Recently in Terrorism Category

Guest blogged by our friend, bubbabobcat:In honor of Veterans Day, I would like to acknowledge a soldier and an American who represents the best in us through and through despite the trials and tribulations bestowed upon him by his fellow fallible man.   General Eric K. Shinseki who is a West Point graduate, Vietnam War combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient, rose through the ranks to become the Army Chief of staff in 1999 and...

As we come to this Veteran's Day we are left with the same tap dance that we have had for the past several years. I haven't met anyone that does not respect the troops and their efforts. I don't know anyone that wouldn't agree that we should all thank them for their heroic efforts. Yet, every time anyone steps up to question our foreign policy there are images conjured up of protestors spitting on soldiers...

For some inexplicable reason, Sen. John McCain was a guest on one of the Sunday news shows again yesterday, this time CNN's State of the Union. As Steve Benen at Washington Monthly points out:"For those keeping score, this will be McCain's 14th Sunday morning appearance since President Obama's inauguration in January. That's 38 Sundays, for an average of a McCain appearance every 2.7 weeks...Not bad for a senator in the minority, who isn't in the...

Warning: there is some random stuff in here, but it's based upon the research I've done and where it randomly took me at the time. I encourage you to think about things and let your critical thinking take you to places you've never been. Because we live in a world of naysayers, I have included links to the sites from which I have derived my information at the end of this piece. I challenge...

This is the eighth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.  Much like the assassination of Kennedy and the destruction of Challenger, this day is the one that my generation will say "I remember where I was when..."   I was in my senior year at Texas A&M.  My alarm clock went off just long enough for me to hear a blurb about the "events in New York City" and the tone of the DJ...

Estimates are that approximately 18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance, six times the number who died on September 11, 2001. Now ask yourself, if America suffered six terrorist attacks on the scope of 9/11 in one year, that's one every other month, what would be the response from the politicians in Washington, D.C.?Would they be saying we need to slow down and be sure we take the proper action? Would...

The torture-defending spokespersons for the Republican Party were on full display yesterday on the Sunday news shows. First there was Papa Dick Cheney stopping by Fox News Sunday for a softball game with Chris Wallace, what Andrew Sullivan aptly named, A Teenage Girl Interviewing the Jonas Brothers. Then we had daughter Liz on This Week making some incredible claims (even for Liz, and that's saying something) about the Bush Justice Department. Finally, John McCain on...

Proponents of "enhanced interrogation techniques" point to the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as evidence that the methods work.  However, as today's article by the Washington Post explores, the situation is more complicated than just that.Yes, KSM was uncooperative and gave deliberately misleading information immediately after his capture.  Yes, KSM appears to have become a powerful asset for the Intelligence Community after waterboarding and sensory deprivation.  However, we must not make the mistake of assuming...

My opposition to the previous administration's policies that led to torture and detainee abuse should come as no surprise to anyone here.  I don't think I need to rehash those arguments.However, the Attorney General's move to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing in the implementation of those policies has provoked a backlash from the Obama administration's critics.  They claim this will threaten intelligence gathering operations and make our country more vulnerable to attack.A former FBI counterterrorism official,...

The release of the CIA Inspector General's report containing some of the details of what the Bush administration called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the rest of the civilized world calls "torture" has brought former Vice-President Cheney out of his cave to revive the question of whether or not torture works. The fact that the question of 'do the ends justify the means' is even part of the conversation tells us the depths to which we...