The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged war on terror

Rep. Loebsack showed bin Laden photos, says Obama did right thing by not releasing

By | 05.12.11 | 6:17 pm | More from The Iowa Independent

This afternoon, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-Mount Vernon) became one of only a handful of elected officials to view photos of a dead known terrorist, Osama bin Laden, who was recently killed in a U.S. military raid in Pakistan.

“As a member of the More…

Palin goes to Colorado to honor troops with Christian military crusader

By | 04.26.11 | 6:06 pm | More from The Colorado Independent

Image by Matt MahurinThe Centennial Institute conservative think tank at Colorado Christian University is hosting a “Tribute to the Troops” Monday, where the featured speakers will be Sarah Palin and General William “Jerry” Boykin. Although both figures in the past have been associated with an aggressive Christian politics known as More…

Is DHS’s ‘If You See Something, Say Something’ campaign helpful or burdensome?

By | 02.16.11 | 4:36 pm

Image by Matt MahurinThe message “If you see something, say something,” will be plastered on television and posters throughout the Staples Center this weekend at the NBA All-Star game as part of a recent partnership announced Tuesday between the National Basketball Association and the Department of Homeland Security. Officials said the campaign partnership More…

Petraeus: ‘Double Digits’ of al-Qaeda Fighters in Afghanistan

By | 06.17.10 | 8:12 am

Something that couldn’t fit into my piece yesterday but bears mentioning: Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, told a Senate panel that al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan numbered in the “double digits.”

In a somewhat heated exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham More…

McChrystal on the Kandahar ‘Process’

By | 05.13.10 | 1:00 pm

The commanding general of NATO forces in Afghanistan repeatedly used the word “process” in a Pentagon press briefing to describe the gradual and ongoing movement of arriving forces into Kandahar, the next big contest of the Afghanistan war. The Taliban “certainly do not control Kandahar city,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal said. More…

‘America Is Not at War’

By | 05.03.10 | 1:01 pm

As Americans shift back to our habit of spending more than we make, a Marine in Ramadi, Iraq, offers a poignant reminder of just who’s making the sacrifices in the nation’s seven-year-old war on terror.

“America is not at war,” reads a handwritten note at a U.S. More…

John Yoo Wins Battle of ‘The Daily Show’

By | 01.12.10 | 11:43 am

It’s a testament to Jon Stewart’s extraordinary abilities to speak sensibly in an age of insanity that we expect him to skewer knaves like John Yoo, the former Office of Legal Counsel torture advocate, who appeared on “The Daily Show” last night. Stewart has a great command of the facts More…

So Much for Dick Cheney’s Meme

By | 01.03.10 | 11:31 am

Dick Cheney says something, Politico uncritically reports it, Obama administration officials wearily refute it. So goes the ritual. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that John Brennan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the former vice president is either “willfully mischaracterizing this president’s position” or is “ignorant of the facts” when More…

Do Graham, McCain and Lieberman Want Obama to Take Back Yemeni Detainees?

By | 12.29.09 | 5:41 pm

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) sent a letter to President Obama today asking him to halt the transfer of six Guantanamo detainees to Yemen. The request, they say, is in light of the danger they’ve apparently just now realized Yemen poses, because More…

Thompson: Not Enough Funding to Secure the Borders

By | 12.29.09 | 3:03 pm

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that there simply isn’t enough money available in the federal budget to buy more of the full-body imaging machines that could detect the types of plastic explosives smuggled in a pair More…