Tensions between Turkey and Syria are at an all-time high, with the two countries trading occasional light artillery barrages at the border and massing tanks on either side of it. In the midst of this military posturing, on Saturday Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan addressed the Istanbul World Forum (kind of a small Middle Eastern version […]
Archives for October 2012
Conservative Media Spin Biden-Ryan Debate (Young Turks)
The Young Turks program on Current TV discusses the conservative spinning of the Biden-Ryan debate. No, CNN, Ryan did not win the debate (you over-represented Republicans). And, no, Libya is not that big an issue.
On Libya, Biden Let Ryan Get Away with Murder (Smith)
Fact-Check: Is Obama’s Foreign Policy “Unraveling”? by Christopher C. Smith In Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate, Paul Ryan claimed that the recent terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya represented the “unraveling” of the administration’s foreign policy, which is making the world “more chaotic” and Americans “less safe.” To his credit, Biden correctly pointed […]
US Classifies Torture Testimonies of accused al-Qaeda Prisoners (Currier)
Still Classified: Terror Suspects’ Own Accounts of Their Abuse by Cora Currier, writing at ProPublica In a motion unsealed last week, the government proposed new ground rules for classified information in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others charged with planning the 9/11 attacks. The new order says the accused can’t talk about […]
A Post-Mortem on Muslim Rage: What did the reaction to the Islamophobic Trailer Really Tell Us? (Abootalebi)
Ali R. Abootalebi writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Today’s journalism and social media, with their increasingly short news cycles, are good at pitching issues but bad at analysis and summations. Stories are just abandoned, however important, as the blogosphere moves on to the Next Big Thing. There is no shortage of opinion […]
The Shameful Politicization of the Benghazi Consulate Attack
The Tea Party Congress, having, with Paul Ryan’s leadership, deeply cut funds for embassy security, held a hearing on Wednesday on the circumstances of the attack on Sept. 11, 2012, on the US consulate in Benghazi, in which it tried to point fingers at the State Department and the Obama administration. That’s right, the Republicans […]
Colbert Report: Romney gives Americans ‘Vague, Long-winded Threats’ as Foreign Policy (Video)
Stephen Colbert reviews Mitt Romney’s speech on foreign policy and concludes that he knows what Americans want: Vague, long-winded threats and “four more wars.” Colbert also points out the danger of Iran, which is ‘days from having an atomic bomb,’ and ‘has been for years.’ He formally puts Tehran ‘on notice.’ The Colbert Report Get […]
Omar Khayyam (42) “No hand would set out to break them”
As for the parts of a wineglass that have been joined together– no hand would set out to break them apart. But as for the shapely hands and feet of a temptress– whose grace joins them together? […]
Romney and the Syrian Dilemma
On Monday, Mitt Romney made clear his intention to intervene in Syria should he become president. As usual, how exactly he would do that remained vague. In the meantime, events in Syria are moving fast. The suicide bombing at a branch of Air Force intelligence at a base in Hrasta near Damascus showed that the […]
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