and the...
Obama is Being More Open About Regime Change in Syria
After a week of Syrian rebel gains - killing several top security officials and seizing control of multiple border outposts - the Obama administration is being more open about its policy of regime change in Syria. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East...
Obama Cramping Habeas’s Style at Gitmo
This New York Times editorial laments the Obama administration's decision to prohibit lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees from visiting their clients, in a policy that "is imperiously punishing detainees for their temerity in bringing legal challenges to their...
Amid Increased Uncertainty, Syrian Observatory Numbers Even Less Credible
According to reports, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) is claiming that more than 300 people - 98 soldiers, 139 civilians and 65 rebels - were killed in Syria on Thursday. This would make it the highest death toll in a single day for the whole of the...
The Elite Debate on Iran
For several months now, Foreign Affairs magazine has featured something of a back-and-forth debate about Iran, its nuclear program, and war. In the January/February edition, Matthew Kroenig, Georgetown professor and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations wrote a...
Israel’s Evidence-less Blaming of Iran in Bulgaria Bombing
Via Laura Rozen, this video was released by Bulgarian authorities and allegedly shows the man suspected of blowing up the bus full of Israelis yesterday. Bulgarian authorities on Thursday released a video of the man suspected of being the bus bomber, and said that he...
Agenda-Setting Civilian Elite More Militarized Than Top Brass?
Micah Zenko on Op-Ed militarism: There is no body of civilians that more consistently makes unrealistic demands for the use of military force than editorial boards and opinion-page writers of major American news outlets. These appeals range from full-blown cockamamie...
US Playing Double Game in Egypt, in Case of Disobedience
Esam Al-Amin describes US policy towards Egypt: In this high stakes of international power play the U.S. strategy in the region is to prefer a managed transition to civilian rule and democratic governance as long as the American major strategic objectives are not...


