The news of the killing of Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, in an attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi is bitter. It was Benghazi, after all, that was the heart of the Libyan revolution last year. Libyan leader …
Foreign Policy
20 Years After Hurricane Andrew, Storm Costs and Ideology Loom Over Florida
Miami
Hurricane Andrew, which slammed into South Florida on Aug. 24, 1992, was the second costliest storm in modern U.S. history. Here in Miami-Dade County, which took the monstrous brunt of Andrew’s Category 5 winds, …
From the Dept. of Denials
Philippe Reines, longtime aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, resorts to denial-by-verse in response to the latest unfounded rumor that Clinton could replace Vice President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. Enjoy:
Grim Record: Soldier Suicides Reach New High
A record number of soldiers – 38 – are suspected of killing themselves in July, the Pentagon said Thursday. It marks a startling jump in the suicide epidemic that has been frustrating Army leaders for years.
Why the U.S. Isn’t Arming Syria’s Opposition – Yet
If there was a sliding scale for American involvement in foreign conflicts, after 16 months of violence in Syria, the U.S. might just have reached the quarter mark between zero involvement and full-fledged war. “We’re moving …
Romney’s Israel Stop: Keeping Up Appearances
Mitt Romney got in and out of Israel with what he’d hoped for: no gaffes, no real headlines. Nothing so substantial as to risk a clear view of the image he had traveled halfway around the world to produce: footage of a U.S. …
U.S. Evangelicals See Political, Religious Cause in Syria Conflict
Catholic Father Paolo Dall’Oglio of Syria’s Mar Musa monastery stood before Rock Springs Congregational United Church of Christ in Arlington, Virginia, on July 23 and pleaded for U.S. intervention in his homeland’s escalating civil war. Already half of Syria’s two million Christians have fled, he said, comparing the exodus of …
Obama Welcomes Campaign Season with China Trade Complaint
Maumee, Ohio.
“It’s campaign season, again,” Barack Obama announced Thursday, after emerging in the sweltering summer heat behind hay bales and before a giant American flag draped across the roof of a nearby building. …
Inside America’s Secret Training of Syria’s Digital Army
Updated: 5:37 p.m.
I have a story in this week’s magazine, available online now and hitting stands this Friday, about U.S. efforts to help Syrian dissidents. The U.S. isn’t arming anybody – as Hillary Clinton on Tuesday accused Russia of doing for Syrian President Bashar Assad – but the State Department is training protesters …
Emboldened by Walker’s Recall Win, Florida’s Rick Scott Goes to War on Voter Registration
The Department of Justice had given Florida Governor Rick Scott until Wednesday, June 6, to respond to its demand that the state stop a legally questionable purge of its voter rolls that was designed to identify noncitizens and …
The Obama Doctrine: Syria vs. Libya Intervention
As the pressure grows on President Obama to take action in Syria, it’s worth going back to re-read the March 2011 speech he gave explaining his intervention in Libya. In it, Obama made clear that that he was not raising the …
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 …
Syria Presents Another Predicament for Kofi Annan and His U.N. Legacy
Kofi Annan has seen a lot of genocide. He hasn’t been the monster pulling the trigger, or ordering the deaths. But to hear his critics tell it, as head of the United Nations Peacekeepers in 1994 and 1995 he failed to prevent the Rwandan genocide and the massacre at Srebrenica in former Yugoslavia. The 2003 Darfur genocide began during …