Transitional National Council forces announced Thursday night that they had taken most of Sirte, the birthplace of Muammar Qaddafi where elements of his dreaded 32nd Brigade had held out. Some of these forces are said to be holed up still in a line of villas near the beach, but the center of the town and […]
Muslim Brotherhood Rebukes Erdogan for Advocacy of Secularism
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s speech at at the Arab League on Monday and at the Cairo Opera House on Tuesday made waves in the West because of his denunciation of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and the warm public welcome he received among Egyptians. Aljazeera Arabic reports: But a controversy has broken out about […]
Helman: The Palestinians Seek UN Recognition
Ambassador Gerald B. Helman writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: The Palestinian Authority has stated its intention this Fall to seek some action at the United Nations to advance its claim to statehood now. According to press reports, the PA’s initiative at least in part would be a reaction to what it sees […]
Turkey, Egypt and Israel
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Cairo on Tuesday morning, being greeted at the airport by thousands of cheering Egyptians. Even though two dramatic moments envisaged by Erdogan’s staff– a side trip to Gaza and a speech in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo– have been cancelled, the visit is nevertheless an important one. Erdogan […]
The New Legal Landscape for Civil Liberties after 9/11
Here is a video courtesy of WDET of a recent American Civil Liberties Union event at Wayne State University, wherein I talk about the ways in which academic work has become more difficult since September 11. I also talk about our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau […]
77 US troops Wounded in Truck Bombing of Base in Wardak; Top Reasons US should get out of Afghanistan
Never before in the Afghanistan War, the longest-running military conflict in US history, have so many US troops been wounded in one day. Some 5 Afghans were killed and some 77 American military personnel were wounded at a forward operating base in Wardak Province in the Pashtun south by a suicide bomber with a truck […]
Ten Years after 9/11, Do the Arabs value Democracy more than We do?
The September 11 attacks have been revealed as a last gasp of a fading, cult-like twentieth-century vision, not as the wave of the future. They were the equivalent of the frenetic dashing to and fro of a chicken already beheaded. Al-Qaeda’s core assumptions have been refuted by subsequent events and above all in 2011 by […]
State of Alert in Egypt after Breach at Israeli Embassy
The assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday represented a dangerous escalation of tensions between the protesters and the transitional regime. The military declared a “state of alert” and cancelled the vacations of all the police. I don’t think the incident seriously threatens Egyptian relations with Israel, though the Israeli ambassador and his […]
A tale of two Afghan Leaders, before and after 9/11
Ten years ago, a horrific suicide bombing carried out by Algerian al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists snuffed out the life of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the great Afghan Mujahidin leader and among the few Afghans who could have hoped to unite the country against the Taliban. Massoud told journalist Sebastian Junger that he opposed the religious […]
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