Someone wished me a “happy Memorial Day” in passing and I wondered if they understood what the holiday was really all about. What is it really all about? The photo above was taken at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial in France. According to the American Battle Monuments Commission, the cemetery contains the largest number […]
Last week’s print edition of the Economist reports “the best story in development,” which describes huge declines in child mortality across Africa. Too often, good stories about Africa are buried in the back pages of newspapers and magazines. In this case, the headline is sensationalist but true. The trends of child mortality in a majority of African […]
Grumbles have been filtering out lately, from the CIA and other agencies running covert ops, that The Rule is lately being violated, sacrificed to the needs of self-promoting administration officials (Leon Panetta? 60 Minutes?) who simply cannot keep their mouths shut, cheerleaders jazzed by pre-election jitters who rush to claim kudos for their boss via contacts with the mainstream press–oblivious to the blowback suffered by US intelligence or the foreign nationals who do risk, despite the financial benefits, prison sentences or execution on their own turf.
Such is the case with Shakil Afridi, the 48 year old Pakistani physician recruited and paid (well, no doubt) by the CIA to help in the identification of Osama bin Laden prior to the assault on the dictator’s compound by US special forces. Clearly, Afridi did the US a great service. And the mainstream press recognizes this, all, without exception, on fire with righteous indignation about Pakistan’s decision to allow Afridi to be tried in Pakistan for treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Isn’t Pakistan our friend?
Grow up…
Bashar-al Assad’s all too deadly caricature as an ass. The Syrian Army lying in wait. Night-vision shots of night-time attacks. A bombed out car. An anti-Qaeda revolutionary insurgent who insists that al Qaeda’s presence in Syria, the popular narrative nowadays, is more tall-tale than truth; that the attacks roiling the country have been mainly perpetrated […]
In the March/April 2012 issue of Foreign Policy Magazine, Thomas Rid wrote an article called Think Again: Cyberwar. The subtitle was: Don’t Fear the Digital Bogeyman Virtual Conflict is Still More Hype Than Reality. He states his premise up front: “Time for a reality check: Cyberwar is still more hype than hazard. Consider the definition […]
In my past two blog posts, I discussed new polling on Americans’ foreign policy views and the U.S. domestic reaction to the Chen Guangcheng case. This week, I highlight Gallup findings on how the rest of the world evaluates U.S. leadership. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! In the race to November, professional political […]
Today the Foreign Policy Association hosted a conference on “The Future of Energy“. I had the pleasure of attending and, given that I am writing on energy, I also have some interesting insights to share. Especially interesting was the panel discussion “The Energy Picture, Redrawn.” The key insight is that energy is crucial for […]
When I first came across Mona Eltahawy’s article, questioning “Why do they hate us?”–“they” being the misogynistic rulers of Middle Eastern and Muslim nations, and “us” being the female population–I have to say my instant reaction was one of apprehensive agreement. Apprehensive, because I’ve seen womenfolk suffer cruel injustice in my part of the world […]
I went to a very interesting presentation a couple of weeks ago: The good folks at the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and their partners at SAM, a Zurich-based group focused on sustainability investing, took the time to enlighten several of us ink-stained wretches of the press (if I can still characterize myself as such […]
The U.S. is preparing both carrots and sticks for Iran heading into the P5+1 talks with Iran today in Baghdad. There is an art and a science to good negotiating and it’s clear that Team Obama is making a conscious effort to to define the parameters of this unfolding narrative. Take, for example, this report […]
Scientific American Executive Editor Fred Guterl has a superb short article in the June issue of the magazine laying out the basics of the H5N1 virus scare: • how it is that bird flus represent a “natural reservoir” of influenzas that jump to human populations • how under natural conditions such viruses can mutate and […]
Posted by contributor Andres Santamaria. The sanctions imposed by the West on Syria are proving to have an overwhelming affect on the people within this unsteady country, writes Jonathan Saul for Reuters. Sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States mainly target the assets and finances of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime but are […]
At the GBCHealth Conference in New York last week, business, civil society, government, and other key stakeholders gathered to discuss the role of business in global health. Topics discussed included HIV/AIDS thirty years into the epidemic, health programs in the workplace, and women’s health. The GBCHealth Conference is a major forum for global health experts, […]
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to sit down with Jim Oberg to discuss the trip he and 130 other foreign journalists made to North Korea to witness—or so they thought—the attempted launch into space of a small weather satellite. Oberg, a former space mission controller trained in aerospace engineering, went as a member […]
The countdown is on. In three days, Chicago will be hosting the 2012 NATO summit from May 20th to 21st. New figures will be traveling to Chicago, among them the newly elected French President François Hollande. Prior to the beginning of the Summit, this piece will outline one of the most important threats that NATO […]