Even retired military officers can be brought up on charges of adultery under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice
National Security
For Petraeus, the CIA Was an Uncomfortable Fit
The decorated general struggled to adapt to the agency’s insular culture
Senate Intelligence Committee to Probe Petraeus Affair
The committee’s top Republican says it will hold hearings during the lame duck session into whether Petraeus’s biographer, Paula Broadwell, was given classified information
Exit Petraeus — and His Famous Military Doctrine
The disgrace of David Petraeus has ended more than a great military career. It is also the symbolic end of a major chapter in American security strategy.
Report: Benghazi Presence Was a CIA Operation
If you read one story today, let it be the game-changing article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
Clinton, Obama, Romney and the Benghazi ‘Buck’
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 …