Peace and Security
Whistle-Blowing Takes Guts
No government cares to be accused of a war crime. If you happen to commit one, your military bosses will move heaven and earth to cover for you and pretend it didn’t happen. However, if you should instead expose a war crime, they will hunt you down like a dog and make sure you never again see the light of day. After all, reputations and careers are at stake.
The Risky Business of Post-War Contracting
The Iraq War is officially over. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops slipped quietly out of the country last year with none of the bodies-clinging-to-helicopter-struts drama that characterized America’s exit from Saigon in 1975.
A Zero on the Home Front’s Richter Scale
Among the strange things that happened last year — and there were many — perhaps the strangest was the end of the war in Iraq.
Endless War
Let’s Stop Sentencing Children to Life without Parole
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children,” Nelson Mandela once said. If that’s the case, the United States has much soul-searching to do. The United States is the only country in the world that regularly applies life without parole for offenses committed before the age of 18. More than 2,500 imprisoned Americans are slated to spend the rest of their lives behind bars for crimes they committed as kids.
A Watchbird Is Watching You
The FBI now employs 36,000 people and focuses ever more on dissenters. The CIA, supposedly prohibited from spying domestically, now stations agents in local police departments. Homeland Security may legally confiscate your computer and smart phone at the airport, copy their contents, and eventually give them back. Civilian agencies have drones to follow you.
Obama’s New Military Strategy Doesn’t Add Up
President Barack Obama ordered up yet another strategic review last year. This one explicitly aimed at bringing the nation’s military posture into line with something we can afford.
Fumbling Foreign Policy
From Mitt Romney’s juvenile $10,000 bet with Rick Perry to Ron Paul’s declaration that death by untreated illnesses is “what freedom is all about,” the Republican presidential candidates haven’t missed an opportunity to sound off-base and out-of-touch with ordinary Americans.
Two Cold War Milestones
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il consolidated communist rule. Czech leader Vaclav fought against corrupt communists. Yet they had some things in common, besides dying a week before Christmas. They both abandoned careers in the arts to become reluctant politicians, and they stabilized their respective countries during difficult times.
New Iran Sanctions Would Do More Harm than Good
Led by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Congress moved recently to place new sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran.
