President Obama doubled down on the Army Monday, picking an Army general as chairman of the Joint Chiefs — after picking another one to run the CIA, and a third — a one-time low-level Army lawyer — to run the Pentagon. There may be lots of red, white and blue around the capital today, but it felt more like red, white and Army …
Intelligence
Senator Suggests Government is Snooping on “Law-Abiding Americans”
Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado failed Thursday in their effort to force the Obama administration to produce internal Justice Department interpretations of what the government is allowed to do under the Patriot Act. Congress reauthorized the law on Thursday but did not include an amendment sponsored by the …
Patriot Act Debate Raises Question: How Much is the FBI Snooping?
“Americans would be alarmed if they knew how this law is being carried out.” That was Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden on the Senate floor yesterday pushing — unsuccessfully — for Congress to scale back some domestic snooping provisions in the Patriot Act.
Wyden suggested that the government was abusing Section 215 of the law, which …
The TV-Terrorism-Lawmaker Industrial Complex
OK…so the House Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday morning on “Threats to the American Homeland after Killing Bin Laden: An Assessment.” The list of those testifying includes Peter Bergen, identified in the witness list as a “CNN terrorism analyst;” Evan F. Kohlmann, ID’d as an “MSNBC terrorism analyst;” and …
The F-22 Rapture
Sure…we know it’s officially known as the F-22 Raptor. But Harold Camping’s prediction that the Rapture is coming Saturday at 6 p.m. — no matter where you are — has lots of folks in a tizzy. Some of them, no doubt, are looking for clues to the future online by typing “Rapture” into Google and other search engines. If the end of …
Loose Lips
When I read through the Washington Post yesterday, I stumbled across this Greg Jaffe article highlighting an odd bit of irony that just might get people killed. Jaffe’s article (which you really should read) notes that SecDef Gates and JCS Chief Mullen are trying to get the rest of the world to refrain from discussing facts, and from …
Why the Predator Drone Is Now Dead
The self-licking ice cream cone continues: over at Small Wars Journal, Robert Haddick explains why the days are numbered for the mainstay of the U.S. drone fleet.
John Kerry, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee – and Secretary of State-in-Waiting
John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, has long had a hankering to serve as the nation’s top diplomat. Over the past weekend, he was on a whirlwind tour of the AfPak theater, where his words garnered headlines usually accorded the secretary of state:
Afghanistan May Be Open To New Path, Kerry Says, according to Sunday’s New York …
Why Wasn’t bin Laden Where We Thought He Was?
If our dealings with Pakistan are hampered by the same flawed assumptions we used in our hunt for Osama bin Laden, the road ahead for Washington and Islamabad is likely to be rocky. Over at Small Wars Journal, Will Chalmers, a research assistant at the Centre for Security, Armed Forces and Society at the Royal Military College of …
Counter-terrorism beats nation-building? Are we going to bury COIN all over again?
My old classmate Fareed Zakaria recently made the argument that counterterrorism beats nation-building when it comes to winning the war on terror. Taking Osama Bin Laden’s killing as a point of American pride, he says that sort of military/intelligence operation is what we’re good at, and so we should stick with it versus pursue the …
Inside Navy SEAL Team 6
The first rule of Navy SEAL Team 6 is you don’t talk about SEAL Team 6. In fact, the U.S. military has never publicly acknowledged its existence. But over the past week, tales of the Navy’s most elite squadron have blazed like wildfire, as the SEALs’ takedown of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, has generated white-hot …
The Man Who Got bin Laden: The Most Deadly Would-be Journalist in the World
The man who commanded the SEAL team that hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden studied to be a reporter. If the Pulitzer Prize board establishes a new category — for killing the world’s most wanted terrorist — it’s a safe bet Bill McRaven will win it next spring.
Vice Adm. William McRaven, himself a SEAL, was on the ground in …
The Pall of Confusion Surrounding bin Laden’s Death
Even when the U.S. government feels like bragging about a military success, it takes several days for the most elementary outline to surface. Now, imagine it’s a secret raid involving sensitive sources and methods that the U.S. doesn’t want to divulge. Pile on top of that a senior White House official a little too eager to spin a …