Maybe Hillary Clinton reads Swampland. Because on a day when I wrote that, on the question of diplomatic security in Benghazi, “the buck should stop with her” and not the president, Madam Secretary stepped forward to say, “I take …
National Security
Why Republicans Aren’t Attacking Hillary Clinton over Benghazi
On Sunday’s talk shows, Republicans remained indignant about Joe Biden‘s statement in last week’s debate that “we did not know” about requests for more security to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi shortly before the attack …
Bush Officials and 9/11: They Had a Plan
Reporter Kurt Eichenwald has new details in the New York Times today about the blindness and inaction of the George W. Bush Administration in the run-up to 9/11. In addition to the well-known Aug. 6 presidential daily brief …
How Cyber Security Could Be a Winning Issue for Obama
A blackout in Manhattan. A major dam failure. Mayhem at a chemical plant. Those are all potential, and entirely plausible, consequences of a cyber attack, according to a range of current and former national security officials, …
Obama’s Secrets: Even His Declassification Effort Lacks Transparency
Barack Obama disappointed many on the left who thought they were getting a liberal president on national security issues. The man who pledged to roll back George W. Bush legacy as a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2008 …
Revisiting a Key Legal Basis for Obama’s Anti-Terrorism Drone Strikes
After I wrote a short piece for last week’s magazine that, among other things, chastised the Obama Administration for not doing more to discuss the pros and cons of its heavy reliance on drone strikes against suspected terrorists, an Administration official groused that I hadn’t credited public comments on the subject by various …
Drones, Computer Viruses and Blowback
Another day, another senior al-Qaeda leader killed by a drone strike. (I can’t be the first to point out that being al-Qaeda’s No. 2 is like being the drummer for Spinal Tap.)
Mitt Romney recently said that he gives Barack Obama an F grade “across the board.” It’s hard to imagine he really feels that way about Obama’s drone strikes. …
Obama’s Expanding Clandestine War
On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War – as hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops streamed toward Iraq-occupied Kuwait – a U.S. Army officer remarked how much easier all this would be if someone – a Saddam Hussein turncoat, perhaps, or an American spy – put a bullet in the back of the Iraqi dictator’s head.
It didn’t happen, of …
The President as Executioner [Updated]
Update: See below for further Obama administration response.
On Tuesday the New York Times ran an epic story detailing Barack Obama’s ferocious counter-terrorism policies, and the intimate degree to which the President himself oversees a “kill list” that determines which suspected terrorists will be granted premature martyrdom …
Romney, Obama and Syria as a ‘Leadership’ Issue
The latest massacre in Syria, this one featuring the horrific execution of dozens of children, has done little to change American policy toward the brutal regime in Damascus. But it may have escalated Syria as an issue in the presidential campaign, with unpredictable results.
In a statement yesterday, Mitt Romney accused Barack Obama …
Barack Obama’s Evolution on the CIA
The New York Times’ deep dive into President Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy offers a revealing look at targeted killings overseas, how they are approved by the current Administration and carried out by the Central …
A CIA Sting Foils al-Qaeda, But We’d Have Been Safer Not Knowing
The foiling of a new al-Qaeda attempt to bring down a passenger airliner — apparently a knock-off of the failed “underwear bomb” plot that nearly brought down a Northwest flight landing at Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009 — has …
Rewinding Romney on Counterterrorism: ‘Dr. Strangelove’ and ‘Attacks on America’
By now everyone knows that Mitt Romney doubted back in 2007 whether killing Osama bin Laden was really worth the trouble. The Romney camp has dredged up a more bloodthirsty quote that muddies the issue, but if we’re going to rewind the tape, a couple of other interesting quotes turn up. Like the way that, in August 2007, Romney responded …
