Can You Yell Firewall in a Crowded Budget

Despite Scare Talk, Attacks on Pentagon Networks Drop | Danger Room | Wired.com How are things going on the cybersecurity front?  According to Wired.com’s Danger Room, things may be looking up despite what you may hear from those charged with defending our critical information systems. In the first six months of 2010, there were about [...]

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NATO 101

What my students think of NATO | Stephen M. Walt Walt reports on a class discussion that paralleled a discussion we had in class the other day about the continued existence of NATO. Walt’s students concluded that NATO should continue: First, NATO has been around for sixty years, and has acquired a nearly iconic status [...]

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Use of Contractors Added to War’s Chaos in Iraq

To repeat what I posted in an earlier blog, the use of contractors in the US war in Afghanistan and Iraq in no way benefits our soldiers or gets us closer to our proposed goal of peace and security. Yes it is true that there were not enough US soldiers to fill the positions needed, [...]

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US allowed torture in Iraqi prisons, as revealed by WikiLeaks documents

Is this how we spread democracy?  By allowing the same practices used by Saddam Hussein which we supposedly fought to end? The whisteblowing website WikiLeaks recently leaked nearly 400,000 classified US military documents now dubbed “The Iraq War Logs” which various international news outlets (including The New York Times, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera) have [...]

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Here we go again

The US after 9/11 has lifted sanctions from Pakistan and Pakistan became our ally, in a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the fact that bothers many is the position that Pakistan is suppose to play. It still seems unclear: In the region and in the wider war against terrorism, Pakistan has long played [...]

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Osama Bin Laden Not on the Run?

“According to  a NATO office who told CNN Osama bin Laden is living comfortably in northwest Pakistan protected by local tribespeople and some mebers of the Country’s intelligence service. U.S intelligence officals have long believed that bin Laden is living in the remote tribal region of northwest Pakistan. But at times, the government has also [...]

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It’s the Occupation, Stupid

Foreign Policy’s Robert Pape explains new research that overturns one of the most dangerous misconceptions of our time, linking suicide terrorism to Islam. Pape first explains how since 9/11 America has come to make the connection between terrorism and Islam. We have invaded two Islamic countries, and sent Special Forces troops to many many more, [...]

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North Korea–Likely Successor

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11508493 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11297747 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11388628 “Kim Jong-un is the second son of Kim Jong-il and Ko Young-hee. Like his older brothers, he is thought to have been educated abroad.  The 27-year-old basketball fan is widely touted as North Korea’s heir apparent. A Japanese sushi chef who worked for Kim Jong-il for 13 years up to 2001 [...]

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I.M.F. Doesn’t Press China on Currency

For the longest time China has essentially pegged its currency to the dollar while most other currencies fluctuate more or less freely. China has a two-tier system in which the capital account is strictly controlled. This makes the Chinese currency persistently undervalued. If not all then many players of the world currencies want a stronger [...]

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اليمن و الشجع الامريكي Yemen and American Support

Ellen Nickmeyer of Foreign Policy, in her article “Our Man in Sanaa,” does a wonderful job laying out the ways that corrupt and dangerous leaders (I mean dangerous for their own people, which yes ultimately lead back to being dangerous for Americans) continually or crafitly leverage Americas “War on Terror” in order to squeeze out millions, if [...]

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