Detainees and Prisoners Yesterday (the 14th) the Obama administration announced a new policy to govern the holding of terror suspects. Here’s what Attorney General Eric Holder announced: “As we work towards developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with … Continue reading
Fault Line is Here! Fault Line, my first standalone thriller, launches today, so I thought it would be appropriate to include some thoughts from a recent interview on the book’s origins and its political milieu. The tour is taking me to Phoenix/Scottsdale, Los Angeles (Pasadena, Thousand Oaks, LA), San Diego, Sacramento, the San Francisco Bay … Continue reading
Still Winnable, Give or Take Five Years Today I read the always-insightful Andrew Bacevich’s review of David Kilcullen’s “The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One” (h/t Andrew Sullivan). Kilcullen is certainly an expert on the subject and the book sounds well worth reading. But one thing disturbed me. Actually, … Continue reading
Secrecy and Lies Since Wednesday, I’ve been following the story of how the United States has apparently threatened to stop sharing intelligence with Britain should a British court release details of the torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed by American guards at Guantanamo Bay prison. I tend to hold a relatively cynical view of human … Continue reading
Gaza, the Inauguration, Etc. Thanks for all the mail, everyone, and I miss you too. As I mentioned in my first post-election post, I’ve been trying to blog less so I can focus more on the next novel. The election was hugely distracting and now I’m trying to make up for lost time. Some of … Continue reading
Czar Kudzu Recently I’ve noticed a trend where the government, apparently dissatisfied with normal channels, insists on coming up with some special means for accomplishing what the normal channels were always intended to do. I first started ruminating on this when various pundits and politicians began calling for a bailout and restructuring of Detroit’s Big … Continue reading
The True Price of the “Dark Side” In the course of researching my next novel, I just binged on three excellent documentaries: Standard Operating Procedure, which examines the events at Abu Ghraib through photos, video, and interviews with many of the soldiers convicted of torturing prisoners there; Best Documentary Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, … Continue reading
The Myth of Equivalence There’s been a lot of lively conversation about the election on my website discussion board, some of which caused me to write the following post on the reflexive notion of political equivalence. I have as little patience with people who suggest there’s no big difference between the parties as I do … Continue reading
Rightwing Surrender Monkeys God, how much cognitive dissonance can the right bear? Last week, al Qaeda endorsed John McCain, and now… now… the Bush administration is waving a white flag of surrender and appeasing the Taliban! Say it ain’t so, George… Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Bush administration, with General Petraeus’s support, plans … Continue reading
Al Qaeda Endorses McCain Now that al Qaeda has endorsed John McCain, it’ll be fascinating to hear McCain and his allies explain why America’s #1 enemy has thrown its support to him. In case you don’t remember, back in May McCain argued that Hamas had endorsed Obama, took these “endorsements” at face value, and concluded … Continue reading