The Forever-War President: Obama’s ‘Transformational’ War Powers Legacy
In May 2013, some 11 years into the War on Terror, President Obama took a break from reviewing target sets and kill lists to deliver a much-anticipated “drone speech” at the National Defense University...
View ArticleThe Problem with Senate Torture Report: We Ordered the Code Red
I thought we already knew that we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. But apparently Senate Democrats thought we needed to spend $40 million to compile a massive report to tell us this news, and also...
View ArticleSydney Siege: Coming Soon to a Starbucks Near You
After hours of speculation overnight about whether the gunman holding hostages at a downtown cafe in Sydney, Australia, might be an Islamic terrorist—despite his pretty clear gesture of forcing his...
View ArticleSwiftly Executing Terrorists Is More Humane than Torture
In the wake of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program—the so-called “torture report”—many have argued that what we did to...
View ArticleAnjem Choudary Is Right: People Should Know the Consequences
To helpfully explain the Charlie Hebdo attack to us, USA Today published a guest “opposing view” column from Anjem Choudary, a British radical Islamist preacher who is described as “a lecturer in...
View ArticlePresident Obama’s Odd Memorial Day Message
President Obama’s Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery contained an odd and disturbing message. The president proclaimed this year’s ceremony to be “especially meaningful” because “Today...
View ArticleThe Day We Forgot
Fourteen years after the greatest terrorist attack on the soil of the United States, one thing is clear: virtually everything we thought about America in the days after 9/11 was wrong. Reading through...
View ArticleRand Paul’s Foreign Policy Wouldn’t Leave Us Vulnerable
Sen. Rand Paul stood out with his steady, uncompromising appeal to remain committed to the foundation of our republic: the Constitution. No matter the threats from Islamic jihadists, we can’t abandon...
View ArticleWhat World War II Can Teach Us About Islamic Terror
On March 18, international counterterror authorities celebrated the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the ISIS-linked Belgium national heavily responsible for last year’s Islamic terror attacks in Paris....
View ArticleWe Can’t Beat Jihadists Unless We’re Real About Their Motivations
March 22: suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on the city’s metro. March 27: a suicide bombing at a crowded park in Lahore, Pakistan. The differences between these attacks are considerable, and a...
View ArticleI’ll Never Forget What I Saw At The Pentagon After 9/11
In summer 2005, I visited the Smithsonian’s American History museum in Washington DC with a couple of Marine friends. All of us were stationed in DC at the time. We were nursing wounds from our...
View ArticleHow 9/11 Turned Me Into A Soldier
I stood upon the back of a ferry as it coasted through choppy waters, enjoying the view of the two largest buildings in America on my way to the Statue of Liberty. It was my senior year of high school...
View ArticleIt’s Time To End Ideology-Based Foreign Policy
While trying to plug a leaking mine shaft in Colorado, Environmental Protection Agency Workers made a mistake that resulted in 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater flowing into to the San Juan River....
View ArticleISIS Is Retreating In Syria And Iraq, But It’s Nowhere Near Over
ISIS is losing more and more territory in Syria and Iraq, but what about its holdings elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia? As ISIS continues to be squeezed by Iraqi, Syrian, and...
View ArticlePolitical Islam Is Today’s Anti-American ‘Long March Through The Institutions’
The following is an excerpt of the Hoover Institution publication “The Challenge of Dawa: Political Islam as Ideology and Movement and How to Counter It,” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. You may read the full...
View ArticleIt’s Long Past Time To Debate Presidents’ Authority To Wage Limitless War
“When I voted in 2001 to authorize military force against the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said last week, “I had no idea I would be authorizing armed conflict...
View ArticleGet A Clue. Trump’s Afghanistan Policy Is Not An About-Face
The negative reactions to President Trump’s new policy on Afghanistan are mystifying. To be sure, many applaud the policy, especially the military, veterans of the war, and national security types who...
View ArticleTrump’s Afghanistan Plan Upends His Campaign Promises Against Perpetual War
“I share the American people’s frustration” with nearly two decades of “a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money, and most importantly, lives trying to rebuild countries in our own...
View Article16 Years Later, Why Are We So Uneasy About 9/11?
I didn’t plan to write anything for the anniversary of 9/11 this year, because I figure we’re at the point where we save the extended analysis for round-number anniversaries. It’s something I care...
View ArticleRed October Happened 100 Years Ago, But Soviet Ideology Lives On
This month marks the 100-year anniversary of Red October, an armed Bolshevik-led insurrection and catalyst for the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. During the ravages of the Russian Revolution, Leon...
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