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 […]
Sadrists to Demonstrate in Baghdad against US Troops Remaining
One of the major consequences of the September 11 attacks ten years ago was that members of the Bush administration decided to “take advantage” of the resulting passions to pursue their long-planned vendetta against the government of Saddam Hussein. There followed the greatest US foreign policy disaster since the British occupied Washington, DC and burned […]
Turkey Crisis Provokes Israeli Army Anger at Lieberman
The crisis between Turkey and Israel deepened on Monday, allegedly provoking severe tensions between the Israeli officer corps and the far right-wing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. There was also disarray among the officers over an allegation by one general that the Middle East might be moving toward comprehensive war, an assessment that was […]
Accord Reached for Peaceful Entry of Bani Walid?
Aljazeera Arabic is reporting a breakthrough in the negotiations between the new government in Tripoli and the elders of the city of Bani Walid, a center of pro-Qaddafi military personnel and sentiments. The city authorities say they will permit the Transitional National Council’s troops to enter the city without opposition around noon on Tuesday, according […]
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