Peace and Security
Hillary Clinton’s Real Scandal Is Honduras, Not Benghazi
Is it too soon to predict who will be the next president of the United States? Without officially declaring her intention to run again, Hillary Clinton has cornered Democratic frontrunner status. Given the weak and crowded Republican field, that makes her the...
Obama’s New Iraq Strategy
Peace Wins in Colombia
June was a good month for Colombia. Its streak of World Cup wins suffused the country with a euphoric patriotism. The yellow-blue-red stripes of the Colombian flag appeared on apartment buildings, the front grills of trucks, and painted on people's cheeks. Even with...
The End of Pot Prohibition As We Know It
How much longer will it take before the United States declares a truce in the Drug War? This latter-day prohibition is taking an immense toll. And the stakes ought to be low, given that most Americans don't want anyone jailed for being caught with small amounts of...
New Iraq Offensive Backfires
Republican opportunists hoping to score political points are hammering President Barack Obama with vitriolic criticism and blaming him for the latest upheaval in Iraq. So I was pleased when, finally, two Republicans spoke out loudly to deflect those partisan attacks....
Risky Business in Ukraine
Thanks to Iraq's latest woes, it's getting pretty hard to pay attention to all that unrest in the former Soviet Union. Remember those poor Ukrainians? All they want is to be independent and left alone. Or at least that's what they claim. In truth, many also want...
Bracing for an Attack by Veterans
From 1776 forward, Americans have opposed having soldiers do police work on our soil. But in recent years, Pentagon chiefs have teamed up with police chiefs to circumvent that prohibition. How? By militarizing police departments. Through the little-known "military...
The NRA’s Accidental Brush with Sanity
Whoa, that was close. The National Rifle Association nearly shot itself in the foot recently with a common-sense editorial it posted online. The group of rootin'-tootin,' bullet-spittin,' doctrinaire, guns-everywhere extremists finally saw something involving firearms...
2,300 Deaths Are Enough
President Barack Obama's recent attempt to define foreign policy failed to accurately reflect how Washington intends to end one of the biggest quagmires of our time: Afghanistan. "You are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may not be sent into combat in Iraq...
Nixing the Pentagon Slush Fund
The Senate Armed Services Committee has finished its work on the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that guides Pentagon policies. The measure authorizes $514 billion in spending for the Pentagon, along with the Energy Department's national security...
