Ambrose Bierce is said to be the author of the saying “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” Despite the vigorous national debate about intervening in Syria, there is some reason to think that most Americans could not find it on a map. Here are some key points about Syria that this blog has […]
US NSA Gives Israel Raw Intelligence on US Citizens (Chamberlain)
Jacob Chamberlain writes at Commondreams.org The National Security Agency openly shares unfiltered intelligence files with the Israeli government, according to a classified document leaked to the Guardian newspaper by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. As the Guardian reports Wednesday, the NSA memorandum details an "intelligence-sharing agreement" between the two countries and shows that the "US government […]
President Obama’s Doubtful Grounds for Military Action against Syria
In his speech to the nation on Tuesday evening, President Obama laid out his case for military action against Syria, even as he hit the ‘pause’ button to allow for further diplomacy in light of the Russian proposal to sequester Syria’s chemical weapons. I don’t disagree that units of the Syrian military deployed chemical weapons […]
Al-Qaeda as Fringe Cult: 12 Years Later, Heretical Text of 9/11 Hijackers Still Withheld by FBI (Kurzman)
Charles Kurzman writes at IslamiCommentary click to enlarge What sort of Muslims carried out the largest mass murder in American history, 12 years today? The FBI refuses to release a document that might show just how unusual their brand of Islam was, and further reduce what little sympathy they enjoy among the world’s billion Muslims. […]
How Putin Saved Obama, Congress and the European Union from Further Embarrassing themselves on Syria
Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in London Monday morning if there was anything that could forestall a US missile attack on Damascus, and he replied off the cuff that Syria could surrender its chemical weapons stockpile to the international community within a week. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian […]
Johns Hopkins University Orders Cryptography Professor’s Blog Posting Removed for Classified NSA Links (Larson & Elliott)
Jeff Larson and Justin Elliott write at ProPublica Citing concerns about linking to classified material, Johns Hopkins University asked a professor this morning to remove a blog post discussing last week’s revelations about the NSA’s efforts to break encryption. The post had linked to government documents published by ProPublica, the Guardian, and the New York Times. […]
How US Grand Strategy in Syria led to the idea of Missile Strikes
Are there any grand strategy considerations behind the Obama administration’s desire to bomb Syria? Yes, though they rest on doubtful premises. The increasing importance of al-Qaeda-linked radical Sunni fundamentalist groups to the civil war in the north of Syria has posed a dilemma for the Obama administration, which began calling for the ouster of President […]
Congress Could now Alter our Militarized approach to the Middle East– But likely Won’t (Bacevich)
Andrew J. Bacevich writes at Tomdispatch Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing golf or loafing at Camp David, not making headlines. Yet Barack Obama chose Labor Day weekend to unveil arguably the most consequential foreign […]
Can you Pass the Qatar Quiz? (Rudolph)
CAN YOU PASS THE QATAR QUIZ? By Jeffrey Rudolph Qatar, once one of the poorest Persian Gulf states, has become one of the region’s wealthiest countries and also one of the most active in regional affairs. However, Qatar, like the other Gulf states, faces meaningful internal and external challenges, which require more than energy wealth […]
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