National security reporter Josh Rogin published a big scoop on Syria yesterday: "The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria." According to one administration official, "The White House is still in contemplation mode but the...
For too long I've been focused on the ruthlessness of President Obama's drone war. Indeed, he targets individuals he can't even identify and, out of the approximately 4,000 people killed, less than 2 percent have been senior al-Qaeda members. The administration...
As Eric mentioned on the blog last week, Charley Reese has passed away. He was one of the nation's best newspaper columnists. I never met him in person but he and I exchanged a few letters. He struck me as the incarnation of a thoughtful, considerate, Southern...
In an interview with The Daily Caller, NSA Whistleblower Thomas Drake the Obama administration's targeting of journalists, their sources, and government whistleblowers is an attack on the First Amendment. “[R]eporters have shared with me privately that some of their...
There's a discussion over at the Lawfare blog about whether or not finally repealing the expansive war powers authorized in the 2001 AUMF will actually do anything to constrain Obama and future U.S. presidents. Mind you, the Lawfare crowd includes former Bush...
According to Angel Rabasa of the RAND Corp., we really need to start directly arming the Syrian rebels. How do we do that without bolstering the influence and lethality of extremist groups? Simple, he says: just "establish as soon as possible a task force to organize...
In the U.S., our job for today is clear. It's Memorial Day and there are a solemn thoughts to have and wreaths to lay. "Ultimate sacrifice" must be repeated again and again. And as MSNBC's Chris Hayes learned last year, best not to raise even the smallest question of...
From the Facebook page of Robert Higgs, a photograph of an injured Iraqi boy and an important reminder: If this is what must to done to "protect my freedoms," I greatly prefer that my freedoms be left for me to protect. Of course, it's all pretentious rubbish. The...
Advocates of U.S. military action in Syria have grown fond of responding to opponents of intervention with what they seem to think is a 'gotcha.' Opponents of intervention keep warning of the potential catastrophe of getting involved in another Middle Eastern conflict...
