National Security

August 17, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

Seared memories

Featured image John Kerry sniffs that criticism by special operators and intelligence professionals of President Obama’s disclosure of sensitive national security information reminds him of the Swift Boat Vet attacks during the 2004 campaign. I’m happy to say that there is a resemblance. There are also differences, though. The dispute about Kerry’s Vietnam service was entirely about the past. The issue had nothing to do with policy or national security. It was »
August 10, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Andrew McCarthy for the defense

Featured image Andrew McCarthy is the former Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and his friends for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. After he secured convictions, he recounted what he had learned along the way in Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. When it comes to understanding the Islamist war against the United States, Andy is like Walt Whitman: He is the man, he suffer’d, he was »
August 9, 2012 — Scott Johnson

CRB: The new war against America

Featured image This morning we conclude our preview of the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here). We conclude with a look at the global alliance threatening America. It is a strange alliance between radical secular leftists and violent Islamists. According to Michael Ledeen in his CRB essay “The New War Against America,” this alliance is based on a common objective: the destruction of the United States and the »
June 12, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

The lawyerly assault on U.S. anti-terrorism policy moves on to Plan B

Featured image The Supreme Court apparently is exiting the terrorist detainee administration business. Yesterday, it declined to hear the appeals of seven Gitmo detainees on whose behalf habeas petitions were filed, and denied, by lower courts. In Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court held that detainees have the right to turn to the American judicial system for a “meaningful opportunity” to challenge their confinement. But a meaningful opportunity doesn’t necessarily translate into »
June 7, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

The White House feels bipartisan heat over leaks

Featured image Congressional intelligence committee leaders turned up the heat on the White House over national security leaks, as Diane Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, suggested today that she might join with Republicans who are demanding an investigation by a special counsel. Saxby Chambliss, vice chair of the Committee, has already called for a special counsel to probe how highly sensitive secrets were disclosed to news media. So has John »
June 7, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

The Obama sanction

Featured image The White House recently leaked the claim that President Obama personally chooses which suspected terrorists to attempt to kill with Predator missiles. Given the success of our Predator strikes, Obama inflicts a severe sanction on those whom he selects. Clint Eastwood has got nothing on him. The Obama sanction is stiffer than measures that have drawn severe criticism, such as detaining terrorists for long periods of time and interrogating them »
May 30, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff

Crony Capitalism and Defense Spending

Featured image Today, I visited one of my favorite post-retirement haunts, the American Enterprise Institute, to hear a speech by Ashton Carter, the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Carter spoke on a wide range of defense issues, but the very first substantive point he made was that, in the current budgetary environment (and quite apart from the prospect of sequestration), Congress should not be forcing pet projects and systems on the Department of »
June 2, 2010 — Scott Johnson

The Grand Jihad: A word from the author

Andrew McCarthy is the former Assistant United States Attorney who prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and his friends for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. After he secured convictions, he recounted what he had learned along the way in Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. When it comes to the subject of civilian trials for unlawful enemy combatants and of the Islamist war against the United States, McCarthy is like »