September 15, 2008
August 31, 2008
August 19, 2008
August 07, 2008
Military commission to GWB: Up yours!
Hamdan gets five-and-a-half years, with five years' credit for time served.
The FBI and Anthrax
The FBI documents indicate a near certainty that Ivins knew that the Anthrax attack came from his lab, and a likelihood that he was involved in the attacks. The FBI has much evidence and analysis that has not been released, and so it is not clear whether Ivins acted alone or even was the prime mover in the plot.
August 01, 2008
"To the gates of Hell": NOT!
The Pakistani ISI is working hand-in-glove with terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And we should ask Pakistani permission before going after bin Laden? I don't think so.
NY Times Magazine: Is Afghanistan a Narco-State
As recently as 2007, the Bush administration deliberately refused to consider effective measures for reducing the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan that funds the Taliban, according to a NYT Magazine piece by a former counter-narcotics officer in a position to know.
Rand Study Refutes Karl Rove on Terror
New Rand Study refutes the value of heavy reliance on US military in dealing with terrorism.
July 23, 2008
Obama, the Surge, and opportunity cost
Surging in Iraq meant not surging in Afghanistan. Yes, the results in Iraq exceeded expectations. But, on balance, did the Surge make us safer?
July 22, 2008
July 17, 2008
July 15, 2008
Bikes, hair dryers, and MI5
Only Mark Kleiman could get to the heart of the FBI's counter-terrorism challenges with a bike and a hair dryer. He's quite right: the FBI's "transformation" ain't pretty. Just last month, a Senate report found that FBI headquarters did not meet security standards to handle classified information. The new head of intelligence at the FBI is -- surprise surprise --...
July 14, 2008
Counter-terrorism at the FBI, or how to dry your hair with a bicycle
Since we need an agency for domestic counter-terrorism, let's build one for the purpose, not ask the FBI to do a job that doesn't fit its culture.
June 25, 2008
Jihadi Violence: Grounds for Optimism?
Lawrence Wright (author of The Looming Tower) in the June 2 New Yorker gives significant examples of violent Islamic fundamentalists renouncing violence. How much better off would we be if we had not become distracted by Iraq and had held true to our values after 2001?
June 22, 2008
June 17, 2008
McCain campaign slimes Obama on terrorism policy
It turns out that on national security the McCain campaign's notion of discussing issues is Rovian name calling. Update: Readers pitch in with additional substance.
June 08, 2008
National Security Policy and Politics
Two articles in the June 12th New York Review of Books remind of us of the gulf between our politics and the reality of what is needed to manage the threat of terrorism. Is it hopelessly naive to think about what the Obama campaign could do to overcome this gulf? Or should it concentrate on beating McCain on the established terrain and transforming it once in office?
May 27, 2008
The Phineas Priesthood
Which major Religious Right figure is doing dog-whistle shout-outs to bunch of terrorists?
May 16, 2008
Another goddamned appeaser
John McCain, two years ago, about negotiating with Hamas: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another."
April 18, 2008
Motes-and-beams dep't
How many of the Republican politicians who are about to beat up on Barack Obama for not acting the Pharisee with William Ayers are entirely unconnected to perpetrators and facilitators of segregationist, anti-Castro, and anti-abortion terrorism?
March 18, 2008
February 14, 2008
Time to Attack
This is a little more like it: If our nation is left vulnerable in the coming months, it will not be because we don't have enough domestic spying powers. It will be because your Administration has not done enough to defeat terrorist organizations - including al Qaeda -- that have gained strength since 9/11. We do not have nearly enough...
January 30, 2008
Third prize is you're fired
Being the number-three guy in Al Qaeda continues to be a very dangerous job.
January 28, 2008
January 18, 2008
A Good Question, Actually
From Roger Simon: "Who would you like to be in the White House if Pakistan fell to al Qaeda and the Islamists gained control of its nuclear arsenal?"
January 17, 2008
Pardon the Telecoms!
If George W. Bush really believes that the telecoms who broke the law by spying on Americans did so for patriotic motives, then why doesn't he just give them a blanket pardon for doing so? From a Bush Administration perspective, such a move has the extra advantage in that it can serve as another chapter in the Permanent Constitutional Crisis...
January 01, 2008
ISI and the Taliban: Distinction without a difference?
Whether the folks who killed Benazir Bhutto were formally working for the Taliban, al Qaeda, or the Pakistani intelligence service doesn't much matter. She's dead, the Islamists killed her, and Musharraf was at best a passive collaborator in her death.
December 18, 2007
FISA: The Talking Point
Ted Kennedy gets it right: The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he's willing to let Americans die to...
November 08, 2007
Telecom immunity: just asking
Just a question for all those conservative Republicans who are attempting to give retroactive immunity for FISA violations by telecoms: Why was it that amnesty would mean the end of the Republic when it was impoverished immigrant laborers but it is now perfectly acceptable when it is large telecom corporations? And no: the shoe isn't on the other foot. There...
November 04, 2007
November 01, 2007
Who bears the costs of ALF terrorism?
Shouldn't it be the university, rather than the individual research worker?
October 20, 2007
Hearings, please
The lead prosecutor at Guantanamo has quit, charging that he was under pressure to get high-profile convictions before the 2008 elections.
October 08, 2007
Keeping our eye on the main chance
The drug czar's office, the State Department, and the White House want the Afghani government to spray weed-killer on the Afghani poppy crop. The Pentagon, the CIA, the British government, and Hamid Karzai disagree. Giving aid and comfort to the Taliban, in the name of a policy certain to fail in its goal of controlling drug abuse, is madness.
September 30, 2007
September 18, 2007
The music connection
Thanks to Jonathan adding the missing piece, I now see the big picture into which the Ghuman case is a window: it's all about music! Musicians of all sorts are nothing but a rogues' gallery of subversion and disrespect for traditional values: Rouget de Lisle, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Gilberto Gil, Richard Wagner, the Dixie Chicks...it goes on and on....
The real story of the Ghuman case
Mike's post about Nalini Ghuman, setting forth the real reasons for her exclusion from the United States, missed what seems to me is the critical point: her husband is a countertenor. This is a definite sign of effeminate, anti-American Islamofascist subversion in favor of such radical Islamist programs as gay marriage. Note how Ghuman's husband has deceitfully attempted to mislead...
September 13, 2007
Why Hasn't Spain Been Attacked Since 11-M?
The elephant powder argument applied to Spain, India and Britain.
September 06, 2007
August 24, 2007
August 18, 2007
August 17, 2007
A homegrown terrorist threat?
The NYPD contradicts the National Intelligence Estimate. This is a good argument to have out in the open.
August 08, 2007
"Why terrorists aren't soldiers"
Wes Clark and Kal Raustiala argue that treatment as "unlawful combatants" is better than the terrorists deserve.
August 03, 2007
July 27, 2007
"... designed not to ascertain the truth"
That's what an LTC from Army Intelligence says about the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantanamo.
July 17, 2007
June 25, 2007
Stalinism in the White House
Finishing up John Lewis Gaddis' The Cold War: A New History, a passage on the Marshall Plan resonated with me, in chilling fashion. Gaddis observes (pp. 103-104) that the exhausted Soviet Union could never have competed with the Americans in resuscitating European economies after the Second World War: The Americans had another advantage, however, that had nothing to do with...
Misdirection
No, says the CIA, we're not going to let you see our internal review of how we managed to miss the 9/11 plot despite numerous red flags. But ... look over there! Ancient abuses!
June 16, 2007
May 31, 2007
Law vs. Policy
I strongly recommend that our readers take a look at a recent speech by Philip Zelikow, a professor at UVA and former assistant to Condoleeza Rice. The main pivot of the speech is the distinction between ethical and moral reasoning, and the kind of reasoning that lawyers are typically trained to engage in. I'll have a full posting on this...
May 29, 2007
Hubris
The Bush Administration continues to act internationally as if we had the sort of bargaining position we would have if we didn't have our army tied down trying desperately not to lose the war in Iraq until after Mr. Bush leaves office. We don't.
May 06, 2007
Stuff-you-can't-make-up Dep't
The NRA is defending the Second Amendment rights of the folks on the terrorist watch list.
April 26, 2007
April 10, 2007
April 09, 2007
Prof. Murphy and the watch list: No real story there?
Most likely he was pulled out of line at random, and ran into a loudmouth airline clerk who told him a fairytale. Sorry about that.
April 08, 2007
More hearings, please
You can get on the %$#&ing Terrorist Watch list by delivering an anti-Bush lecture? Even if you're a retired colonel in the Marines? This is too easy.
April 07, 2007
March 27, 2007
March 25, 2007
Pointless meanness, (dis)courtesy of the TSA
A journalist recounts a routine little nightmare out of Kafka, courtesy of our own Heimat Sicherheitsdeinst.
March 04, 2007
Stalinism vs. the rule of law
When the prosecutor gets to threaten criminal charges against the defense lawyer for "using contemptuous language" toward the high officials who ordered the maltreatment of his client in captivity, and the crime being charged didn't exist when the defendant was apprehended, it's hard to call what's happening a "fair trial," isn't it?
February 18, 2007
Mark Steyn's Final Solution to the Euro-Muslim Problem
Is genocide OK now? If not, why isn't Mark Steyn a pariah?
Posted by
Mark Kleiman
at 09:56 PM