I cover questions about Iraq, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring in this recent interview at AskM (a program of the University of Michigan News and Information Service)
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Terrorism
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 […]
Top Ten Reasons Radical Jihadis shouldn’t have Threatened David Letterman
Top Ten Reasons Radical Jihadis shouldn’t have Threatened David Letterman 10. David is The Man 9. You really don’t want David relentlessly making fun of you in revenge; ask Madonna. 8. David has survived that thing on his head for years, he can survive some fool wearing pajamas using his mother’s computer to threaten comedians […]
On Panetta and Defeating al-Qaeda
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said on his arrival in Kabul that the US could be on the verge of defeating al-Qaeda, and could do so in the wake of the killing of Usama Bin Laden by keeping the pressure on in Afghanistan, northwest Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. According to the Department of Defense, Panetta […]
Gates: Winding down the Wars
Outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley on Sunday, and he sees a diminished American superpower on the horizon. Gates foresaw the winding down of the Afghanistan War, a slow grinding ultimate victory for NATO in Libya, fairly deep cuts in the war department budget on […]
Ridge Alleges Bush Political Pressure for Terrorism Alert
Ooops, a golden oldie from 2009 thrown up by mistake. Tom Ridge appears to be alleging in a new book that the Bush administration put political pressure on him to raise the terrorism threat level in fall of 2004 so as to help George W. Bush’s chances of reelection. It seemed pretty obvious to me […]
Congress: Yankee Come Home; Iraq, Pakistan: Yankee Go Home
Between 70,000 and 100,000 members of the Sadrist Shiite political bloc rallied in Baghdad on Thursday, demanding that the some 47,000 US troops still in Iraq leave altogether. Sadrist leader Muqtada al-Sadr says that if the troops remain, he will reactivate his Mahdi Army militia. It is a powerful threat. But in some ways, his […]
President Obama’s Address on Change in the Middle East
May 19, 2011 Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery “A Moment of Opportunity” U.S. Department of State May 19, 2011 As Prepared for Delivery – I want to thank Hillary Clinton, who has traveled so much these last six months that she is approaching a new landmark – one million frequent […]
Bin Laden was Operational Leader
Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press got the scoop. USG analysts going through the material captured at Usamah Bin Laden’s residence in Abbotabad described to her some of what they were finding. The biggest surprise was that Bin Laden was still an operational figure. He was in touch, for instance, with the leaders of al-Qaeda […]