On Sunday, U.S. forces attacked what the Defense Department is characterizing as “’principal Al Qaeda leadership’ operating in the southern part of Somalia." DOD’s information on the attack is pretty sketchy, but the official Defense Department news story indicates that the targets were “terrorists who may have struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.” [Update: The New...
An impressive array of academics (including Anne-Marie Slaughter and John Ikenberry) and think-tank heavyweights (Ivo Daalder among them) are lining up behind the idea of institutionalizing an alliance of true democracies to advance effective and legitimate global governance. It's a central recommendation of the final report of the Princeton Project on National Security (which includes a draft charter for...
Ostensibly as a "concession" to the Democratic-controlled Congress, William Haynes II has withdrawn from consideration for a position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The Democrats filibustered his nomination in 2004, but Bush renominated him last year. Opposition to Haynes, who was General Counsel of the Department of Defense, centered on his responsibility, as...
His comment here in the Guardian, in which he (in effect) takes up the possibility of life imitating art, in this case, the dramatic visions of prosecuting Tony Blair for the crime of aggression in committing British troops to Iraq. Sounds far-fetched, but Sands is articulate as always. ...
One of the under-reported stories of the past four years is the tragedy of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. That the near collapse and human decimation of one of Africa’s most beautiful, prosperous and resource-rich countries has been relatively ignored at the UN and in Washington and the European capitals is, perhaps, the unfortunate result of a confluence of distracting world...
If you are in southern California next weekend there will be a conference at Pepperdine on Friday, January 19 on the subject of "The War on Terrorism: Examining the Roles of Congress, The President, and the Courts." Panelists include Akhil Amar (Yale), Neal Katyal (Georgetown), Eric Posner (Chicago), John Yoo (Boalt Hall), Janet Alexander (Stanford), and Michael Paulsen...
One of the basic issues regarding Bush's intention to escalate the war in Iraq by committing 20,000 more troops is where the additional troops will come from. As Colin Powell has pointed out, the U.S. military is "about broken" — "[t]he current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds...
There was a fascinating case coming out of Indiana last month concerning the issue of profiling a person who is a serious risk for international child abduction. In Shady v. Shady, much of the case reads like a typical divorce and custody proceeding. But the interesting twist is that the custodial parent, Sheanin Shady, requested an order from...
The IHT has officially dismissed Saddam from the Anfal trial. The trial will continue against Saddam's six co-defendants, which include his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the infamous "Chemical Ali." ...
The NYT Arts section reports that the Tricycle Theater in London will run a play from April 19-May 19 entitled, "Called to Account: The Indictment of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair for the Crime of Aggression Against Iraq — A Hearing". The "play" will be dramatized based on real closed door cross-examinations of 20 international experts by two British...
According to the Sunday Times of London:Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources...
A baby that would otherwise have otherwise won a $25,000 savings bond as the first baby born in the new year was disqualified because her mother is an undocumented immigrant (story here). What makes this episode remarkable is that I can't think of any other context in which a child born in the US (a full citizen, of course, as...
